It is ironic but the local people up here take 9-11 more seriously then alot of NYC residents. Not a day goes by where I am not asked asbout 9-11 or WTC 93. The people are supportive of NYC even if they don't like my NY Yankees.
Yet I try and explain that Vermont has little or nothing to target. The people here are just spread out too much. Terrorism is sadly a PR game and there are almost no places where they can get a bang for their buck.
I do not think that we understand that the media coverage given to the terrorists themselves feeds this war. Of course we have to report 9-11 and 7-7 but can we do so without feeding the beast. There is a pathological narcicistic undertone that is almost as important as the religious aspects. Suicide bombings is a peverse realization of Andy Warhols fifteen minutes of celebrity.
The question is how can we balance the need for news without feeding the mental illnesses of the terrorists. Terrorism without big PR can not sustain itself. I am not a fan of controlled press so that is not an option.
The idea of the largely leftist press using restraint is not an option either.
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"Every institution finally perishes by an excess of its own first principle." --Lord Acton
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
You gotta love an enemy who exploits an opponent's own "first principles"... or should we say... "1st amendments?"
You'd think everything on earth would have some "limit"... but not in America.
The press even think that their sources are "off limits" (i.e. Valerie Plame).
-FJ
Hey beak, sorry I don't get a chance to drop by more.
There is taking 9/11 seriously, and there is taking 9/11 seriously. In the Chicago papers, there's a lot of hoopla over the new Calatrava skyscraper. I say "Go for it." But like with the new WTC in NYC (which has really become disappointing--the ol' "horse designed by committee) there are those who say "In this day and age, isn't it irresponsible to build these terrorist targets?"
I will never, ever, for the life of me understand the person that thinks in terms of "what will the terrorists think?"
And yet, "what will the terrorists think" is the guiding principle of the left. As I've said before, the left is worried that going to war in the Middle East will create terrorists among the people they don't want to keep an eye on here in America.
It's like worrying about not having enough money in your wallet to be worth robbing on the street.
I don't think anyone credible on the left believes terrorism started with the Bush presidency. There are plenty of liberals who have a very realistic and informed take on terrorism (you can find their writing in Slate and the New Republic, for example). Also, being against the Iraq adventure is NOT synonymous with being naive about terrorism.
Never forget that the overwhelming majority of Americans were FOR going into Afghanistan. Conservatives sometimes pretend this is not the case.
Where I differ from fellow liberals is that I stopped actively objecting to the Iraq War once it was underway. I still bring up that it wasn't the only way to go after terrorism, but only on message boards and personal discussions. I voted, and that was that. I get as irritated as any conservative when I read the useless objections and see the pat anti-Bush rhetoric now. It's lame, more than anything.
Now, it may be that popular liberal perception of terrorism is naive, but so is popular conservative perception. Simply being pro- or anti-Bush does not indicate any special level of wisdom.
Beak,
I have mixed feelings about "the media coverage given to the terrorists themselves feeds this war." The jihadists get the word out through their own media. However, I concede that they feed on Western media coverage of their 'glorious mission,' as some have referred to it.
What gets to me is the constant feeding of images (some sanitized so as not to show the horror) and little incisive discussion of the mission and ideology of these jihadomaniacs.
beak- you are right. the people up there kept asking you about it over pizza when i was there.
many people here (and i mean roughly 80-90% of the workers here), were there and had firsthand experience. the tri-state area had extremely heavy media reports. VTers, especially where you are as i have seen and heard from Scooter, don't have that. they are curious because the closest thing to being there is someone who actually was there and they want the info as you have it from being there.
i know i will never forget that day, and even the smell brought on in the following few days (just to let everyone know, i live about 45 min away from Manhattan).
Norm Welcome to the blog and it is good of you to drop in. Yes there are patriotic liberals like Norm and B .
The problem is that we have alllowed people to call themselves liberals but they are not. The entire progressive caucus is clearly not liberal.
The question is as always where do we go from here. Last I checked Mumia Abu Jammal was still a cop killer and the issue is Iraq not capitalism or Israel.
At some point the liberals have to regain contact with rural folks. Gas taxes, gun control and attacking religious Christians is popular on campuses and Hollywood but poison everywhere else.
9-11 has a symbolism that reaches beyond NYC. People ask daily at work or a resturant. I guess in NYC my story is common as there were thousands of eyes and stories.
I always remind everyone of WTC 93 and I am a survivor of that blast. 9-11 was not the begining but it is the begining of the end for Osama and some of his appologists.
The extreeme left has proven again that it is moraly bankrupt and pathologicaly bigoted and deceptive.
We made a mistake after the Cold War. People like Chomsky , Hayden and John Kerry were given a free pass for complicity . This time we shoulde learn from our mistakes and
place the seditious statements of the far left and their cohorts around their necks like a scartlet I for idiot.
9/11 was my wake-up call. How was I so blind for so long?
Beak,
Yes, "I" for Idiot.
The way to fight Islamic hate speech is with good speech that exposes the Islamic threat and those who rationalize their behavior. We are doing this and it will take time to have effect. It took 30 years to get the country completely mobilized against communism from its founding in 1917 to Churchill’s “Iron Curtin” speech in 1947. With the blogs, AM talk radio, and alternative TV networks we should be able to do this far faster.
The Europeans are starting to wake up also in the aftermath of the Van Gogh killing.
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