While my respective F-lists are not quite as full with contrarians on this issue as yours, probably understandable what with the different idealogical backgrounds they probably have, I've been seeing a few of the same reactions. And honestly, I'll take my victories where I can take them, small as they may be at this point. And also, I'm pretty sure the goody-two-shoes can rest assured that this neither change my previous critique against how the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have been executed, nor makes me think the situation in either case will change, and that the same goes for most of the former and current soldiers, officers, intelligence people and policy makers on my F-lists. Nuances, guys, seriously. We're not morons, just invested in different things than you.
There's a chap a lot of people are retweeting at the moment saying "Remember on Sept 12, 2001 when you saw people in some places abroad celebrating death? Exactly.Don't be like that." Which is bizarre because it's really not comparing like with like. One is the successful destruction after a decade of a man who killed thousands of people, many of them innocent, and whose existence was a beacon of hatred to people who might otherwise have found less violent ways to express their grievances and the other was people from distant countries expressing joy at the puncturing of what they had thought as an invulnerable nation without considering whether the people who had died had contributed to the situation.
NUANCES. THE IRREDUCABLE COMPLEXITY OF HUMAN INTERACTION AND POLITICS.
I'm glad you got your champagne. I have peanut butter and a toothache. :(
Actually, I've gotten that a lot here too, but not yet in connection to last night's events. Those people who died on 9/11? Pretty much all civilians. From 90 countries, confessing to all major religions. There where fifty five soldiers killed in the pentagon attack, and a couple of hundred of firemen, policemen FBI agents and EMTs killed in the rescue operations afterwards, but the absolute majority where civilians. Most of them where workers, blue and white collar alike, and presumably their political leanings where as wide spread as the population at large. That was not an attack on America or a fucking symbolic action, that was mass murder. Remembering that makes you look a lot less like a useful idiot, just saying. And cheering their deaths and the death of their (and many other's) murderer? Not the same. If you have a problem with the distinction you need your humanity card revoked.
Externalised expression is very much frowned upon, I guess. (& I would say that since the major action took place in NYC there's a pretty good chance they were *more* liberal than other parts of the country).
Today really is turning out to be quite frustrating.
No kidding. Don't know if you read the comments too but I was just called uncivilized on FB, because apparently it's tacky to celebrate someone's death. Time to come down from your ivory tower, much?
Someone on my flist has just used the remarkably apposite Mark Twain quote about never wishing death on a man, but not being especially hurt to read about them in the obituaries, either. As someone who frequently and fervently wishes death on people I'd probably go a little further and say "eh, I don't give a fuck", demonstrating my MASSIVE LACK OF EMPATHY and so on, but I will say there are plenty of people who aren't mass murderers who I wouldn't be sorry to see die, either.
<3 I did notice the comments. A lot of sanctimonious posturing! Amazingly it gets no less annoying when it's in Swedish.
The champagne was tasty, though. ;)
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NUANCES. THE IRREDUCABLE COMPLEXITY OF HUMAN INTERACTION AND POLITICS.
I'm glad you got your champagne. I have peanut butter and a toothache. :(
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Actually, I've gotten that a lot here too, but not yet in connection to last night's events. Those people who died on 9/11? Pretty much all civilians. From 90 countries, confessing to all major religions. There where fifty five soldiers killed in the pentagon attack, and a couple of hundred of firemen, policemen FBI agents and EMTs killed in the rescue operations afterwards, but the absolute majority where civilians. Most of them where workers, blue and white collar alike, and presumably their political leanings where as wide spread as the population at large. That was not an attack on America or a fucking symbolic action, that was mass murder. Remembering that makes you look a lot less like a useful idiot, just saying. And cheering their deaths and the death of their (and many other's) murderer? Not the same. If you have a problem with the distinction you need your humanity card revoked.
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Today really is turning out to be quite frustrating.
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<3 I did notice the comments. A lot of sanctimonious posturing! Amazingly it gets no less annoying when it's in Swedish.
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