I should be writing term papers but this is on my mind...
On September 11, 2001 nineteen men hijacked three planes two of which hit the world trade center buildings, one crash-landed in Pennsylvania, and one crashed into the Pentagon. Thousands were killed. It was (as far as I know) the largest fatality rate in any modern terrorist act and set the stage for the situation the US is in today -- not so much the financial part but the two wars part.
Khalid Almihdhar, Majed Moqed, Nawaf Alhazmi, Salem Alhazmi, Hani Hanjour (AA flight #77); Satam M.A. Al Suqami, Waleed M. Alshehri, Wail M. Alshehri, Mohammed Atta, Abdulaziz Alomari (AA flight #11); and Marwan Al-Shehhi, Ahmed Alghamdi, Hamza Alghamdi, Mohand Alshehri (AA flight #175); and Saeed Alghamdi, Ahmed Ibrahim A. Al Haznawi, Ahmed Alnami, and Ziad Samir Jarrah (UA flight #93) participated in the attacks that occurred on US soil over seven years ago.
These are 19 men. They are murderers by the standards of some and martyrs by the standards of others.
Professor Ward Churchill of the University of Colorado made a statement at one point referring to the people who worked in the World Trade Center buildings at the time of the attack as equivalent to Adolf Eichmann who was a train engineer who delivered Jews to concentration camps in NAZI Germany and refused to admit that he had done anything wrong -- he turned a blind eye from the evils of his labor.
From every angle the 9/11 attacks have been analyzed: from Muslim fanatics, from Christian fanatics, from liberal scholars, conservative scholars, and everyone within and between those. We wage two wars based on the idea that we have to keep the world safe from more men like those. We are in billion dollars of debt because of those wars. The political climate of our nation has been deeply divided because of those wars. These things are just the beginning of how America has suffered from the terrorist attacks.
As as nation we have been angry, vengeful, sad, and scared.
Here's what's been on my mind: Those 19 men who terrorized our nation used to be somebody's boys. They used to run and play with their brothers and sisters. They used to have religious ceremonies and holidays with their families. Their mothers used to rock them to sleep at night when they were scared. Their grandmothers and great-grandmothers were so excited to live to see the day they were born. They rejoiced at their high school graduations and their college graduations. Many of them may even have had kids of their own. They were loved.
There are direct, intermediary, and precipitating causes for most things that happen in this world. A direct cause for these men bombing the WTCs was more than likely religious fanaticism. I want to remind us that this can happen to Christian Americans too -- think abortion clinics and Oklahoma City. This is inexcusable. An intermediary cause might be a book they read or a group of people they associated with while in high school or college. A precipitating cause may have been poverty, oppression, Arab-Israeli conflict, or some other kind of violence.
The fact is, they were not born this way. This side of them was created. If the average US citizen understood this, they might think twice about the fact that we're killing innocent people daily in Afghanistan. Maybe it is good that we rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein but it is certainly a cluster-fuck now.
The two wars that we are fighting might have been started under the guise of national security but I think we can all admit that lying below that was a sense of vengeance. We believed Bush that Iraq was involved in 9/11 because we were irate. We wanted blood. And whose blood did we get? Mostly civilians. Friends I knew since childhood have been changed forever because of those wars. They used to be great guys.
When we are killing kids, women, old folks, and innocent men, what is it that we're proving?
I guess my point is this: what if, instead of hoping for success in either of these wars we were to admit that the problem lies somewhere within the Western construct of society. If we were to admit that our way of conducting civilization is not 100% right we might still have to fight these two wars in order to save people from tyranny, but we might also be able to bring down the tyranny that is taking over our society and leading use to agree that killing children is necessary.
Killing children is what "the enemy" does. We're better than that.
I don't really have answers, just questions for this one
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
A Letter to the President Elect
Mr. Obama,
I'm not going to type 'President Eelect Obama' because that's too much typing and it really doesn't have a good ring to it. Well, I guess I ended up typing it anyway. I guess I've started our relationship with a lie.
I'll be honest. I didn't vote for you. But I didn't vote for anyone so don't feel bad.
There are conflicting emotions going on with me right now. First, I am excited that a black man has been elected president. I am also excited that this fucking election is finally over. I am also excited that you were elected and not John McCain. On the other hand, I'm afraid that because of you as President, young black men all over the nation will look to you as their role model: the type of black guy who makes himself as white as possible in order to appear as a normal white guy, in order to be acceptable. I look at a black kid on the street and feel sad for him that even in today's world white people still look at him and immediately think that he is a criminal; they're afraid -- as irrational as it may be -- that he poses a threat to their beautiful white daughter. Then, I look at the black guys in my college courses and feel sad for them that they have to be extra smart, act slightly effeminate, and suppress the truth that they know about racism in America in order to fit into the white world. They can't afford to stand out in their classrooms and admit that this nation isn't built for them to succeed.
I say that because I am skeptical about your sincerity about change. You may have made that fancy speech about racism in response to the Rev. Wright situation and "opened up the race conversation" in the US, but that only means that you successfully evaded a huge political liability and distracted the American citizens...lets face it, they aren't that smart...it was an easy task.
I'm not convinced that you are an agent of real change.
With everything in me I hope (i use that word reluctantly) that you have just been "playing it safe" to win this election and that as soon as you take office in January you will begin a drastic restructuring of American culture. I know that isn't going to really happen but at least I can hope for change.
The fact is, you will continue supporting wall street. You will follow through with your fucked up plan of supporting the "healthcare" industry by forcing employers and employees to bear the burden of paying jacked up prices for doctors and insurance companies instead of telling those expensive assholes, "NO! You cannot charge that much! It's just not right make people PAY TO LIVE!!" You will mutter a few words next time Exxon reports record profits and leave it at that, then blame Congress for not doing their oversight responsibilities if anything illegal turns up. You might make it easier on college students to prepare for helping our world (like those preparing to be teachers), but it's still going to be hard for us because you won't fix the industries that drive up tuition costs year after year after year... why? because you're such a sucker for liberal economics.
I read about a boy in Kenya who is recovering after being attacked by an American funded group in the Congo. I have a hard time believing you will put an end to that funding and do something about the suffering that is happening in nations that we like to ignore. No...instead, you will divert the attention, as all other politicians do, to something that the American people can identify with - "let's see, what's more appealing to the American people, Muslims killing 300,000 or so blacks, or blacks killing 5 MILLION or so blacks?" I'll give you your answer. BOTH ARE FUCKED UP!! But, at least we can stop funding those who kill people. Well, blacks kill blacks all the time, in NYC, in New Orleans, in Chicago...that's old news. Oh, plus we have huge economic ties to the DRC region because some of our country's corporations rape their natural resources without regard for life...that's important for the world economy, right?
My basic point is this. I'm glad you won, rather than McCain, but FUCK YOU!! You might bring change to America as we know it, but we both know that America as we know it is wrong. The only difference between us is that I'm willing to admit what the problem is. I don't need hope for change because I can admit what the real problem is and try to do something about it. You, on the other hand, are so wrapped up in the ideology of racist America that you must submit to the idea that humans can be valued by a dollar amount.
I feel bad for you, and at the same time I'm happy that a black man will finally have to face the problems that white, affluent American presidents have ignored for centuries. I have no doubt that it will eat at you that you are supporting a system that hurts people of every color. Not only will you be supporting it, but you will have to support it for at least four years at the cost of thousands, if not millions of lives.
With that said, I congratulate you on your victory, I wish you the best of luck, and I pray to whatever fucked up god may be out there that I'm wrong about everything above.
-Rob Huffman
I'm not going to type 'President Eelect Obama' because that's too much typing and it really doesn't have a good ring to it. Well, I guess I ended up typing it anyway. I guess I've started our relationship with a lie.
I'll be honest. I didn't vote for you. But I didn't vote for anyone so don't feel bad.
There are conflicting emotions going on with me right now. First, I am excited that a black man has been elected president. I am also excited that this fucking election is finally over. I am also excited that you were elected and not John McCain. On the other hand, I'm afraid that because of you as President, young black men all over the nation will look to you as their role model: the type of black guy who makes himself as white as possible in order to appear as a normal white guy, in order to be acceptable. I look at a black kid on the street and feel sad for him that even in today's world white people still look at him and immediately think that he is a criminal; they're afraid -- as irrational as it may be -- that he poses a threat to their beautiful white daughter. Then, I look at the black guys in my college courses and feel sad for them that they have to be extra smart, act slightly effeminate, and suppress the truth that they know about racism in America in order to fit into the white world. They can't afford to stand out in their classrooms and admit that this nation isn't built for them to succeed.
I say that because I am skeptical about your sincerity about change. You may have made that fancy speech about racism in response to the Rev. Wright situation and "opened up the race conversation" in the US, but that only means that you successfully evaded a huge political liability and distracted the American citizens...lets face it, they aren't that smart...it was an easy task.
I'm not convinced that you are an agent of real change.
With everything in me I hope (i use that word reluctantly) that you have just been "playing it safe" to win this election and that as soon as you take office in January you will begin a drastic restructuring of American culture. I know that isn't going to really happen but at least I can hope for change.
The fact is, you will continue supporting wall street. You will follow through with your fucked up plan of supporting the "healthcare" industry by forcing employers and employees to bear the burden of paying jacked up prices for doctors and insurance companies instead of telling those expensive assholes, "NO! You cannot charge that much! It's just not right make people PAY TO LIVE!!" You will mutter a few words next time Exxon reports record profits and leave it at that, then blame Congress for not doing their oversight responsibilities if anything illegal turns up. You might make it easier on college students to prepare for helping our world (like those preparing to be teachers), but it's still going to be hard for us because you won't fix the industries that drive up tuition costs year after year after year... why? because you're such a sucker for liberal economics.
I read about a boy in Kenya who is recovering after being attacked by an American funded group in the Congo. I have a hard time believing you will put an end to that funding and do something about the suffering that is happening in nations that we like to ignore. No...instead, you will divert the attention, as all other politicians do, to something that the American people can identify with - "let's see, what's more appealing to the American people, Muslims killing 300,000 or so blacks, or blacks killing 5 MILLION or so blacks?" I'll give you your answer. BOTH ARE FUCKED UP!! But, at least we can stop funding those who kill people. Well, blacks kill blacks all the time, in NYC, in New Orleans, in Chicago...that's old news. Oh, plus we have huge economic ties to the DRC region because some of our country's corporations rape their natural resources without regard for life...that's important for the world economy, right?
My basic point is this. I'm glad you won, rather than McCain, but FUCK YOU!! You might bring change to America as we know it, but we both know that America as we know it is wrong. The only difference between us is that I'm willing to admit what the problem is. I don't need hope for change because I can admit what the real problem is and try to do something about it. You, on the other hand, are so wrapped up in the ideology of racist America that you must submit to the idea that humans can be valued by a dollar amount.
I feel bad for you, and at the same time I'm happy that a black man will finally have to face the problems that white, affluent American presidents have ignored for centuries. I have no doubt that it will eat at you that you are supporting a system that hurts people of every color. Not only will you be supporting it, but you will have to support it for at least four years at the cost of thousands, if not millions of lives.
With that said, I congratulate you on your victory, I wish you the best of luck, and I pray to whatever fucked up god may be out there that I'm wrong about everything above.
-Rob Huffman
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