More on remembering 9/11

Kevin Hayden at the american street: Thinking the Nine-Eleven Clueless Blues shows he is a serious man:

Mr. Bush, we haven’t forgotten. Almost every day, we are reminded of it. When I hear ‘Bin Laden’, I think of it. Or Al Qaida. Or terrorist, or Pakistan, or Afghanistan, or Saudi Arabia. Words like ‘homeland’ and ‘alert’ and ‘casualty’ and ‘casket’ make me remember. ‘Troops’ and ‘airports’ and ‘WMDs’ make it seem as fresh as yesterday. But my thoughts don’t jump from there to ‘faith, family and steady leadership.’

Instead, I wonder why it happened, why the intel failed, how a country that held off the Soviets and spent billions on Star Wars couldn’t stop a plane from hitting the Pentagon. I wonder why our ports are not fully protected yet; it’s been two and a half years. I wonder why no one’s been held accountable for anything. I wonder why the Rudman-Hart Homeland Security report has not been implemented; the part about the need for science and math teachers has been completely ignored. I wonder about troops lacking bulletproof vests. I wonder about leaders who set records for vacations claiming their leadership is steady. I wonder why footage of the handling of the dead at 9-11 is in your campaign ads while your Pentagon has ordered that no soldiers’ caskets can be photographed at all.

I wonder why the plots of domestic terrorists are barely being covered by our press. I wonder how your aide can say we need to remember and assume we forgot.

What he said.

A time for serious men

According to this, “Two-thirds of Americans think about 9/11 less than once a day, marking a sharp decline in preoccupation with the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to a new poll.”

Of course, that means that one third of us still do.

It’s tough for me not to– I have a window in my apartment that looks to lower Manhattan. I look at the skyline, I see the hole. And I may always see it.

In a way, I hope that I do keep thinking about it. It should be a reminder of the stakes we all play for now– the stakes we were always playing for, but forgot about.

“This is a country made up of people with hard jobs that they’re terrified of losing. The roots of freedom are of little or no interest to them at the moment. We are a nation afraid to go out at night. We’re a society that has assigned low priority to education and has looked the other way while our public schools have been decimated. We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious men to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, friend, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: Making you afraid of it and telling you who’s to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections. You gather a group of middle-aged, middle-class, middle- income voters who remember with longing an easier time, and you talk to them about family and American values and personal character… This is a time for serious men, Bob, and your fifteen minutes are up. My name’s Andrew Shepherd, and I am the President.”

–Aaron Sorkin, The American President

Persecution, Complex

Lydia Nickerson, commenting on Electrolite: Our vigilant representatives, gives the best explanation of why some folks mean when they say they feel persecuted:

They mean that living in the secular world is a persecution. Every time a co-workeer swears, they are being persecuted by having to listen to such language. Every time the corporate picnic starts without grace being said over the food is a persecution. If the company Christmas party serves alcohol, then they cannot attend, and so are persecuted twice.

Television persecutes them. It’s not the watching of it that constitutes the persecution, but the fact that television broadcasts things of which they disapprove. They are persecuted in the schools because there is no prayer and because science is taught while the Bible (their particular interpretation) is not taught. They are constantly oppressed everywhere by our cultural belief that it is possible to be a good person without ascribing to their particular dogma regarding sin and salvation. Comparative religion courses are the devil’s own tool.

Asked the right questions, and a member of the RPCNA will tell you that what is necessary is a theocracy. My mother, for instance, will not vote for anyone who is not a Christian as she defines it…

Ok, you’re probably rolling your eyes and wondering what the hell is going on with these people. I’m like so there with you. But there is one more piece of this that I think strongly affects why their world view is so askew from mine. They will argue (with an absolutely straight faith, and with perfect belief) that the type of persecution that Christians face now is worse than what the early Christians hiding in the catacombs faced, because it is more subtle and more pervasive…

It’s easy to trash this type of belief system, I do it myself as a hobby. However, I think that is also important to understand it. This is what you’re up against. You’re not arguing about the same thing they are arguing about. Maybe there is no way to discuss this rationally with a Fundie — gods know I haven’t found one, yet. I’ve been at it for 23 years, on and off, ever since I left the faith — rather more dramatically than I intended to — at the age if 18. This is what you’re up against, though. Your simple existence constitutes persecution. [emphasis mine.]

In other words, no compromise. If you don’t agree with me, you’re out to get me.

Can I be scared yet?

Showing Bench Strength

Pandagon has some ideas about Government in Waiting, picking your cabinet candidates ahead of time.

Some folks claim this is illegal due to promising jobs in exchange for votes, although not for jobs that require Senate confirmation. My way to get around it is simple: list two people for every position. After all, they can’t both get the job, and you have two people double teaming the current crew doing the job. And lord knows there will be places for them in any new administration– do you know how many jobs are going to have to be filled?