Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Let's Commemorate 9/11 By Putting The Flag Away

I posted this on the AOL boards earlier, but I don't have much confidence that it'll stay up long there. They're not big fans of dissenting opinions at AOL.

This is my opinion, take it for what it's worth:

I think almost everyone agrees that 9/11 was a horrific national tragedy. That said though, I hate all the jingoistic flag waving that gone on since. And particularly in light of our illegal invasion of Iraq to avenge their non-existant role in 9/11, I'm thinking this day would be much better spent in discussions about peace than in more muscle-flexing.

We've got the largest and most well-equipped army in the world and we can't control a bunch of insurgents fighting for their homeland against our occupying forces. This does not seem like an appropriate time to celebrate our might or our victimization.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could stop tying yellow ribbons, stop hanging flags on our cars, stop driving with our lights on (unless it's raining or dark) and actually work on the problems that cause the rest of the world to resent us enough to blow up our airliners? What if we stop propping up despots and dictators around the world? What if we let other countries have the self-determination we demand for ourselves?

Wouldn't that be a nice way to commemorate 9/11?

Ev

6 comments:

Kwach said...

It would surely beat the hell out of yet another TV Documentary.

Anonymous said...

I'm almost in complete agreement with you both on this. And, that is coming a long way huh ? lol Funny I was thinking a lot the same and, choose to see and, reflect on those dead as victims more so than heros used politically today to rally a wrong war / wrong enemy. I wonder if we are about to forgo learning from the mistake to prop up China and North Korea ? :Diane

Suzanne Reisman said...

Today I woke up. I wanted to watch the weather report, so I turned on the local all news channel to see what the deal was. Oh, no news on because we have to watch yet another reading of names at the WTC site while politicos stand around looking sad? Fuck. It's been six years. I'm not saying that the families' grief should be any less, but I think we need to stop with the bullshit ceremonies for a few years at this point.

Kwach said...

Spoken like a proud New Yorker, Suzanne ... and rightly so.

I can't help thinking we'd all be better off if those workers at the WTC site had shoved that bullhorn up Bush's ass right off the bat.

XUP said...

Oh boy, I love subversive Americans. Up here in Canada we're afraid to even mention 9/11 to anyone who might be American because we might accidently say "stop wallowing already" and "so, why exactly is it taking a superpower like the US so damn long to clean house in this teenie mudflap area of the world?" or "you have a list as long as my street of US intelligence and security services and the most sophisticated techology known to man, so why can't you find one guy hiding out in the desert?" Okay -- he's cleverly disguised himself by colouring his beard black, but still... AND, if you really want to save the world from terrorism why are you only interested in the oil rich terrorist areas? What about all the terrorism going on in the rest of the world that everyone on this side of the world is ignoring? ok, i'll shut up now

Ev said...

Well, no. It's not time to shut up yet. It's our national embarrassment. It's like walking around with your fly open...it's not like no one is noticing, they just can't figure out how to talk about it in a way that won't offend you.

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