It Will Take More
It's September eleventh 2006. It's a day like any other day, lately.
For most of us it's just an ordinary day. There have been greater disasters, with bigger body counts, and the world spins on. In some cases the names of the dead are forgotten, five years after the event.
There is nothing that my two cents' worth will buy. Nothing of greater insight or meaning--if it has any. At best I'm just another commentator.
But there is something that I have came to understand in the wake of the World Trade Center attacks. Something that all Americans of all political stripes should be able to take to their hearts. And something the wider world needs to understand as well: It will take more.
At least it should take more.
What will take is the willing acession of the people of the nation to their own subjugation, whether to a foreign yoke, or a foreign ideology.
The ideology currently in place in the White House, to me, seems foreign to America.
Today is "patriot day". Today I invite American patriots reading this to search themselves, ask themselves: Am I happy with what is being perpetrated in my name?
And in the memory of the 3000 dead, and the 3000 soldiers, and the 70,000 other victims whose deaths came from this single act of terror; in the name of the tortured, the inexplicably detained, and the secretly killed, write to your representatives and tell them how you feel.
I challenge both supporters and opponents of the current regime and policies to stand up and open your mouths. Blog on it, speak on it--but most importantly write to those senators and congressmen--show the moral courage of those convictions.
If you support the above policies, give 'em an attaboy. Tell them "I am happy that people are being tortured and killed in the name of my "safety" and I accept full repsonsibility for supporting those activities."
If not, tell them to stop.
In a government "by the people, of the people, for the people" you support these things in your silence.
Tomorrow: the Day the World Changed.
posted by Metro @ 4:32 pm
9 Comments:
I would have you read each line, with purpose of thought. At the National Cathedral in Washington DC, a military honor guard ended the memorial service to this hymm. It's meaning was not lost on me. Perhaps you will find America's War against Radical Islam in these words. From the moment off the attacks on 9/11, there could, and can be no retreat, no surrender. READ with purpose, READ to understand that, which this administation cannot invoke.
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.
I have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps;
His day is marching on.
I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel:
"As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on."
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment-seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me:
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
And your point is?
Is it irony? That the hymn once used in praise of liberating slaves is now invoked at a time when liberation seems to be the exact opposite of what is happening?
Is it that you're trying to point out that your imaginary friend is better than Osama's? Or Olmert's? Or the Dalai Lama's? Big deal.
The Flying Spaghetti Monster touches us all with his noodly appendage.
What "retreat" were you talking about? What surrender? Are you seriously suggesting that someone said the US should abandon New York to the terrorists? Probably Hilary Clinton--she invented lung cancer, didn't you know?
Somewhere out there, someone is reading those words in Iraq, aloud, and saying to a group of young, disaffected Muslims: "You see? This is why we must fight the Infidel Crusader Dogs! There must be no surrender, no retreat!"
Nice hymn, very stirring and poetic. But like most such items, semantic content is null.
Meantime this administration has all but made evangelical christianity the state religion of the USA.
If there exists a philosophical reason for the plethora of death in Iraq, it's God.
To quote Dave Allen: Good night, and may your god go with you!
I love it that you're mad metro. Typical of a little boy who can't get the older ones to play with him.
They look at you on the playground and the more angry you get, the clearer it becomes to them that you are immature - incapapble of running with the big dogs and having an understanding of what's at stake.
Are we happy as you say:
"I am happy that people are being tortured and killed in the name of my "safety" and I accept full repsonsibility for supporting those activities."
You're damn right! Sorry, force me to choose between my family and some raghead out in the desert plotting ways to kill me and gee moron - that's a tough one. It's called RESOLVE. Look it up some time.
SO I ask you what you have asked of us...What the hell is your point?
You're right by the way...your two cents never buy much.
The fact that you're an atheist is even more telling. Thank God you live in Canada.
Kevin, my friend, don't waste your time reading this guy...trust me.
I kill time pestering him when I'm burning cd's.
As you say, Kevin: Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster I live in Canada. What does my being an atheist tell you? And why do you necessarily assume I am one?
Popped over to your blog, by the way, and while we disagree on much--not to say virtually everything, I liked your post for today. And you at least have the guts to leave an identity.
As for my little friend anonymouse, you're getting tiring, buddy. You keep saying I'm not worth reading, yet my two cents seem to get to you you enough to comment when you do show up. And then I have to waste time pointing out your numerous little ignorances.
Unfortunately, I feel obligated to answer my commentors, mostly, no matter how kindergartenish the comment may be.
Tonight your first two sentences were the usual insulting drivel and bored me (non sequitur insults as usual, right?) so I skipped them and read the rest.
You have it wrong, my friend: Resolve would have meant sticking to the principles of democracy, freedom, and justice that have been so badly served under the current administration.
But I'm more curious about your moral choice here. Some good Christians would regard the overt support of torture as, well, less than Christian.
You see, for one thing, the choice isn't "torture vs. death". Time and again torture has been proven less than valuable. And endorsing it undermines the moral authority of the US and the current administration.
The choices are "torture and lose friends and influence terrorism" and "arrest, detain and reduce the threat by getting useful information by conventional, legitimate, interrogation under some legitimate authority".
But you seem a small and angry man, not unlike ***, who can't stand the idea of someone dislikng you without suffering for it.
Tell me--were you a popular kid on the playground? Or did you spend time beating up on your little brother and setting fire to model airplanes?
Somehow, I know it's the latter.
Isn't it also telling that the name of God is being invoked to justify the actions of the people doing these awful things, including the "raghead out in the desert".
It is as though doing that will keep the foul stench of hypocrisy from clinging to them.
GWB has used WMD (Words Meant to Deceive)to great effect to keep the US populace in constant fear so he can justify taking away their liberty and freedom.
Strange that they seem to be grateful.
IH
IH
There is no iront in its invocation. Liberating our country and the World of terrorism, is no less profound than the liberation of slavery.
As to whether my imainary friend is BETTER than all others, I would have you read (to understand)
"He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment-seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on." .... for me I have cast my lot with my country, her ideals, her justice, her belief in freedom and democracy. Are my "friends" BETTER than Osama's. Yes they are.
There can be no retreat in the face of this danger. The EU can placate, the UN can stumble and bumble, the moderate Muslims can ignore (to the jeopardy of the Islamic Religeons dignity,) but this Nation does not have the luxury of shrinking from her responsibalities, as the leader of the free world.
If their are young "disaffected" Muslims reading these words, than I would have them understand that the Religeon they love, is not the Religeon they are serving with the support of terrorism. Their lot should likewise be cast, that the worship of their religeon be protected. If indeed they do take up arms against Freedom, they should know that America is no better friend to them, but no worse enemy also. It is for them as individuals to decide their path, and likewise their future.
As far as God is invoked, then I would say he/she/it is dis-interested at best in whom kills whom. It is written in all Religeon that killing is wrong. Some Religions do have protocols within their tenents for killing. Killing on Religeous grounds in which Islamic fundementalism is based, is the most insideous killing of all. It combines the passion of Religeous belief, with the destruction of the Human frame.
I for one, have never been able to scientifically disprove the existance of God. Until that time arrives I am not as comfortable as some to rule out an afterlife and my potencial judgement.
I was hoping that you would ponder the hymm, and why it was deliberatly chosen to end the Memorial Service of 9/11. Again, it meaning was not lost on me.
You confuse the possible with the impossible, Emory.
Slavery was a condition that the United States Government had the authority and power, and eventually the mandate, to stop. Terrorism is violent protest against exactly such authority.
It is, I think, possible to weaken terrorist causes and groups through a judicious combination of diplomacy, cause mitigation, and targetted military action. It is not possible to contain terrorism if you're going to invade countries that have nothing to do with it and just piss people off.
Quoting hymns doesn't help me understand how your god is any better than any other. Does he have better poets, perhaps?
"No retreat"--true. Having comitted to lifting Afghanistan out of the dark age the Taliban wished to hold it in, the NATO forces owe it to the people whose (miserable) stability they took away to fulfill the mission of creating a stable Afghanistan with something vaguely democratic for goverment--or, unfortunately die trying.
Iraq wasn't anything to do with the war on terror until *** tried to make it so--he has since admitted the lie. And the sad shame of it all is that 3000 American soldiers have died for that lie, to say nothing of the Iraqi dead.
An approach to terrorism that sees the whole ball of wax as a religious or ideological conflict will never succeed at anything save encouraging more terrorism--especially if it wears the clothes of terror such as torture and kidnapping.
As for "leader of the free world"--I suspect many people are starting to look toward say, Britain, which has approached terror as what it is: a crime, not a "war" to justify undermining a constitution or to violate her citizens' freedoms out of sheer desire for power. Not that Tony Blair hasn't contributed to a climate of fear at home too, but he has checks on him that he can't just "executive order" away, which offers some small hope for sanity.
I feel much the same as you with regard to the presence or not-so of a god. But faith demands belief without proof--just like GWB. And I am not willing to pick any of the plethora of deities offered to me under the guise of "god" and worship him/her/it on those grounds.
As to why the memorial service was ended with that particular hymn--it's a nice rousing tune to send everyone off with. It speaks of a conviction that all "will be as God intends" and gives comfort to the bereaved.
Do you impart it any more meaning than that?
By the way--I thought you felt liberalism was the hope of the nation. Your blog always seems to veer pretty Bush-ward, though. Your comments, too. What's up with that?
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