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Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] facism gaining ground in US
From: |
Pierce T . Wetter III |
Subject: |
Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] facism gaining ground in US |
Date: |
Mon, 19 Jul 2004 15:52:13 -0700 |
On Jul 19, 2004, at 3:32 PM, John Seifarth wrote:
At 10:48 -0700 19/7/04, Pierce T.Wetter III wrote:
A month later, 3,000 people are dead, our stock market is in a
shambles, and wherever you go, you see pissed off Americans waving
flags.
That was the moment that the US was closest to facism. We're a
little calmer now, but at the same time, when I think about 9/11 I
get pissed off all over again. One thing most Europeans don't realize
so much is that Bush took a very measured response given the feeling
in the country at the time. We would have been perfectly accepting if
he'd nuked someone.
And this is precisely what has always scared the shit out of me. I
grew up in the 60s in suburban America near Philadelphia, with "Duck
and Cover", regular air raid drills at my elementary school where we
hid under the desks and waited to hear radio say that "This has been a
test of the Emergency Broadcast System...". I saw the movie Fail-safe
and the high-pitched squeal of the phones melting in Moscow and New
York are still strong in my mind.
In 1970, my family moved to Belgium. The Soviets were deploying SS-20
intermediate range missiles in Eastern Europe, so the US located some
Pershing II missiles in southern Belgium to maintain the balance of
terror. I always had the feeling that the average US citizen, feeling
safe back in America, would prefer Europe reduced to radioactive ashes
rather than seeing the USSR gain a strategic advantage.
The Cold War is kind of too broad a topic for me to refute this
viewpoint in an email.
Here's a good book on the Cold War.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0805034544/
qid=1090276877/sr=8-5/ref=pd_ka_5/104-4706452-2725516?
v=glance&s=books&n=507846
When I read Pierce say that "We would have been perfectly accepting if
he'd nuked someone", and not perceive the enormity of the
disproportionate reaction between receiving an assuredly painful
terrorist blow and a riposte involving nuking somebody (who? anybody
who might have been involved? men, women, children, babies?) because
you're so "pissed off", I can only sigh.
Well, I should say that I was being overly dramatic, I didn't mean to
push your nuclear fear button.
We all felt very frustrated and definitely wanted to find those
responsible and have at them. We wouldn't really have nuked them,
however I could probably come up with some hypothetical situation where
something that would make Iraq look like a garden party would have been
ok.
For instance, if it had been Saddam instead of Osama, we would have
just started bombing Iraq continuously. We wouldn't have targeted
civilian areas, we wouldn't have needed to, just the palaces would have
kept us busy. Would that have been proportionate? Probably not. Anger
isn't rational.
In general though, Americans very much blame the leader and not the
people.
This impenetrable, self-centered, borderline crazy attitude Americans
have toward the use of deadly force is what sometimes scares their
friends even more than their enemies.
Too peaceful a history most of us think. Having not experienced the
horrors so much of war, perhaps it gets glorified. However, we're not
really as bloodthirsty as I probably implied either, I was trying to
explain the depths of our anger, not the breadth.
Pierce
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: [OT] facism gaining ground in US, (continued)
Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] facism gaining ground in US, Tobias C. Rittweiler, 2004/07/12
[Gnu-arch-users] [OT] facism gaining ground in US, Tom Lord, 2004/07/12
Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] facism gaining ground in US, John Seifarth, 2004/07/19
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] facism gaining ground in US,
Pierce T . Wetter III <=
Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] facism gaining ground in US, nadim, 2004/07/20
Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] facism gaining ground in US, Robert Anderson, 2004/07/26