I went to Mass today to pray for the people who died on 911 as I do every year. I was lucky. I only had a few passing acquaintances that were victims there. The woman who owned a restaurant on Court St. and fought with her brother so she took a job at the restaurant. A busboy who worked there that used to work in an Irish Pub I used to go to. A lady from the Tax Department. A couple of fireman that I met through Lisa because they used to hand out at fireman picnics when Lisa's Dad was a fireman. So I guess you can say I had it easy.
But every 911 when I walk out of my house I look to the skyline where I used to see the towers looming in the background over the low brownstones of Carroll Gardens. They were readily visible from most of my neighborhood. Now they are gone forever.
I don't know if the liberals are right when they claimed that our involvement in the Middle East led to this act of terrorism. Now when there is a President I despise trying the same thing I sort of get where they are coming from. Maybe the best thing would be for us to mind our own business in this nasty old world. Exploit our own oil supplies be they oil or natural gas or fracking or whatever. Let the people in the Middle East rot. Israel has shown they can take care of themselves. Give them the wherewithal to defend themselves and let it go. We don't always have to stick our nose in other peoples business.
I think we should put America and it's people first. Maybe if we had minded our own business 911 would never have happened. I don't know. But more and more I think I am becoming a Robert Taft Republican.
If you get a chance say a little prayer for the families who were left behind. The children who don't have a father or a mother. The young girls who won't have Dad to walk them down the aisle. The grandchildren who will never have gramps take them to the game or be able to go over to Grandma's house for Sunday Dinner. They were also victims of 911. And they are all around us.
7 comments:
It is an upsetting day, made no less so than by having a president named Hussein.
But I am a minority when it comes to that fact.
May God ease the pain of all of us who are suffering on this day of remembrance.
I just ran into a Mom of one of the fireman at Mass. It was pretty tough. I don't pretend to understand her pain but I hope she can find peace.
That skyline. For 30 years, countless movies showed it. One of the quickest and most iconic establishing shots ever, on a par with the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, the pyramids, the Taj Mahal: Nothing said "New York City" like those towers.
That's why they targeted it. In their primitive minds, you strike the icon, you destroy the thing. But we're still here, and nothing they do can hurt us like what we do to ourselves.
There's always an excuse. It's always incoherent. "American meddling made us blow up the towers, which the Jews blew up anyway, working with the US Government."
Morocco was the first country, in 1784, to seize a vessel sailing under a newly independent American flag. By 1800, ransom to Barbary pirates was 20% of the US Government's budget.
What had we done, then, to provoke them? Well, we were weak. And also Christian, so we were good for the Muslim slave trade.
You can argue, and I might, especially now, that those doing trade in foreign lands should defend themselves, but it was Muslim pirate attacks that started us on the road to becoming a superpower.
It's kind of like the first Tim Burton Batman movie. Batman made the Joker--but it was also the Joker who made the Batman by killing his parents.
And to quote a later Batman film: "Some men just want to watch the world burn."
You can't hide from them.
In line with what blake said, the most eye opening visual I ever saw was a map of Europe, a battle map, showing the locations and frequency of muslim attacks in the hundreds of years of their assault on Christendom. Each battle was marked by a red dot. There was no part of Europe that escaped the assault but Spain especially was peppered with the literally thousands of battles that took place in the 700 year conquest of Spain by the muslims and then reconquest by Catholic Spain. Islam is never-ending war on non-Islam. It's really that simple and that terrible. Islam can be held at bay. But for that to happen there has to be a clear eyed view of what Islam is and the will to fight back hard. Even after scumbama is gone will there be that clarity and will in our ruling class? I don't see it. Hope I'm wrong.
Never forget. RIP to those who fell. Prayers and best wishes to those still grieving.
But more and more I think I am becoming a Robert Taft Republican.
My grandfather was a Robert Taft republican. I caught some of it second hand: link
We remembered the 911 victims at our church service last Sunday. US Foreign policy - we should "Walk Softly and carry a big stick" - but always do the opposite.
I don't think we should get involved in Syria, and even if it was a good idea, Obama would fuck it up big-time. He's even less competent than LBJ or Jimmy Peanut.
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