One of the most annoying phrases after the Islamic fundamentalist attacks of 9/11 is that “everything changed.” Yes, there were some changes after 9/11, but for the average American it can only be experienced by walking through an airport. The nation is still as divided, distracted, politically correct, celebrity obsessed, and apathetic as it was September 10, 2001.
One could argue that everything has gotten worse. Thanks to technology advancements we’re more divided, distracted, political correct, celebrity obsessed, and apathetic than ever before. At Marietta College in Ohio the school is threatening to cancel the 9/11 memorial if flags from other countries are not displayed.
When she went into complain to the student life office, Snow said she was told: “We have a global outlook at this school and we cannot ignore the Chinese and Muslim students who also suffered losses” and “We need to look at all aspects of the event so there isn’t a negative reaction from the International Students.”
Snow said she never received any complaints from foreign students who felt left out.
This is the United States ten years after 9/11. The nation of the offended. Marietta College believes it’s offensive to celebrate the patriotism that erupted after 9/11.
Ten years ago I was a college student working part-time at Home Depot. After the attacks there was a rush of people looking for American flags. The store was sold out almost immediately. It took a couple of weeks before we had enough flags for demand. I remember a car that used to drive around the parking lot covered in flags. The car was a flag seller and these small time operations were popping up all over country to meet the demand. I never would have thought that ten years later an act of patriotism would be offensive at a small college in Ohio.
Ten years later the average American can tell you more about the Green Bay Packers, Jersey Shore, iPads, or the Kardashians than can explain our current path to bankruptcy. No, the nation did not become more serious after the attack. Nothing changed.
Right after 9/11 I vividly remember Bill O’Reilly saying that Osama Bin Laden was a dead man within 16 months. I’m not sure why I remember that. Perhaps it was because I didn’t think it would take that long. Well, nearly 10 years have passed but we finally killed him.
One of the clever aspects of modern day lawmaking is creating great law names. The Patriot Act is a great example. Who can oppose legislation called the Patriot Act? Last week during the lame duck session the Democrats sponsored a bill to boost the medical and financial aid to heroic Ground Zero workers. Who could possibly oppose such a bill? Well, no one really. Despite outcries from journalistic giant Jon Stewart and other liberals there really wasn’t a controversy. It’s just the same old shallow understanding that plagues most liberals. The devil is always in the details.
Originally, the ten-year cost of the legislation would have been either $7.4 billion (House-passed version) or $6.2 billion (amended Senate version). The ten-year cost of the compromise will be only $4.2 billion. Originally, the bill would have cost billions more beyond the ten-year window. Those added costs were jettisoned entirely from the compromise. Originally, the re-opened 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund (VCF) — which closed in 2003 — would have stayed in operation through 2031. Now the VCF will be shuttered — permanently — in 2016. Originally, legislative loopholes would have permitted certain attorneys to gobble up a massive chunk of 9/11-related settlements. The compromise imposes a rigid ceiling on trial-lawyer fees, limiting them to 10 percent of the total amount awarded and giving the VCF “special master” authority to slash fees that he considers disproportionate. Originally, the bill suffered from a dearth of accountability controls. The compromise includes muscular safeguards against waste and abuse.
The nuts and bolts of the bill aren’t quite as sexy as “the evil GOP wants to screw the 9/11 workers!” Senator Coburn was raked over the coals for simply trying to make the bill better. The fact that he was able to make changes to the bill is a heroic achievement. To get an idea how brain dead the left’s echo chamber is becoming check out this New York Times article about Jon Stewart.
Did the bill pledging federal funds for the health care of 9/11 responders become law in the waning hours of the 111th Congress only because a comedian took it up as a personal cause?
And does that make that comedian, Jon Stewart — despite all his protestations that what he does has nothing to do with journalism — the modern-day equivalent of Edward R. Murrow?
Let the myth making begin! Jon Stewart is like Ed Murrow because he drummed up a bunch of hysteria about a bill he didn’t understand. If the left is looking to Jon Stewart for leadership and education about issues they may be gone forever. It’s funny that Stewart went to Washington just a few months ago to bitch and complain about the tone of the public debate and now he’s part of the problem. The 9/11 bill ultimately passed, but there was no reason it had to pass in the lame duck session. There will be laws made after the 111th Congress that will be just as bad despite what liberals believe.
Conspiracy theories drive me crazy. People who are convinced about conspiracy theories are impossible to argue with logically. You know the phrases: “Jet fuel doesn’t burn hot enough to burn steel.” You know the places: the grassy knoll. It might be because I’m the son of the conspiracy theory generation, but these theories are mindless. Unfortunately, they’re countless as well.
Disaster or Elaborate Conspiracy?
Take, for example, the fake Lee Harvey Oswald photograph. For those who don’t know, Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President Kennedy by himself. There was no sinister conspiracy or cover-up. Oswald was a raving lunatic who happened to be a communist. The fact that there’s an alleged fake photograph of Oswald holding a gun doesn’t change the facts.
Imagine, if you will, the group of conspirators coming up with a way to kill President Kennedy. They left Kennedy’s vehicle choice in the hands of the President. Thankfully for the conspirators JFK insisted on riding in an open top limousine. However, the conspirators spent time doctoring Oswald’s photograph to frame him. If Oswald was framed why did he shoot Officer J. D. Tippit shortly after the assassination? Here I go, trying to use a logical argument to counter something illogical. For more logical arguments and a thorough debunking of the JFK conspiracy theories, check out Club Soda’s voluminous posts on this subject here and here.
At what point did every colossal event start having heinous puppeteers pulling the strings? Was the Titanic sank by an iceburg? Ice doesn’t tear titanium! What really caused the fire on the LZ 129 Hindenburg? There’s nothing wrong with questioning things, but sometimes accepting the most logical answer and moving on isn’t a bad idea either. Some people just don’t want to believe the story. There’s still a group of people that think President Obama was born in Kenya. Why would his family cover up where he was born? Does anyone truly believe that Obama’s Mom thought he could become President someday?
One drawback of the Information Age is that there’s a whole community of people who fuel this stuff. Of course these type of sites never get the “attention they deserve.” It’s not because there’s some sinister corporate conspiracy to block the truth, but because most of the stuff is crazy. One of my favorite TV shows during the ’90s was X-Files. What made it so great was the great conspiracy stories. That’s how conspiracies should be viewed. A farcical break from reality.
A growing meme amongst the progressive crowd, and closely related to the Truther movement (Truthers being those who believe 911 was an inside job by the American government), is the audacious accusation that America brought 911 on itself. This Blame America First trope is the direct result of left-wing politics being force-fed to youngsters through America’s “educational” system.
A growing number of academic programs in the university system across this great country are thinly veiled ACORN-like recruiting centers for budding progressive, social-justice activists from a pool of blissfully ignorant, beer-guzzling, medical marijuana-smoking young whippersnappers.
These precocious youngsters are taught by seemingly scholarly academic types that America (sometimes spelled with a K, as in Amerika, or the KKK of Amerika) is an imperialist, racist nation bent on subjugating people of color the world over, and that anyone to the right of Michael Moore is a fascist. The mass media relentlessly reinforce this message with constant propaganda that Joseph Goebbels would be proud of (see also: Cameron, James. Avatar, et al).
Ironically, many progressives reared in such a system find themselves in common cause with global Jihad. Of course global Jihadists, if they reach their goal of a world caliphate, are likely to frown upon the myriad of causes most dear to progressives, such as a homosexual marriage free-for-all and abortion. By “frowning” I mean “putting the infidels to death by stoning.” Mark Steyn put it as only Mark Steyn can: “A little girl born today will be unlikely, at the age of 40, to be free to prance around demonstrations in Eurabian Paris or Amsterdam chanting ‘Hands off my bush!’”
So very true, yet progressives seek to undermine any attempt to squelch this particularly virulent strain of the peaceful religion, Islam. I suppose they’re too busy re-hashing America’s shoddy treatment of Native Americans and blacks (can we move on, please?) to realize that justifying Jihad – in effect, collaborating with Jihad – may very well lead to some dire circumstances.
Still, I’m struggling with this concept; that is, how America is ultimately to blame for 911. Usually, the response to the question of how America brought 911 on itself is, “America’s global policy.” Okay. What about America’s global policy?
What is it, exactly, about America’s policies in the past 100 years that ultimately led a bunch of Islamic fanatics to fly airplanes into buildings with hundreds of terrified passengers on board with them? And, regardless of America’s policies, this is justified? Put yourself in the airplane with Mohamed Atta, amigo, and then tell me if that deranged idiot was justified in his actions.
It’s easy to sit safely in Middletown, USA and pontificate in abstract about how Muslim countries have been subjugated by Europeans and Americans and quite another to come face to face with someone who’s preparing to put the infidel (you) to death. And I tell you what, if I had lost a loved one on 911 and some hipster dufus made a crack about blaming America for 911, there would be hell to pay.
But I digress, as usual… Typically, our progressive friend cannot answer the follow-up question. Sure, they may rattle on about the division of Muslim countries after both World Wars or America’s policy during the Iraq-Iran war, and so on and so forth. But there’s one particular piece of land that’s the sticking point here, and which has driven U.S. policy since 1948. That’s right. It’s all the Jews’ fault!
Why, ultimately, do the Islamic radicals hate us? Primarily, it’s our association with Israel. Secondarily, yet related, is the fact that most of us are infidels of one stripe or another. Progressives don’t care to delve very far into the actual messages coming out of the madrassas and media in Muslim countries.
Instead, parroting the popular progressive line about poverty, they simply close eyes and ears to the truth being shouted from the rooftops… er minarets. The message is not, “We’re desperately poor, so we’re going to strap explosives to ourselves and blow up amongst the infidels!” No, it’s: “We hate the Jews and the Christians! In fact, we hate the Buddhists, the Hindus, the atheists, the agnostics… Heck, anyone who’s not Muslim, especially those who ally themselves with the Jews!”
(I suppose the usual PC disclaimer should be inserted here. Yes, most Muslims are peace-loving, law-abiding folks, depending on the law to which they’re subject. Still, the volume of officially-sanctioned anti-Jewish, anti-infidel material coming out of Muslim countries with nary a peep in dissent is disconcerting, to say the least. Plus, if you’re not Muslim in a Muslim country you’re a second-class citizen. You can’t even own a Bible in most Muslim countries.)
This Jew-hating thing has been going on for a long time, at least since the Jews were identified as Jews. It’s the oldest trick in the book, and progressives buy it hook, line and sinker. My guess is that progressives, since they believe in the goodness and ultimate perfectibility of human beings, figure the Muslim world will come around once they recognize the esprit de corps they shared with Jihad. My other guess is that they will be sorely disappointed in the outcome.
There were a lot of people back in the 1930s who figured Hitler was someone they could deal with. The problem was they never bothered to read Mein Kampf, or if they did they skipped the parts about world domination and getting rid of the Jews.
So, while the Jihadists and Iran’s Ahmadinejad and his ilk lay out their plans plainly for all the world to see (destroy Israel, kill and subjugate the infidel), progressives rattle on meaninglessly about America’s complicity for global terrorism. Oh well, at least Howard Zinn would be proud that progressives reared in our university system will continue to mindlessly regurgitate his Marxist nonsense masquerading as scholarship.
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