tp191.xml
Title
tp191.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2003-03-03
TomPaine Story: Story
Toward A More Perfect Union: Lessons Learned - Or Not - Since 9/11
Part of me is ashamed to be an ugly-American. Our government has abused the tragedy of 9/11 to accelerate policies that create enemy lists and appeal to our basic need for security to justify anything. A more perfect union might require too much for this empire to embrace. There is an accounting lesson to be learned.
Why does Gore Vidal state in Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace that ""Although we regularly stigmatize other societies as rogue states, we ourselves have become the largest rogue state of all."" Why does former CIA agent, William Blum, in Rogue State: A Guide to the Worlds Only Superpower argue that Americans would deny that the American Empire possesses ""A compelling lust for political, economic and military hegemony over the rest of the world, divorced from moral considerations?"" Yet, he presents incontrovertible evidence that this is so.
Big Brother? Military-industrial complex? Theyve worn thin. Not because they are untrue. Because they are. There is often something stale about the truth, something pale about the truth that our empire rather rouge-up with the pathos of a country under siege or a country sacrificing itself for freedom.
Politicians caress corporate greed, industrial pollution, nuclear power and war, globalization / privatization of the earth, all undergirded by a blind fundamentalist faith that is no faith at all.
The moments are becoming fewer when we can give testimony that the lesson has been learned, that we are ready to make our accounting. Arundhati Roy in The Cost of Living states that ""There is beauty yet in this brutal damaged world of ours."" Will 9/11 cost us our freedoms? Will it cost us our planet? Though the deed and the damage has been done, will 9/11 open our hearts and inspire within us the courage to claim this beauty?
Part of me is ashamed to be an ugly-American. Our government has abused the tragedy of 9/11 to accelerate policies that create enemy lists and appeal to our basic need for security to justify anything. A more perfect union might require too much for this empire to embrace. There is an accounting lesson to be learned.
Why does Gore Vidal state in Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace that ""Although we regularly stigmatize other societies as rogue states, we ourselves have become the largest rogue state of all."" Why does former CIA agent, William Blum, in Rogue State: A Guide to the Worlds Only Superpower argue that Americans would deny that the American Empire possesses ""A compelling lust for political, economic and military hegemony over the rest of the world, divorced from moral considerations?"" Yet, he presents incontrovertible evidence that this is so.
Big Brother? Military-industrial complex? Theyve worn thin. Not because they are untrue. Because they are. There is often something stale about the truth, something pale about the truth that our empire rather rouge-up with the pathos of a country under siege or a country sacrificing itself for freedom.
Politicians caress corporate greed, industrial pollution, nuclear power and war, globalization / privatization of the earth, all undergirded by a blind fundamentalist faith that is no faith at all.
The moments are becoming fewer when we can give testimony that the lesson has been learned, that we are ready to make our accounting. Arundhati Roy in The Cost of Living states that ""There is beauty yet in this brutal damaged world of ours."" Will 9/11 cost us our freedoms? Will it cost us our planet? Though the deed and the damage has been done, will 9/11 open our hearts and inspire within us the courage to claim this beauty?
Collection
Citation
“tp191.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed October 7, 2024, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/662.