tp196.xml
Title
tp196.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2003-03-10
TomPaine Story: Story
THE AFTERMATH AND THE NATION
The continued exploitation of 9/11's tragedy demeans the memory of those
who died. One wonders if instead of happening in New York and Washington,
D.C., the videotaped events had occurred off-camera to kill 3000 people in
(say) Great Falls, Montana. Would the nation have reacted in the same
obsessive way?
Predictably politicians and advertisers make hay of 9/11 for political and
financial gain, endlessly calling up the photographs, sounds, memories and
attaching them to everything under the sun. Unaccountable anger was already
gnawing at the American public's psyche fueled by vicious talk radio,
mocking ""comedians,"" self-centered politicians before the disaster. So when
the planes accomplished their evil mission, it gave an excuse to unleash
and focus this anger, opening floodgates to set the nation on a Bash
Everybody Who Gets In Our Way retaliation.
Immediately after President Bush addressed the nation shortly after 9/11,
this writer heard a reporter ask an administration spokesman how long the
""war"" on terror would likely last. The response, ""Five years.""
Now, invoking the memories of those who perished, the American public is
called upon to give up important rights, supposedly the better to fight
terrorists. But if the so-called ""war"" is open-ended, then the abrogation
of those rights will continue for what?
Forever? Did the victims give their lives so America would be less free,
made so not by terrorists but by our own fear-mongering ambitious national
leaders, assisted by a national press involved in a ratings game?
F.D.R. had it partly right: one thing we have to fear is "fear itself." But we should also be afraid of what we're doing to ourselves and our nation.
The continued exploitation of 9/11's tragedy demeans the memory of those
who died. One wonders if instead of happening in New York and Washington,
D.C., the videotaped events had occurred off-camera to kill 3000 people in
(say) Great Falls, Montana. Would the nation have reacted in the same
obsessive way?
Predictably politicians and advertisers make hay of 9/11 for political and
financial gain, endlessly calling up the photographs, sounds, memories and
attaching them to everything under the sun. Unaccountable anger was already
gnawing at the American public's psyche fueled by vicious talk radio,
mocking ""comedians,"" self-centered politicians before the disaster. So when
the planes accomplished their evil mission, it gave an excuse to unleash
and focus this anger, opening floodgates to set the nation on a Bash
Everybody Who Gets In Our Way retaliation.
Immediately after President Bush addressed the nation shortly after 9/11,
this writer heard a reporter ask an administration spokesman how long the
""war"" on terror would likely last. The response, ""Five years.""
Now, invoking the memories of those who perished, the American public is
called upon to give up important rights, supposedly the better to fight
terrorists. But if the so-called ""war"" is open-ended, then the abrogation
of those rights will continue for what?
Forever? Did the victims give their lives so America would be less free,
made so not by terrorists but by our own fear-mongering ambitious national
leaders, assisted by a national press involved in a ratings game?
F.D.R. had it partly right: one thing we have to fear is "fear itself." But we should also be afraid of what we're doing to ourselves and our nation.
Collection
Citation
“tp196.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed May 3, 2024, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/805.