This blog is no longer active as of October 31, 2011
This comes via the Lady herself:
For those of you who do not like the idea of posting what Pamela has to say; I have two things to say —- first, as Herman Cain would say, “I does not care.” Also, I would say to those who would have a problem with me posting this video, I would politely ask you to go see Helen Waite and ask for directions.
God Bless America.
Click here, here, here, and here.
Just a little taste of what you are going to read:
An opening statement is not evidence, merely a preview of the case the prosecution will mount in coming weeks based on testimony, forensics, wiretaps, documents and a plethora of photos. The crux of it: That parents and 18-year-old brother planned and executed the murders from outrage over the intolerable, the defiance of daughters and the alliance with them of a woman treated for years as a burden and a slave.
A disgrace and shame to their family, though, for behaviour unbecoming to Afghan [Muslim] females — the boyfriends and the disobedience, the brazen disrespect for traditions and refusal to wear the hijab — violations of decorum so grievous that they needed to be killed, eliminated, to purify family honour, their “treachery’’ insupportable.
Mass murder committed, a court heard Thursday, by the mother and father and brother of the sisters, homicides staged to look like an accident during a family vacation, with Zainab at the wheel, on one of her furtive joyrides.
Mohammad Shafia, Tooba Mohammad Yahya and their son Hamed Mohammed Shafia have all pleaded not guilty to four counts each of first-degree murder. Their jury trial began here Thursday with a 90-minute opening statement from Crown Attorney Laurie Lacelle that left observers in the courtroom stunned over details finally revealed and allegations of a diabolical plot that defy imagination.
From a wiretapped conversation Shafia had with Tooba and Hamed, 20 days after the bodies were discovered, Shafia in a fury recalling the revealing cellphone pictures of Zainab and Shahar: “Curse God on both of them. Is that what a daughter should be? Would a daughter be such a whore? May the devil s–t on their graves.”
And later, not long before the trio was arrested in Montreal, Shafia tells Hamed, as Lacelle quoted from another wiretap transcript: “Even if they hoist me up on to the gallows, nothing is more dear to me than my honour.”
To his wife, Shafia allegedly assured that the right actions had been taken: “I say to myself, you did well. Were they to come back to life, I would do it again. No Tooba, they messed up. There was no other way. They were treacherous. They betrayed us immensely. There can be no betrayal worse than this. They committed treason on themselves. They betrayed humankind. They betrayed Islam. They betrayed our religion. They betrayed everything.”
From the sisters, there appears no words were left behind. But Rona wrote in her diary, the Crown told the jury, what she was thinking, fearing, in the weeks, even years, before her death, anxieties she also shared with siblings overseas when she was able to get out of the house and make phone calls.
This was the murder weapon:
This was the family:
These are the people who did it:
All in the name of Islam.
Now you tell me that Islam is a Religion of peace? I call you a liar.
(H/T to Pamela)
Cross-posted @ Alexandra
Remember what I said about Islamofacism being a problem? This right here, is what am referring to.
This comes via Facebook:
Now, do I agree with what this guy is saying? Pretty much, yes. he is correct about the moderate Muslims and their cowardice.
Wild Bill for America’s Website
Wild Bill for America’s YouTube page.
Update: Cross-posted @ Alexandria
This does not look good at all. 🙁
FBI and DEA agents have disrupted a plot to commit a “significant terrorist act in the United States” tied to Iran, federal officials told ABC News today.
The officials said the plot included the assassination of the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States, Adel Al-Jubeir, with a bomb and subsequent bomb attacks on the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington, D.C. Bombings of the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Buenos Aires, Argentina, were also discussed, according to the U.S. officials.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in an announcement today that the plan was “conceived, sponsored and was directed from Iran” by a faction of the government and called it a “flagrant” violation of U.S. and international law.
“The U.S. is committed to holding Iran accountable for its actions,” Holder said. He said the White House will be meeting with federal agencies before announcing “further action” in regards to Iran.
FBI Director Robert Mueller said the arrest of a suspect in the plot shows the U.S. will “bring the full weight of [the] law to bear on those responsible” and that “any attempts on American soil will not be tolerated.”
The stunning allegations come against a backdrop of longstanding tensions between Iran and the United States and Saudi Arabia. In the last year, Saudi Arabia has attempted to build an anti-Iran alliance to push back against perceived aggression by Iran in the region.
via U.S. Says Iran-Tied Terror Plot in Washington, D.C. Disrupted – ABC News.
This basically proves my point; that Bush did not do enough after 9/11. If Bush had acted like a real President and not like a wet rag after 9/11, we would not have this sort of troubles. Although, I will admit; I have sneaky feeling that this might spark some sort of Military action. Although, I do not believe it will be of the scale and scope of the War in Iraq.
Ed Morrissey, of whom I respect, says this:
If true, would that not be an act of war? We’re presently using drones in Pakistan and Yemen against al-Qaeda terrorist networks for plotting similar attacks, thanks to the AUMF from October 2001, even though we’re nominally allied with both nations. If the government of Iran plotted attacks on American targets, that should require a response from the US, should it not — or do we send a signal that even attacks from actual nation-states fall under the rubric of law enforcement?
[…]
If we’re charging an official of the Iranian government with complicity or worse in this plot, then it ceases to be a law enforcement issue and becomes a military and political issue instead. This isn’t a case of espionage but of sabotage or worse, which would be an act of war by anyone’s definition. If we’re not willing to respond in kind, we then send a signal to hostile nation-states around the world that attacks on the US are low-risk, high-reward affairs — and we’d better get ready for an avalanche of them.
There are some who would say, “Oh, he is just being a Neoconservative!” That might be so, but he is being a Neoconservative, who happens to be right. Ron Paul and ilk are just dead wrong. when it comes to Iran, Islam and the war on terror. They might have a point on Nation Building; but on this sort of thing, Ron Paul and his mindless followers are simply wrong.
Insty calls this CHUTZPAH.
Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen has confirmed the deaths of American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, the young American propagandist killed alongside him in a U.S. drone strike late last month.
Al-Qaeda has also criticized the Obama administration for killing U.S. citizens, saying doing so “contradicts” American law.
“Where are what they keep talking about regarding freedom, justice, human rights and respect of freedoms?!” the statement says, according to a translation by SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist Web sites.
The Obama administration has spoken in broad terms about its authority to use military and paramilitary force against al-Qaeda and associated forces, and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula would find itself hard-pressed to claim the moral high ground in the debate over the killing of Awlaki and Khan.
This is not Chutzpah, this is just blind arrogance.
Just think, the people that did this here:
Which caused this to happen:
they also did this:
and this:
…and they want to lecture us about “freedom, justice, human rights and respect of freedoms”… 😡
My friends, this goes well beyond some Yiddish word for arrogance, gall, or nerve. This backward thinking is shared by the liberal left in this Country. In case anyone that happens to read this blog has forgotten, Al-Qaeda killed 2,977 of our citizens and injured over 6,000 of our citizens. This was an act of war and should have been treated more so, than it was by President Bush. What happened that day was on par with Pearl Harbor and should have resulted in the internment of all Arab citizens in this Country. What that day should have resulted in, was the suspending of the United States Constitution and an change to the first amendment by executive order; outlawing Islam in America forever, as a political philosophy and not a valid religion and the closing of all Mosques in this Country. What happened on that day; should have resulted in the deporting off all Muslims out of the United States forever and Arabs be given a choice, either embrace an American religion or leave. However, because of the weakness of Bush or a desire to please all, President George W. Bush chose the easiest path possible.
My friends, 9/11 is a living testament to the fact that Multiculturalism does not, in fact work. It is a lesson that the Far-Right people’s party in Switzerland is learning now, before it is too late. America did not learn that lesson on 9/11; we simply went after just one group, instead of the entire flock of them. This was the great mistake of America and is one that America will have live with for the rest of its existence. If you think, that Muslims will not attack America again, you a very highly mistaken. September 11, 2001 was the opening salvo in a war that will continue until the day that America realizes that Islam and its followers are not friends of America and will eventually destroy us from within, if we allow it.
The question is will we allow it?
…and more of that great Government at work too….
Remember that Iranian Pastor I wrote about? Well, it seems Iran is really trying hard to kill this guy:
Christian Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani will be put to death for several charges of rape and extortion, charges that differ greatly from his original sentence of apostasy, Iran’s semi-official Fars News agency reported Friday.
Gholomali Rezvani, the deputy governor of Gilan province, where Nadarkhani was tried and convicted, accused Western media of twisting the real story, referring to him as a “rapist.” A previous report from the news agency claimed he had committed several violent crimes, including repeated rape and extortion.
“His crime is not, as some claim, converting others to Christianity,” Rezvani told Fars. “He is guilty of security-related crimes.”
In a translated Iranian Supreme Court brief from 2010, however, the charge of apostasy is the only charge leveled against Nadarkhani.
“Mr. Youcef Nadarkhani, son of Byrom, 32-years old, married, born in Rasht in the state of Gilan is convicted of turning his back on Islam, the greatest religion the prophesy of Mohammad at the age of 19,” reads the brief.
via Iranian pastor faces death for rape, not apostasy – report – CNN.com.
So much for that Religion of tolerance, eh? If we cannot put you to death for trying to muscle in on our turf; we’ll fabricate false charges against you!
Of course, Iran is operating under Shariah law and if we are not really careful here in America, that crap will end up here.
Others: Israpundit, Weasel Zippers, Jihad Watch and americanthinker.com
There do seem to be two sides to this argument. Check out the exchange over at The National Review Online’s blog, the corner, between Andy McCarthy and Kevin Williamson Also, for good measure check out AllahPundit over Hotair’s feelings about it too. Just a short fun fact, AllahPundit was within 5 miles of the trade center when it was hit on 9/11.
Personally, I feel that the dude should have been killed; he was actively recruiting people for Jihad or in American terms, for war with the United States and would be considered a traitor to the United States. Due process? Feh. The people who died on 9/11 were not given any due process or even a choice whether to live or die. So, that whole bat shit crazy argument does not even fly with me.
Further more, this is why I despise Ron Paul with every damned fiber of my being; the man is a terrorist supporting jackal. Anyone who would side with those, or even have pity of those who would want to hurt this Country, ought be frog marched out into the public square and shot. I am sorry if that offends anyone; but it is just how I feel. Ron Paul and his merry band of leftists are a disgrace to this Country and everything it stands for. They call themselves Republicans and Conservatives — I call them bastards, evil, rotten to the damned core bastards, who should be locked in an insane asylum.
Update: Looks like Gary Johnson feels the same way, which is another reason why neither of these two idiots will ever be President:
Cross-posted at Alexandria
Another one bites the dust:
Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born radical Islamic preacher who rose to the highest level of al Qaeda’s franchise in Yemen, has been killed.
Al-Awlaki, born in New Mexico, has been linked to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s (AQAP) attempted bombing of a U.S. passenger jet over Detroit on Christmas day, 2009, and was thought to be a leader of the group.
A U.S. government official confirms to CBS News senior security correspondent David Martin that al-Awlaki was killed. Yemen’s Defense Ministry was first to tell CBS News of the strike, but given previous reports which turned out to be erroneous, the relatively rapid U.S. confirmation is crucial, and bolsters witness accounts that it was a U.S. drone strike that killed the al Qaeda figure.
The Associated Press reported that an unidentified source said the U.S. believes al-Awlaki was killed in a strike by U.S. jets and drones on his convoy.
U.S. officials considered al-Awlaki a most-wanted terror suspect, and added his name last year to the kill or capture list – making him a rare American addition to what is effectively a U.S. government hit-list.
Al-Awlaki’s father, who still lives in the U.S., filed a lawsuit against the federal government, claiming his son’s civil rights were violated by the U.S. call for his killing.
A federal court dismissed Nasser al-Awlaki’s suit on Dec. 7, 2010, on the grounds that he had no legal standing to challenge the targeting of his son.
A statement from Yemen’s foreign press office said the al Qaeda suspect “was targeted and killed 8 KM (about 5 miles) from the town of Khashef in the Province of Jawf, 140KM (about 80 miles) east of the Capital Sana’a.”
Al-Arabiya television network cited local tribal sources as saying suspected U.S. drone aircraft – which are known to operate in Yemen – fired two missiles Friday at a convoy of vehicles believed to be carrying al-Awlaki and his guards.
Another towel-head puke goes to his 72 virgins. Good place for him; one down, many more to go.
Update: The usual suspect dip shits are now objecting.
Update #2: Ed Morrissey is reporting that American Samir Khan has also been killed
I agree with Debbie here, the so-called religion of peace, strikes again!
The FBI arrested and charged a man Wednesday for allegedly plotting to blow up the Capitol and the Pentagon.
The 26-year-old Massachusetts man, Rezwan Ferdaus, was arrested as part of an FBI sting operation in which he was made to believe he was working with members of al Qaeda, who were actually undercover agents.
Ferdaus allegedly gave the undercover FBI agents a detailed set of attack plans “with step-by-step instructions as to how he planned to attack the Pentagon and Capitol,” according to the Department of Justice.
The plans focused on the use of three small remote-controlled drone-like aircraft loaded with C-4 plastic explosives, which he planned to fly into the Capitol and the Pentagon using GPS equipment, according to the DOJ.
The DOJ stressed that the public was never in danger from the explosive devices, which it said were controlled at all times by undercover FBI officials who closely monitored Ferdaus as he allegedly developed his plot.
According to the DOJ, Ferdaus aimed to create a devastating psychological impact with the attacks, saying at one point, “I just can’t stop; there is no other choice for me.”
via Man arrested in ‘step-by-step’ plot to blow up Capitol, Pentagon – The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room.
The money quote:
Religion of peace? I think not.
I am most likely one of the few people who felt that President Bush did not do enough on 9/11. What President should have done was the following:
There are a bunch more; these are the main ones; instead, Bush did a piece meal war and tried to take a politically correct stance on Islam and Muslims. For this we are still paying for it. Not to mention, the whole Iraq debacle. So, when I hear liberals carping about how horrible Bush’s war was and how horrible Bush handle 9/11. I always smirk and think, what if I were running the Country?
So, there you have it. The Religion of Peace!
(Via HotAir.com)
Here’s the fool rambling on:
…and sane people at the U.N. Walking out:
For our third video: THIS is what SHOULD happen to the President of Iran:
Quote me on it, liberals. Just embracing that new tone, that you all like to talk about so much. Oh well, a man can dream can’t he?
Yeah, I know, I gave them grief in the last posting. I can do that, constructive criticism is good thing! 😀
Having said that; I thought this posting was fantastic. A great visit to a hollowed ground.
As Ed said, “Always Remember, Never Forget” 
How stupid do they really believe that the people of Israel really are? This stupid, I guess:
Palestinian officials are rolling out the welcome mat for Jews to come to a new Palestinian state.
Trying to tamp down a controversy over whether a Palestinian state would be Jew-free, Mahmoud Habbash, the Palestinian minister of religious affairs, said a future state would be open to people of all religions, including Jews.
“The future Palestinian state will be open to all its citizens, regardless of their religion,” Habbash said, according to USA Today. “We want a civil state, which in it live all the faiths, Muslim, Christian and Jews also if they agree, (and) accept to be Palestinian citizens.”
Maen Areikat, the Palestine Liberation Organization’s ambassador to the United States, told POLITICO that his comments earlier this week which some interpreted as meaning Jews would not be welcome were misconstrued.
via Palestinian officials: Jews welcome – Josh Gerstein and MJ Lee – POLITICO.com.
If you believe that bunch of ignorant nonsense, I have land to sell you cheap in Texas at a buck an acre.
Any Jew that is foolish enough to buy this sort of foolishness, deserves the very fate that befalls them.
These are the same bastards that attacked us on 9/11, they should never be trusted, ever. 😡
Others: Weasel Zippers, USA Today, Elder of Ziyon
You know, I hate to be an a-hole about this sort of a thing. But there just some things that I cannot and will not overlook.
Anyhow, some woman of Arab and Jewish decent was detained at Detroit Metro Airport on a flight from Denver. She was strip-searched and now has taken to her blog to whine about it and also use racist imagery. For the record, here is a news article about it.
She starts her blog posting:
Silly me. I thought flying on 9/11 would be easy. I figured most people would choose not to fly that day so lines would be short, planes would be lightly filled and though security might be ratcheted up, we’d all feel safer knowing we had come a long way since that dreadful Tuesday morning 10 years ago.
But then armed officers stormed my plane, threw me in handcuffs and locked me up.
At first, when I started reading the post; I actually felt sorry for the lady. You know, innocent woman being strip-searched and such. But then, as I got further in the article, I started seeing things like this:
They took him to another room, and I heard an officer tell him to remove his clothes. He was going to be searched. I could not fully grasp what was happening. I stared at the yellow walls and listened to a few officers talk about the overtime they were racking up, and I decided that I hated country music. I hated speedboats and shitty beer in coozies and fat bellies and rednecks. I thought about Abu Ghraib and the horror to which those prisoners were exposed. I thought about my dad and his prescience. I was glad he wasn’t alive to know about what was happening to me. I thought about my kids, and what would have happened if they had been there when I got taken away. I contemplated never flying again. I thought about the incredible waste of taxpayer dollars in conducting an operation like this. I wondered what my rights were, if I had any at all. Mostly, I could not believe I was sitting in some jail cell in some cold, undisclosed building surrounded by “the authorities.”
[…]
Another female officer, this one in jeans and a t-shirt came to visit me. She introduced herself as an agent–Homeland Security. She removed my handcuffs and had me follow her to a different room down a long hall and through a few doors. As we walked, I got a glimpse of the watch-stealer, a chubby middle-aged white guy with a buzz cut. He didn’t look too different from some of the officers.
[…]
After fingerprinting me and asking me about my height/weight/place and date of birth and so on, a middle-aged white cop with a beer belly and a flat top returned me–without handcuffs–to the cell. I waited, wondering if I would be spending the night locked up. I thought about the last words my husband said to me while I was still on the plane waiting on the tarmac, “They must have found out there was a Hebshi on the plane.” We joke about this at times, that because of my ethnicity I am being scrutinized but I had no intention of putting that out to the universe and making it happen.
…and the real humdinger is this one:
I thought about Malcom X and how bravely and fastidiously he studied and wrote while he was in prison, how his solitude enabled him to transform his anger into social change and personal betterment. That’s when I decided to write this post. I needed to explain what had happened–was happening–to me. I was not going to be silent. Still, I wondered what my rights were, and though I felt violated and scared I wasn’t sure that our new laws protected me from this treatment.
There is also this….:
I wondered what my rights were, and though I felt violated and scared I wasn’t sure that our new laws protected me from this treatment.
If this woman wants any sympathy from me, she needs to get off of the racist stereotypes of white people. If I would have penned this article, ripping on this woman, because she happens to be a Jewish/Arab half breed, I would be called every sort of names, you know, like Anti-Semitic and racist? I found that to be extremely offensive and I told her so, in some very colorful language as to that fact.
Further more, what about the people in the World Trade Center towers, who had to choose between burning alive or being crushed to death or jumping from the building and dying. You do not think those people did not feel violated and scared?
Again, I do not cheer this woman’s misfortune, but this is the era we live in; the post-911 era. Thanks to the action of a group of Arab Muslim terrorists, we now live into a era of hyper-security. If this woman wants to register a complaint; she should try registering it to Al-Qaeda, better yet, let her register a complaint to the Muslim community here in America and abroad and condemn them for not standing up and saying that they are not doing enough to stand up against radical Muslims.
I have to wonder, how much of that story was embellished or as we usually call it — made up?
Remember folks, As Debbie Schlussel says, 9/11 was a MUSLIM Job and we, the American people were the true victims, not Arabs or Muslims. But then again, this woman sounds like a moronic liberal idiot, who always thinks directly backward of a sane, rational, human being. As Dr. Michael Savage says — Liberalism is a mental disorder. Update: Don’t believe me? Just look right here. How stupid can people be?!? 🙄
Others: The Atlantic Online, Hit & Run Gothamist Business Insider, The Atlantic Online and msnbc.com — via Memeorandum
Update: It appears that my article has hit a nerve. I got one thing to say…:
You see, nobody thought of their rights. No one cared. Liberals, Muslims and Democrats thought we were the “Great Satan” and deserved it. This is why I bitched about this article.
This comes via Tina over at HotAir.
A perfect example of the extremely stupid mentality of the far left and not so far left in this Country.
Video:
Tina Says:
As one commenter put it on NewsBusters, the phrase won’t die because “the lefties like those nifty chants. ‘Bush acted on bad intelligence – people died,’ just doesn’t have the catchiness of ‘Bush lied – people died.’”
Another thing Tina did not mention in her piece is this; the opposition over the Iraq War was not over concern of the Iraqi’s. The truth is, the left did not honestly give two flips about those people. The entire Anti-War movement was entirely partisan. You say, I’m wrong? — then, tell me — where are the protests now that President Obama is in office!?!?
This video above, is another reason in a litany of reasons why I will never vote Democratic Party ever again. It is because of the blatant hypocrisy of the people. I would rather someone be truthful with me, than blow smoke up my rear end, when it comes to politics and that is what the Democratic Party has done for as long as I can remember. The sick part is, they have done for years and for what? Votes. They do it to blacks, they do it to Latinos, they do it to almost everyone that wants a handout. Democrats don’t teach achievement, they teach dependence, on the Government. I want to vote for someone, who will try to cut through the B.S. — so that I can start a small business or two. Maybe get this blog registered as a business, so that I can try to get some investment capital. But you think I am going to try it now, with all this idiotic nonsense in the way, with the Obama White House? Not on your life! I’d also like to start a business related to my hobby. But, I cannot, not with things the way they are now!
Just wanted to share this one; because this one here, hit home with me as a former “Left of Center.”
Another thing too, if this genius does not know the difference between a “lie” and a “mistake,” he needs to seriously get the heck off MSNBC’s airwaves and go back to school.
Update: Blogger Round up at Memeorandum
This comes via HotAir and is from series of twitter postings by AllahPundit in 2009:
Eight years ago, I remember opening my eyes at 8:46 a.m. in my downtown Manhattan apartment because…
…I thought a truck had crashed in the street outside
I remember pacing my apartment for the next 15 minutes thinking, stupidly, that a gas line might have been hit in the North Tower…
…and then I heard another explosion. I hope no one ever hears anything like it.
All I can say to describe it is: Imagine the sound of thousands of Americans screaming on a city street
It was unbelievable, almost literally
(H/T to DayLife.com)
Caption from Photo: US President Barack Obama smiles as he greets attendees on September 11, 2011 after laying a wreath at the Wall of Names (background) at the newly dedicated Flight 93 memorial on the site where United flight 93 crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
The man has no clue….. No damned clue at all.
Possibly the best timeline of events, as they happened on that awful day.
Wow, don’t these bastards get enough? It’s crazy…
I thought the AFL-CIO thing was bad:
Actually, I don’t think it’s me, and it’s not really that odd.
What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. Te atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.
A lot of other people behaved badly. How many of our professional pundits — people who should have understood very well what was happening — took the easy way out, turning a blind eye to the corruption and lending their support to the hijacking of the atrocity?
The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.
I’m not going to allow comments on this post, for obvious reasons.
That’s the so-called “Enlightened Liberal”, Paul Krugman. As they would say in Yiddish, “velkh an dergantsn shmegege!” or “What an complete idiot!”
Others:: JustOneMinute, The Confluence, Big Journalism, Firedoglake, American Power, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Washington Times, Flopping Aces, Nice Deb, The Gateway Pundit, No More Mister Nice Blog, Weasel Zippers, Washington Monthly, Scared Monkeys, Outside the Beltway, Hot Air, Pirate’s Cove, Atlas Shrugs, Moonbattery, Vox Popoli, Althouse, PoliPundit.com, RedState, Corrente, Questions and Observations, Suburban Guerrilla, The Raw Story, Prairie Weather, The Right Scoop and The Lonely Conservative
May We Never Forget
Please note: I was planning doing a special video this year. But Youtube is now imposing a 15 minute limit on videos. So, I scrapped the idea. Also too, I think my words would simply get in the way. Just remember, and never forget.
You remember a few days ago, when I said I did not want to really do anything special on 9/11; because of the politicization of 9/11 by the left and the right?
Well, here’s an example of what I am a talking about…..from the left.
This is from the AFL-CIO website and this is the AFL-CIO’s President —
Sept. 11, 2011: A Day to Commit to Activism
A Message from AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka
All of us will remember the horror and anguish we experienced 10 years ago. Whether we lost loved ones ourselves—family members, union brothers and sisters—or felt the shock of a society that lost nearly 3,000 people and was forever changed, we need no reminding.
Instead, I would like to reflect on doors that were opened on Sept. 11, 2001, and what has come of them in the 10 years since.
Working men and women rushed through doors to danger and became America’s everyday heroes. Firefighters, construction workers, nurses and EMTs—all kinds of professionals and volunteers—were there not just on the fateful day but some for weeks and months and even years after. And we swore we would never forget.
Doors opened within us to each other. We came together. We flew the flag. We comforted one another. In our grief, we found the best in ourselves.
What an overwhelming sense of unity we shared, all across our nation. And it was this unity that allowed us to begin healing and rebuilding. There is no time in my memory of a more proud example of what we can accomplish when we work together. Solidarity, the cornerstone of the union movement, flowed through all of us and carried us through.
But other doors opened, too—doors to hate, suspicion of “others” and self-centered greed. Our fear was twisted into something much more dangerous.
The unity that had helped us survive faded as divisiveness took root. I look around today in amazement at just how far apart our nation has become—the endless possibilities that came with our unity have all but vanished.
Just 10 years after 9/11, despite our vows, the public servants, construction workers and others who lost their lives or still suffer with the cancerous remnants of the Twin Towers haven’t just been forgotten. They’ve been vilified. The extremist small government posse has turned them into public enemy No. 1, as though teachers and firefighters, EMTs and nurses and union construction workers ruined America’s economy.
In state after state this year—with the heroism of 9/11 less than a decade behind us—politicians targeted the paychecks, benefits and basic rights of these workers in a rabid campaign to shift government support to tax breaks for the wealthy and already profitable corporations.
Wealthy CEOs, anti-government extremist front groups and frothing talk show hosts—from the Rush Limbaughs and Glenn Becks to the Koch brothers, Karl Rove’s American Crossroads group, Americans for Prosperity, the Club for Growth, FreedomWorks and the American Legislative Exchange Council—also pushed open the door to hate.
Make no mistake—setting workers against workers is a highly profitable endeavor. How many times during the vilest state attacks on public workers did we hear the question: “Other people don’t have pensions. Why should he?” Prompting that question required twisting the American psyche—which, by its founding nature, seeks to lift the common good. The appropriate question should have been, “Why doesn’t everybody have a pension?” followed by collective action for retirement security.
We’ve seen the costs of hatred in ill-thought wars, in shameful attacks on immigrants and our LGBT neighbors. We saw it in the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. We saw it in the racism that has found overt and covert expression since Barack Obama began his run for office—from outright declarations of people who said out loud they would never vote for a black man to the ridiculously persistent obsession with our president’s birth certificate. Regardless of his policies or priorities, President Obama is shadowed by the drumbeat of suspicion based on his “other”-ness. And those suspicions are fed and watered constantly by forces that were threatened by his message of “hope and change.”
We’ve seen the cost of greed in the recklessness of financial institutions that created the greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression and the devastating jobs crisis that persists today.
But I remember that other door that opened on 9/11—the door to our better selves, to our understanding that we are one and our values require us to care for one another.
That’s what sent 347 firefighters to their death at the Twin Towers 10 years ago. It’s also what sent firefighters to stand with teachers in Wisconsin even though Gov. Scott Walker had exempted them from his attack on public employees. It’s what moves employed people now to demand good jobs for the 26 million Americans who are looking for work. It’s what gives us the courage to take on a crumbling economy and the politicians preaching austerity and ignoring our jobs crisis—to take them on and say, “We are America. We are better than this. And we are one.”
Brothers and sisters, friends, I hope you will join me in marking this solemn anniversary by committing to redouble your activism on behalf of America’s everyday working heroes. We will rise or fall together.
If I were a relative of a 9/11 victim — I would be wanted to this self-centered asshole’s head on a platter. 😡
I saw this one the other day and because it was late in the evening I did not write about it.
So, here we go.
There are some in the Anti-Jihadi Movement that are going soft. Debbie Schlussel is not one of these people, she has, even to the point of going after some of her own people; has always held an uncompromising stance on terrorism — even before 9/11.
A few days ago, Debbie Schlussel did an awesome piece on the 10’th anniversary of 9/11 and how the liberal media is trying to White Wash the event and yes, as always Ms. Schlussel does tell it like it is and I that is why I respect the hell out of her.
The proper task of the “public intellectual” might be conceived as the responsibility to introduce complexity into the argument: the reminder that things are very infrequently as simple as they can be made to seem. But what I learned in a highly indelible manner from the events and arguments of September 2001 was this: Never, ever ignore the obvious either. To the government and most of the people of the United States, it seemed that the country on 9/11 had been attacked in a particularly odious way (air piracy used to maximize civilian casualties) by a particularly odious group (a secretive and homicidal gang: part multinational corporation, part crime family) that was sworn to a medieval cult of death, a racist hatred of Jews, a religious frenzy against Hindus, Christians, Shia Muslims, and “unbelievers,” and the restoration of a long-vanished and despotic empire.
To me, this remains the main point about al-Qaida and its surrogates. I do not believe, by stipulating it as the main point, that I try to oversimplify matters. I feel no need to show off or to think of something novel to say. Moreover, many of the attempts to introduce “complexity” into the picture strike me as half-baked obfuscations or distractions. These range from the irredeemably paranoid and contemptible efforts[MN1] to pin responsibility for the attacks onto the Bush administration or the Jews, to the sometimes wearisome but not necessarily untrue insistence that Islamic peoples have suffered oppression. (Even when formally true, the latter must simply not be used as nonsequitur special pleading for the use of random violence by self-appointed Muslims.)
Underlying these and other attempts to change the subject there was, and still is, a perverse desire to say that the 9/11 atrocities were in some way deserved, or made historically more explicable, by the many crimes of past American foreign policy. Either that, or—to recall the contemporary comments of the “Reverends” Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson—a punishment from heaven for American sinfulness. (The two ways of thinking, one of them ostensibly “left” and the other “right,” are in fact more or less identical.) That this was an assault upon our society, whatever its ostensible capitalist and militarist “targets,” was again thought too obvious a point for a clever person to make. It became increasingly obvious, though, with every successive nihilistic attack on London, Madrid, Istanbul, Baghdad, and Bali. There was always some “intellectual,” however, to argue in each case that the policy of Tony Blair, or George Bush, or the Spanish government, was the “root cause” of the broad-daylight slaughter of civilians. Responsibility, somehow, never lay squarely with the perpetrators.
I very, very, very highly recommend you to head on over and read this article. I do not know if
Others: normblog