>There were just about the same number of protestors in the
>Washington, D.C., streets that day as there were victims of the Sept.
>11 attacks. Watching that march and rally, it occurred to me how
>powerful an image could have been created if each demonstrator had
>carried an American flag and, perhaps, a black cardboard silhouette
>representing those who had perished in the attacks.
Uhuh. And what about those who weren't Americans? Can I hold up a Bangladeshi flag for all the illegals working at Windows on the World?
I don't know why the terrorists' conception of the significant identity category ("Americans") has to be ours. What about regretting their death for the same reason we regret the murder of any human being? Why reach for nationalism when you can reach for a so much nobler principle? Because the fact is that the right can always outflank the left on wrapping politics in the flag becaus the fact is that they approve of more of what has been done in the flag's name than the left does.
I also think that whatever we feel vis-a-vis wrapping oneself in the flag, some respect for other leftists who feel differently would not be amiss. Why do Eric Alterman, Marc Cooper, Hitchens et al. think attacking Noam Chomsky, unnamed peaceniks (and whoever you are, it's not like n*gg*r at all, really it isn't) and people who don't own a US flag is the most urgent issue of the day?
In the years since
>World War II, the American left has had reason to be skeptical about
>the deployment of U.S. military power. From the covert operations
>against Iranian, Guatemalan and Nicaraguan sovereignty, to the overt
>interventionism in countries from Vietnam to Santo Domingo to Panama
>to hapless Grenada, American military might has often seemed little
>more than the sulphuric expression of imperial hubris.
>
As Hitchens used to say back in the good old days, here's our old friend "seemed". Was it or wasn't it?
>Hence, that odious whiff of "chickens coming home to roost" that has
>permeated much of the left's reaction to Sept. 11.
The funny thing is that I was in BK on 9/11 and it utterly permeated the reaction of the Clinton apologists, Wall St. financiers and other not particularly leftist people I know. The same way mainstream papers like USA Today are asking questions that Hitchens ruled verboten for leftists. And it's for the same reason the right made the opening to China, and is further along the road to reconsidering the embargo on Cuba -- because the left is too afraid of being called treasonous.
>It must begin with an unequivocal acknowledgement that the
>perpetrators of Sept. 11 are in no way the avengers of some oppressed
>constituency. They were atavistic, religious fascists whose world
>view is diametrically opposed to all humanitarian and progressive
>morality.
I don't know why the two have to be in contradiction to each other. Why can't bloody-handed authoritarians be revenging oppressed constituency? Good grief, I thought that was the history of third world nationalism! (joke)
_________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp