It seems to be necessary to start any comment on the Attack which does not call for mindless, savage vengeance with a paragraph or two explicitly professing one's grief, horror, anger, revulsion and so forth. I'm wondering if this sort of thing could be reduced to a formula and then symbolized in a few characters at the head of the message. It would save a lot of time. I know it's necessary in Limbaugh country, just like Arab-looking types had better wag the flag, but it's kind of odd to feel it in the rarified atmosphere of lbo-talk.
Just for the record, I work three buildings (not blocks, buildings) over from the World Trade Center and smell it every day as I'm threading my way through checkpoints on the way to work. If I had been on time for work on September 11th, I might well have been killed in the attack; instead I went home and lay around in anxiety and grief for days, since I was not allowed to go back to work or even help dig up the rubble. I'm still confused; I think the opportunity for my kind of politics has now passed away with very little accomplished. If I knew for sure who the perpetrators were, and they were still alive, and I could do it without harming anyone else, I'd kill them, probably in an unpleasant manner. But I don't, and I can't, and won't, and neither can or will any of you. In any case, any possible killing will soon be taken care of by professionals who care not at all what we think.
I hope proper _bona_fides_ have been established. I don't think any of it matters in discussing the situation, but a fashion for adhominization seems to be full swing and I thought I'd better check in.
-- Gordon