I very much appreciate certified non-moonbat Jay saying what I'd say about Patrick's remarks on 9/11. I'll summarize: “Yawn.”
To add a little bit to this: What leads people to anger against Patrick for his vague and benign musings on the nature of hatred and evil? Call it what it is: Political correctness. Picture a dodgeball game, in which kids keep to the walls, away from the middle of the field where the fray is. In a dynamic of political controversy, one finds safety only on one extreme, so as to certify one's bona fides with the “right” position.
I was in college in the heyday of leftist political correctness. For instance, in cases of alleged sexual harassment or assault, the politically correct position was to “Always believe the victim” — regardless of evidence, due process, or other hallmarks of liberal justice. To state otherwise was to risk accusation of misogyny and to be ostracized.
Similarly, our civic culture now enforces a political correctness around what can be said openly about terrorism: A public figure is only allowed to fulminate on the totally exceptional viciousness of terrorism. It is not permitted to wonder publicly where such viciousness comes from; to ponder the nature of evil in the human heart; to wonder if it really is that exceptional, or if it's more banal. The only possible public expression is “kill the enemy.” Any other reflection, however abstract, — even that which does not directly conflict with “kill the enemy” — somehow is construed to indicate sympathy with murderers.
That's plainly false, and anyone who would read that into Patrick's comments is just groping for a political brickbat. The 9/11 attackers failed to divide Americans against each other; sadly, that has been a self-inflicted wound. It's long past time to reflect on how that trauma has affected our own political discourse, and our ability to reason with one another as Americans.
in front of the victims families is abhorrent. All the spin in the world isn't going to change that and you know it Charley. But with all due respect to LaVar Burton, “you don't have to take my word for it”.
To find out what the victims of 9/11 didn’t understand about the terrorists that might have prevented the attack, I turned to Debra Burlingame. Her brother, Chic, was the pilot of American Airlines Flight 77 – the plane that hit the Pentagon.
When I first read Debra the governor’s remarks over the phone, her reaction was astonished silence. “Can you read that again please?”
I did. More silence.
“Did he have the audacity to say that in front of grieving 9/11 family members?” she asked, somewhat astonished.
“Well, I’m glad I didn’t have to listen to that on 9/11,” she said in a measured tone, trying unsuccessfully to conceal her anger. “I would have found it extremely insulting to the memory of my brother.”
“Did he really say ‘mean and nasty?’ ” she wanted to know. “At Ground Zero, they’ve recovered 21,000 body parts and still counting. That’s not mean and nasty, that’s an atrocity.”
Debra wasn’t happy with the governor’s suggestion that 9/11 was born of the failure of mutual understanding between the victims and their killers, but she understood it. She called is a form of moral vanity.
“It appeals to one’s sense of vanity to think we’re better than these people because we’re nicer than they are. Liberals like this think ‘I’m not judgmental, so that makes me superior,’ ” Debra said.
Here's why:
For people that purport to be so politically correct, how do you justify likening Deval Patrick to the Christianity's savior? This is just wrong. You don't pull shit with Muslims, but it's open season when it comes to Christianity. Please.
Jesus was being ironic when he said, “Bless those who curse you.”
You can’t expect Christians to reign in their emotions and follow Jesus’ lessons.
And tossed the moneychangers out of the temple for defiling his Father's house. He stood up to the Pharisees and called them on their semantic games. He had no problem making people uncomfortable with his parables against hypocrisy and greed. Please – don't preach to me. I found the comment likening Deval to Christ offensive…but evidently “it's all good” with you folks.
And honestly, God forbid one shows parallels of Jesus’s message of love with any modern day figure. I mean, Jesus H. Christ Almighty! And didn’t the Gospel of Matthew and Luke have Jesus saying something like “He who smites you on your right cheek, turn to him the other”? So even if it is wrong to compare Deval and Jesus (it’s not), shouldn’t you be turning the other cheek and loving they enemy and stuff?
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Purple Rain, Purple Rain…
Really, you guys crack me up. You look at the life of Christ through a straw and then wonder why the rest of us don't buy your BS? Christ did, in fact, get angry. He was disgusted by hypocrisy probably more than anything. Your willingness to shove scripture in our face as a justification to treat the Christian faith as a convenient doormat for political hyperbole while allowing the whitewash of another faith by calling their atrocities (the murder of 3000 non-military people) a “failure of human understanding”s just….unstinkingbelievable. God bless you and your audaciousness.
Can you please elaborate on how the 9/11 terrorist attacks were the atricities of another faith? Did the “faith” commit the attacks?
the atrocities on 9/11? Osama Bin Laden issued a fatwah to kill all Americans in 1998. Here's a definition of a fatwa:
A fatw? (Arabic: ????; plural fat?w? Arabic: ?????), is a considered opinion in Islam made by a mufti, a scholar capable of issuing judgments on Sharia (Islamic law). Usually a fatwa is issued at the request of an individual or a judge to settle a question where fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) is unclear.
It sure seems like faith is at least partly driving this train.
that terrorists were motivated by their interpretation of Islam. Like the Ku Klux Klan's interpretation of Christianity, it is a marginal one. (How marginal is a reasonable topic of discussion.)
Bin Laden is not a mufti, to my knowledge, so him issuing a “fatwa” was not considered legitimate.
As if it needs to be said, most Muslims find terrorism abhorrent.
BTW — none of your links work.
No one argues that the terrorists “were not” motivated by their interpretation of Islam.
Serves me right for writing a double negative.
…is like saying Fred Phelps, Jerry Falwell, and home-grown Christian terrorists represent the Christian faith. To take a narrow view of Islam requires the same standard be applied to Christianity and all other faiths. Therefore, your argument says that all faiths must be judged by it’s worst, most hate-dreanched examples.
I didn’t shove anything in your face. I didn’t ask you to come here. You chose to read my comment.
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Are you equally outraged at the 400,000 murders of non-military people in Iraq, or just the Americans of 9/11? What about the innocent people tortured and imprisoned because of Bush’s War of terror. They surely don’t deserve their brutal treatment because of the actions of bin Laden, 20 hijackers and Saddam Hussein.
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9/11 pisses me off, but if you’re going to contextualize the murder of 3,000 non-military personal on 9/11 you have to admit that America has targeted and intentionally murdered more civilians during war time over the last 100 years than American civilians who have been killed because of enemy attacks.
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It’s interesting you choose Christ’s one example of getting angry verses the hundreds of other examples of love and kindness he is known for. Sure, he got angry at the money changers, but that was in the temple, the house of God. He also needed to do something to provoke his arrest, he needed to get angry in the temple. No arrest, no conviction – no conviction, no crucifixion – no crucifixion, no resurrection.
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Jesus is only shown angry once and it was necessary plot point to the Christ story line.
I'm a lifelong Democrat and Christian. What I object to is the Christ metaphor and visualization with Deval…because apart from the fact that it's offensive, let's face it, you and your fellow BMGers wouldn't dare pull this with another faith. Christianity is fair game for ridicule, because we're not going to be issuing fatwahs, are we? The purpose of pointing out that Christ did get angry was to shrug off the nonsense about “turning the other cheek.” Even Reinhold Neihbur holds that the modern Christian can't always turn the other cheek on a political stage. I learned that at the Divinity School at Harvard back in the 90s. Your simplistic reading of the Christian faith can help you score meaningless points on BMG but it doesn't make it accurate.
As a matter of fact, I am equally outraged by the deaths of the thousands of innocents in Iraq. I loathe what this country has done in the name of oil and power in the Middle East. I find our president to be a bumbling and simplistic boob, aided and abetted by a lazy and complacent congress.
The more than 3000 who were killed on September 11 were civilians. They were innocents who did not deserve their fates. I cannot be insensitive to our own people who have lost their loved ones on that horrible day. Pieces of bone of a Massachusetts woman were recently found; I can't imagine telling her family that 9/11 was a “failure of human understanding” when in fact it was an atrocity.
That's where you and the others trip up: Those two are not mutually exclusive. That was part of my point.
The latter usually follows from the former.
because while those two points aren't mutually exclusive – the latter remained unsaid and unaknowledged in front of hundreds of firefighters and their families. All I've been trying to point out was Deval's failure to acknowledge the obvious sensibilities of this audience. Clearly, watering down 9/11 to “a failure of human understanding” works on BMG. It did not “work” for his audience outside the state house on September 11. Centrist Dad was right – the guy has a tin ear. “Know the Audience” is a cardinal rule of show business, Charley – and the rule applies to politicians.
I'm not usually a spelling pedant, but I was a religion major: It's Niebuhr. And I cannot imagine Niebuhr endorsing our hysterical and bloodthirsty response to 9/11.
Furthermore, I think the comment was a riff on the trope, “What would Jesus do?” I suppose you can take the headline as disrespectful to Christianity, but in its upshot, I found it to be quite the opposite — saying that Patrick has chosen to be like Christ, and that's precisely why conservatives are attacking him.
On the other hand, politicians and politico-religious hucksters commonly turn Christ into their personal Charlie McCarthy's, which always struck me as fantastically blasphemous and hypocritical.
…Americans have trouble with Germanic diphthongs. I’ve been amused at the number of ways the name–what is it–the names Neal, Neil, Niel are spelled, all pronounced the same way auf Englisch.
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On the theme of your comment
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On the other hand, politicians and politico-religious hucksters commonly turn Christ into their personal Charlie McCarthy’s…
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well of course. They try to use theological constructs to support their own particular prejudices. But religion in America is an retail industry: they don’t get adherents unless they can pray (prey) on the prejudices of the people that might be attracted to their individual churches. That is the problem in the USofA.
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It would be amusing to watch the different denominations and mega-churches flailing around if it wasn’t so sad.
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I will give you another of my many little stories. My mother, in the 1960s watched Billy Graham’s crusades on TV. Billy was certainly not an evil man, indeed, he was relatively moderate–love, this that and the other. His successors, particularly his son Franklin, has turned into a monster. And that, unfortunately, is the face of christianity today.
“Dearly beloved
We are gathered here today
2 get through this thing called life
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Electric word life
It means forever and that’s a mighty long time
But I’m here 2 tell u
There’s something else
The afterworld
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A world of never ending happiness
U can always see the sun, day or night
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So when u call up that shrink in Beverly Hills
U know the one – Dr Everything’ll Be Alright
Instead of asking him how much of your time is left
Ask him how much of your mind, baby
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‘Cuz in this life
Things are much harder than in the afterworld
In this life
You’re on your own”
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http://www.guba.com/…
…and I can make light of any religion I want because I have a note from my Imam.
It reads:
Dear Mr Kotter:
Please excuse Banned for making light of religion. He has been troubled ever since he was exfoliated from the universalist church.
Signed,
Banned's Imam.
It sounds like Debra is more outraged at Deval being one of those liberals than what he actually said.
Honestly people, piss off.
That Jon Keller examines in his book. It is the exact attitude why people from across the country look at Massachusetts with a jaundiced eye.
Patrick had every right to say what he did. In any other setting besides a commemoration of 9/11 it would have not been as bad. To say what he said in front of families, many of whom never buried their dead is unconsionable and abhorrent.
And how Deval’s remark is unconscionable or abhorrent has yet to be explained.
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There is plenty of unconscionable and abhorrent speech coming from the right (and your blog) but you never take the time to address those instances. I find it curious you don’t find the lies of the administration about pre-war intelligence or the false claim of al-Qaeda in Iraq, the cover up of surrounding Pat Tillman’s death, the fabrication of the myth surrounding Jessica Lync’s supposed heroics, the propagation of the al-Qaeda in Iraq myth, the perjury (and everything else) of Alberto Gonzales, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, abhorent.
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Frankly, your credibility for deciding what qualifies as abhorrent speech is nil based on your silence regarding dozens of other abhorrent speech acts emanating from your party and your blog.
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tblade brings up a very good point..
And how Deval's remark is unconscionable or abhorrent has yet to be explained. I could only see that one might be mad because they're not strong enough and don't reflect the anger that families of voctims feel. But I don't believe that makes them unconscionable or abhorrent.
Stay on the topic TBlade (this isn't about Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch)
you have to get mean.”
Quick, everyone, let's find a bag of wrenches and learn to play dodgeball.
Seriously, this violent temperment in America scares me. Saying anything less than “let's kill the terrorists,” is suddenly appeasing them. Yikes.
I think I understand what he was going for, and it isn't all that bad.
But, jiminy Christmas, phrasing it how he did on that day and in front of those people displayed an impressive political tin ear. For all of his grassroots this and grassroots that, from the Cadillac and drapes onward, I am beginning to conclude that DP is a well-intentioned but naive and unskilled politician.
thats been his reputation, a naive and unskilled politician, and no one's going to exploit that more than good ol' Sal DiMasi
So Deval says something other than mindless fulmination and the right wing reacts virulently.
These people had better not read Shakespeare, or any other great literature for that matter – they won't find the one-dimensional characterization of evil that they demand.
Meanwhile the policies of their heroes, the Bush administration, have created far more new terrorists than we can ever hope to capture or kill. This has been obvious for a long time, but was made clear by the recent intelligence estimate that Al Qaeda has reconstituted and is stronger than ever.
…and exactly what did the Governor say that wasn't true? This is so much ado about nothing.
…in a late summer’s night dream.
is that is was “just” a “failure of human understanding.” It was a G.D. atrocity committed against civilians. I'm not sure how you've missed that….but more than 3000 non-military civilians were murdered that day. This is another case of “if you're not hungry” then no one else is.
Who are you accusing of “having missed” the atrocity of 9/11? On what basis can you make such an outrageous statement?
I don't think any of us “missed it.” Trying to understand why people do evil acts is NOT the same as excusing such acts – rather it is the the most effective way of preventing such atrocities in the future.
Deval’s actual words were “But it was also about the failure of human beings to understand each other, and to learn to love each other,” not “But it was just a failure of human beings….”
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(Emphasis mine, naturally.)
You’re the one bringing the word “just” to the party. Patrick never said it was “just” “a failure of human understanding”.
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He said, “among many other things, 9/11 was a failure of human understanding.” (Emphasis mine.)
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Is this not true? Do you think both sides understand each other perfectly? If you can say with a straight face that there is no lack of understanding between the two sides, then I’ll side with you.
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(Hint: The terrorists certainly do not understand us. And surprise, surprise, most of us do not understand them.)
said it was a “failure of understanding” that is not true. 9/11 was the calculated attack on American soil of radical islamic fundamentalists, islamofascists if you will. They are hell bent on destroying western civilization so that they can install a worldwide Caliphate and subjugate all the people of the world to Sharia. That is what 9/11 is about. Not the failure of people to undertand each other.
That is what he said that is false. In your mealy mouthed world of moral relativism you see nothing wrong with his words, naturally. But to the rest of the country that isn't as “enlightened as you folk” his words are asinine, abhorrent, and dare I say are playing to riotous laughter in caves in the Hindu Kush.
His statement did not exclude your hypothesis. Why make this out to be a binary that just isn’t there?
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Not one person here can sum up the motive of 9/11 accurately in a comment or a post. There is no simple answer and it takes pages if not books to extrapolate the real reasons for 9/11.
Is that all you've got. Deval Patrick equated the Terrorist Atatcks of 9/11 with a misunderstanding. you can't gloss it over with among other things.
From your post above you’ve just demonstrated that you understand the terrorists about as well as they understand us — which is to say not well at all. We’re not talking about some superficial understanding of political beliefs, but rather a deeper understanding of who we are as fellow human beings. As sabutai posted elsewhere, the alternative you suggest “Is to say that al-Qaeda understands us perfectly, and legitimately decided that their action was appropriate. In other words[…] that the terrorists were right.”
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The simple fact of the matter, again, is that human beings who recognize their common humanity will not — indeed cannot — commit acts of violence against other human beings. It is only when this understanding breaks down — when we fail to recognize our common desires and fears — that it is possible to intentionally harm another human being. And while such failure is far too common, it is far from inevitable.
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Finally, I would suggest that to truly understand others, we must first come to understand ourselves — what our own most basic desires and fears are, and how those desires and fears shape our intentions and our actions. In doing so we can gain insight into the desires, fears, actions, and intentions of others — in other words achieve genuine love and understanding.
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… don’t live in the fantasy world of interjecting context that just isn’t there into Patrick’s speech..
A steady diet of graphic novels comic books for them!
You make a great point.
I stood in the rain while the memorial to fallen firefighters was dedicated and I heard Mr. Patrick speak. I was actually taken aback by his words, not because they were offensive but more like in the words of Mark Twain – the difference between a lightning bug and a bolt of lightning. His words were weak and inadequate to describe the atrocities in NY that terible, terrible day. It was like calling the Atlantic Ocean a “puddle.” I think there were a lot of people who felt the same way, because there were people talking about it afterwards.
I think CentristDad captured the issue perfectly. Deval does have a tin ear. The audience was mainly firefighters and their families, along with a few politicians. Boston just buried two good jakes two weeks ago. This is going to be a very sensitive crowd, especially on the anniversary of September 11, when 343 firefighters lost their lives trying to save whomever they could reach.
It was only six years ago and many are still grieving. My family considers ourselves blessed; while many of my cousins are NYC firefighters and cops, only one was injured permanently. At the very least, Mr. Patrick should have acknowledge that what happened was a terrorist action and an atrocity. These were our people, and to gloss over it as a failure of human understanding seems so very weak to me.
I wasn’t there, but heard excerpts from the speech on the 11 o’clock news. I heard him describe 9/11 as “mean and nasty” and thought about a kindergarten teacher scolding a kid who’d just done something that wasn’t nice.
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Patrick’s a decent speaker, but whoever wrote his campaign speeches isn’t working for him now.
Republicans would be smart to avoid any phrasing that includes 9/11 and kindergarten teachers…
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PS: Calling a student “mean and nasty” gets you a phone call, administrator chat, and these days possibly a DOE audit or lawsuit.
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PPS: The guy who wrote Deval’s stuff is now working for Obama, as we all know.
“Reading makes a country great”. So ironic it hurts. If people would just pick up a decent news source and read, we wouldn’t have as many people buying the “we are fighting the [less than 5,000 members of] al-Qaeda [in Iraq] over there so we don’t have to fight them over here”, crap.
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http://www.slate.com…
But at least he hires someone who is.
Deval had an open net on this shot, and all the time in the world to prepare for it.
Either he wasn't up to the task or he just didn't care.
This is what you're reduced to? Our presidential speechwriters are better than your rookie governor's?
In any case, it is true that Bush hired better writers — David Frum and Michael Gerson. Just as Patrick had Axelrod. They've all moved on — Axelrod has moved up, and Frum and Gerson out. Bush hasn't said anything memorable for years.
..and you know it.
My point was that a guy who was elected Governor because he had a nice suit and an easy smile couldn't muster enough common sense or writing skill to pen an address that was appropriate for the occasion.
Appropriate: Having the quality of satisfying whining conservatives who'll never be satisfied.
Straight from the training manual: When you have no cogent defense for your pol's pathetically inadequate effort, attack his critics.
And for the record, I'm not in high dudgeon, nor am I whining over Patrick having choked miserably – I'm laughing at him.
So you think that the families of 9/11 were insulted, and you're lauhging that it happened? I don't expect much truth from conservatives, but could they at least keep their lies straight?
While the 2001 Bush looks as lost and over-his-head as the 2007 one does, I don't see the sneering cruelty in that photo that it is forever present on his face these days.
I hear the criticism that “mean, nasty and bitter” is mild language to describe what it was. That makes sense to me. (I would have said “barbaric”, “brutal”, “nihilistic”, and so forth.) In and of itself as an issue, though, that lasts about 2 minutes, and then we all forget about it.
What makes no sense is the flat-out hysteria that this language has caused among some, and the idea that this is an opportunity to beat up Patrick as some kind of unfeeling un-patriot, worthy of letters and phone calls to keep this non-issue alive. As Adam seems to ask — is there nothing else to talk about?
There are the usual suspects who would be hysterical no matter what Deval Patrick said. But I still wouldn't characterize Mr. Patrick's latest faux pas as a “yawn.” It's not a “non-issue” – it's another example of his tin ear. He screwed up, Charley – as much as you hate to admit it. Calling 9/11 a “failure of human understanding” is a failure of his own understanding of the event. It's only been six years and people are still grieving. Any one that fails to understand that…is having their own failure of human understanding.
Do you think it's because there are people who will not allow the wounds to close, constantly popping open those stitches again and again with rhetoric of fear and hate and the dire, burning need to totally eviscerate the “enemy”, regardless of weather the people dying actually mean us any harm?
Populations have healed from much worse much quicker than what we are seeing today. Do ya think maybe it's because the US population is kept in a state of post traumatic stress for the purpose of political expediency?
Dammit, if I wasn't so busy making fun of the current political climate, I just might get really pissed off.
And what other populations have bounced back quicker? Are you kidding? I can't wait to see the list. The murder of innocents is what we're talking about. Which populations have bounced back.
and I can't come up with a list of populations that “bounced back” after a slaughter of innocents. Hmmmmm. The Irish Catholics-Protestant slaughter? Nope. That went on for decades. Armenian genocide by the Turks? Nope, it's been a century. WWII Nazi leaders are still being hunted down. Still working on this. Korean comfort women are still looking for justice from the Japanese. Hmmmm. Survivors of Pearl Harbor showed up with their grief intact on the History Channel. Palestinians are still looking for justice over the 1948 land partition with Israel – and they're still killing each other over it. I can't think of one example in human history where “populations have bounced back” quicker.
I think I'm going to need that list, Banned. I don't care how many “3s” your buddies give me.
by trying to turn this into a sociological discussion about patterns of grief in various societies throughout history.
My point is that OUR society is done a major disservice by politicians who use the image of the attack to perpetuate war, fear, and division among ourselves and throughout the world.
What was the death toll of the Catholic/Protestant feud, or the Armenian genocide?
That's our problem — we have absolutely no sense of scale or history. We've displaced some 4 million Iraqis; potentially hundreds of thousands of civilians dead; and we still think 9/11 is so damn exceptional. Traumatic and barbaric, yes; exceptional? Only in our own history. Dead is dead.
BTW, I don't expect the families of victims of 9/11 to *ever* “get over it.” Can't be done. But we has a society simply must “bounce back,” by affirming the things that make America truly great: Constitutional freedoms; the rule of law; democracy; civilization; opportunity, and so on. We've got to earn our exceptional status.
So how high does the body count have to be, Charley, before the slaughter of innocents is exceptional? That number starts at one with me.
I chose the Troubles for a reason. The body count of the Troubles started with the slaying of 13 unarmed men, half of which were under 18 on Bloody Sunday. Perhaps this would be defined as “unexceptional” by your yardstick – except that these slayings led to thousands more. In five short years after Bloody Sunday, the death toll was 1000, many of whom were civilians. In the absence of fairness and justice – the killings kept on piling up, each side goading the other with fresh new rounds of violence. It was a vicious circle that took decades to overcome.
I don't think I can find any justification for killing innocent people, Charley. The people who were slaughtered on September 11 had nothing to do with the meddling of the US in the Middle East. They were our people; our family, friends and neighbors who chose to get on a plane, go to work, visit family, etc. They deserve to be remembered and respected. This is not an American fixation; most cultures don't just “get over it,” which is why I had asked Banned for the list “populations that have bounced back in less time.” Historicals facts show that many cultures commemorate their dead, sometimes for generations afterwards. You can be certain that the “populations” in the Middle East haven't gotten over the Crusaders, and that was hundreds of years ago. Locally, our friends in Lexington still commemorate the slaughter on Lexington Green more than 200 years ago.
I'm glad that you recognize that the families of the victims won't get over it. They won't. That kind of sensibility would have been welcomed at the dedication of the firefighter's memorial last Tuesday.
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As I’ve noted below, I actually find this to be a particularly astute understanding of the event. What else could it be?
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Call it a trauma, call it an atrocity, call it a tragedy (a word which DP actually used, btw) — each represents a failure of human understanding.
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And yes, people are still grieving and trying to move forward from the trauma of 9/11… on this point DP seems to have been perfectly clear. And it is an essential part of the healing process to open ourselves to our common humanity.
Is to say that al-Qaeda understands us perfectly, and legitimately decided that their action was appropriate. In other words, the definition the fainting conservatives are pushing is that the terrorists were right.
I read the quote from the remarks on Tuesday, and was glad to read what seemed like sincere and relective thoughts on the events, though only saw the couple lines quoted. Though I’m away from regular media at this point, it is amazing the controversy and i've been trying to understand this. Reading it now, I found some angry blog with a transcript, including the supposedly controversal remarks:
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I don’t know how anyone other than out-of-their-mind 9/11 conpiracy theorists can disagree with that: the events of September 11th were a catastrophic failure of human understanding and compassion. they were violent acts carried out by desperate and deluded people.
If this is what the right is bitching about, piss off.
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Jeez, the guy qualifies his statement with “among many other things”; it’s not as if you can’t interpolate one’s own outrage into Patrick’s thought.
cultural misunderstandings that certainly exist between americans and middle easterners with what Bin Laden and his thugs did on 9/11. Bin Laden is steeped in western culture, he's a harvard man. He's not confused. He's a megalomaniac. Was the Oklahoma bomber confused? I am really disappointed. Further, we may not learn to all love eachother. Better we just learn to co-exist.
“You don’t have to like anyone, but you must love everyone.”
The point is not whether bin Laden or the 9/11 terrorists had some superficial understanding American culture; it’s whether they — or any of us, really — truly has a deeper understanding of our common humanity. Only through such deep understanding — which is indistinguishable from love — can we do our part to prevent atrocities like 9/11 from happening over and over again.
It is clear that the 9/11 terrorists lacked this deeper love and understanding, otherwise it would have been impossible for them to carry out the attacks. It is simply not possible for people who genuinely understand and love each other to deliberately hurt one another.
Is whether we ourselves have that capacity for deep love and deep understanding as we try to move forward from the trauma and tragedy that was 9/11.
Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols, did they just lack “deeper love and understanding”?
Is an act of violence an act of love?
Deval never said it was “just” a failure of human understanding, he said “among many other things, 9/11 was a failure of human understanding.”
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There is not outrage to be manufactured here.
That's how I read his comments. I apologize for the misread, but I certainly wasn't manufacturing outrage.
Deval’s statement was clear and devoid of anything controversial.
I was talking about what Tim:”It is clear that the 9/11 terrorists lacked this deeper love and understanding, otherwise it would have been impossible for them to carry out the attacks.” I don't agree with this statement.
As I said above, there is certainly misunderstanding between the cultures, but Bin Laden understood western culture.
You misunderstand what “understanding” means.
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To reiterate, we’re not talking about a superficial cultural understanding, we’re talking about a deeper understanding — or recognition if you will — of our common humanity.
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If one has this deeper level of understanding/love, it is impossible to commit acts of violence.
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Do you disagree? If so, please state your case.
here? I think I made a perfectly valid point, even if one doesn't agree with it, and my comments are being down rated. Please tell me if this is what I should expect from this community.
Then they rate your comment as such. You're not entitled to any particular rating just for showing up.
I believe you did not develop your post fully enough to make a well-reasonsed point, ergo it still requires work.
When did bin Laden attend Harvard? When has bin Laden ever visited the US?
However, other bin Laden family members have attended Harvard.
But Melenie says about bin Laden “he’s a Harvard man”. I’m just trying to clear up some confusion.
I just wanted to spell it out in order to avoid any confusion.
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For instance, in cases of alleged sexual harassment or assault, the politically correct position was to “Always believe the victim” — regardless of evidence, due process, or other hallmarks of liberal justice. To state otherwise was to risk accusation of misogyny and to be ostracized. Emphasis added
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…but using the term “politically correct” is your enemy.
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A dismissal such as “politically correct” do not help either side of a discussion, which is why I do not use it. Show me the evidence for an accusation, and then we can discuss it. Withhold judgement until the evidence is in.
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On the general subject of the post, it is beyond my comprehension to figure out why politicians believe it necessary that they have to give a speech at every memorial event. It becomes nothing more than a recitation of platitudes, which is embarrassing.