They really did a beautiful job with this monument. It's visually stunning in a city that rarely rises much past bleak. Thoughtful and simple, it memorializes the victims with barely a mention of the zealot who caused those deaths. Something really striking occurred to me about Timothy McVeigh and April 19, 1995. I remember the time vividly as my company, UUNET Technologies, was to go public the next month, and I might end up with a dollar or two.
After the attack, there was much discussion about which particular Islamic group or what particular Muslim fanatics could have done this?
Oddly enough, it turned out that the terrorist was a white, Christian, conservative, native born, US Army veteran male. Here's where I thought it got interesting. On 9/11, 19 idiots (mostly from Saudi Arabia and none from Iraq, nor with any connection to Iraq) came here and killed 2974 people. That's a kill rate of almost 157 people per terrorist. McVeigh killed 168.
So we can conclude that the deadliest terrorist attack on US soil per capita was carried out by a native-born, white, conservative, Christian, combat-tested male US Army veteran. I'm obviously not saying there's something wrong with all native-born, white, conservative, Christian, combat-tested male US Army veterans. I'm just saying be careful about the idea that we can profile by type because obviously not all terrorists reflect the outlook of those in other ways similar to them.
3 comments:
Not to beat a dead horse into the ground, but yeah.
Our culture is trapped. The general American-media-fed public listens and believes what it hears on TV and in church, whether it be good or bad. Our critical thinking is being segregated to universities and looked upon with scorn by "true patriots".(not to a true soldiers fault, as they are beaten to submission, then raised up as a soldier, no questions asked.)
Our soldiers are suffering from Post traumatic Syndrome.Our young men are sent away, ideal and caring, they return from hell wary and skeptical, bitter, and hardened by choices made for them.
But that's the military. And they are running the country. And it's sad.
Military-Scientific-Industrial-Complex.
Carla and I were lamenting last night, how for a few months after the world trade center fell, we were united as a country and with the world in a way we never had been before.
What the hell happened?
Is money that important?
Is military space that important?
Am I a beneficiary of all this fighting?
If so, what do I do?
Oy Ve.
Man that was a tangent.
But I guess our eyes, or our view is fragmented, and covers an incredible amount of ground. Too much. Too much.
We're a fast society headed for collision.
I see in that post the phenomenon that causes us to condemn individually someone from "our group" who does something bad, but then condemn as a representative member of their group when someone not from our group does somehting bad.
Over and over we here the ethnicity or religion of perps when it is not the ethnicity of the speaker.
The saddest part is that these then become self justifying, as we conveniently forget the incidences that don't fit our matrix, and remember those that do. I used to think that was a purposeful memory separation, but now am pretty convinced that people believe sincerely their bigotry based on this circular logic.
And, not to be an apologist for wasps doing it, it isn't only wasps. I see it in every group...we humans really are so similar and so very much alike that we also share the same thnocentric weaknesses.
But it has to be shown for what it is: wrong!
For instance, Christians must be helped to see that it wasn't the 19 idiot's religion that caused them to do what they did on 9/11. AND that their motives, which were confused and mingled with their cultural religious backgrounds, were so very similar to the actions of Christian idiots throughout churh history...especially towards Muslims.
Actually, Tim McVey's brother in law was yosef padilla - a name which should sound familiar to you, since that family has long been known to be involved in terrorism. This wasn't a "christian white boy" acting - it was in fact muslims taking advantage of an ignorant christian white boy.
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