9/12

Commentary By Ron Beasley

I observed 9/11 by not posting anything.  The constant reruns eight years later leave me feeling ill.  As Steve pointed out below the people of Iraq and Afghanistan have suffered hundreds of 9/11s at the hands of US and allied forces to fulfill the human need for revenge. And of course there is all the talk of how Bush/Cheney kept us safe after 9/11 without mentioning it happened because they took their eyes off the ball while they were dreaming of oil and let the original happen.

The best 9/11 post belongs to Alex Pareene of the Gawker.  Go read the entire thing but he closes with this about the real terrorists in the USofA.

On 9/12, people in New York (and DC) did not feel as "great" as Glenn Beck. They just felt like shit.
They felt scared and confused and depressed. Many of them were drunk.
And only an idiot or an actual terrorist would want to always feel like
it was 9/12/01. And eight years later, normal people, with brains and
souls, have decided that some emotional distance from that disaster is
healthier and wiser than trying to recapture the dread.

So thank fucking christ that the Commander in Chief is no longer subjecting the nation to death porn.

No, this year it's limited to a nutty little cult leader on basic cable who is encouraging his radicalized band of fanatical followers to invade the cities where the tragedy actually happened in order to shock the populace back into fear.

Glenn Beck is an actual terrorist, and the people attending his rally in DC tomorrow are al-Qaeda in America.

Update:

Time's James Poniewozik reacts to the terrorist Glen Beck and his 912 lynch mob.

But as someone who happened to be in New York City eight years ago
today, the implicit premise of the 9-12 Project�that those who aren't
on Beck's side must have somehow "forgotten" 9/11 and its
aftermath�ticks me off royally and personally.

I was at home in Brooklyn, holding my
six-week-old baby on the couch, when I saw the second plane crash into
the World Trade Center on TV. I watched the smoking pit of the ruins
from the roof of my apartment building as bits of memo paper and ash
drifted on the winds to my neighborhood. I was there on 9/11, and 9/12,
and 9/13. You'll excuse me if I don't feel warm nostalgia for the
lingering smell of burnt airplane fuel, and metal, and bodies.

Nor, of course, does Beck. What he purportedly wants is to bring
back our feeling of "unity." I remember that feeling. After 9/11, I
remember hardcore liberal New Yorkers rallying behind Rudy Giuliani,
saying nice things about President Bush when he spoke at the WTC ruins.
I remember thousands of American flags being flown out of apartment and
brownstone windows, not as political statements or in the
you-better-prove-your-patriotism spirit of flag pins and Freedom Fries,
but simply because we felt we Americans were all in this together.

So since March, what has Glenn Beck been doing to re-establish that
sense of nonpartisan national brotherhood? Calling President Obama a
racist, declaring that the government was bringing fascism upon us,
asking his fans to dig up dirt on political figures he doesn't like,
and predicting civil-war-like uprisings. Because that's how you bring people together.

This brings up the question - who should we really be afraid of?  Is it al-Qaeda hiding in caves in Afghanistan and western Pakistan or Glen Becks band of well armed lunatic cultists?  Who do we have to fear more - the Taliban thousands of miles away or James Dobson's Christian Taliban right here in the US?