Skip to main content

In the Shadow of No Towers

By


It seems Americans will never let go of 911, as they have never forgotten the Iran hostage crisis on 1980.  There are any number of posts on facebook, each trying to capture a more poignant moment than the one before.  At least, the rage finally appears to have subsided.  The memorial, which opened last year on the tenth anniversary, seems to have eased some anxieties.  But, I really don't get the feeling most Americans have come to term with the horrific event, at least not in any meaningful way.

You hear the Republicans calling for even more national defense, and Muslims remain the principal target of Tea Party rants, like this one in Arizona.  Many candidates went so far as to make Sharia law a campaign issue, with more than 20 states considering anti-Sharia legislation.  I would think they would be more worried about the increased call for Biblical law.

We seem a nation riddled by our own doubts, prejudices and fears, which is what Art Spiegelman took aim at in his large format book, In the Shadow of No Towers.  Odd, when you consider the firepower we have, not to mention the economic might.  Yet, an insecurity complex persists, which I suppose is why 911 will resonate for many years to come.  We are not immune to terrorist violence, and no laws or no walls is going to make us any less vulnerable.  As Ron Paul said to a less than receptive crowd, we should live by the Golden Rule.

Comments

  1. TripplerSeptember 11, 2012 at 5:45 PM

    "live by the Golden Rule"


    So many right wingers say this is a Christian nation. If true, then they should do as Jesus demanded when he said "make peace with ALL men".

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

By
  Welcome to this month's reading group selection.  David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908.  At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades.  Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society.  I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran.  Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, not...
230 comments
Read more

Team of Rivals Reading Group

By
''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005
293 comments
Read more

The Age of Roosevelt: The Crisis of the Old Order

By
A quarter of a century, however, is time enough to dispel some of the myths that have accumulated around the crisis of the early Thirties and the emergence of the New Deal. There is, for example, the myth that world conditions rather than domestic errors and extravagances were entirely responsible for the depression. There is the myth that the depression was already over, as a consequence of the ministrations of the Hoover Administration, and that it was the loss of confidence resulting from the election of Roosevelt that gave it new life. There is the myth that the roots of what was good in the New Deal were in the Hoover Administration - that Hoover had actually inaugurated the era of government responsibility for the health of the economy and the society. There is the contrasting myth (for myths do not require inner consistency) that the New Deal was alien in origins and in philosophy; that - as Mr. Hoover put it - its philosophy was "the same philosophy of government which...
170 comments
Read more