It is possible to lament the deaths of *ALL* senseless

Post #117,394 by Ashton 9/10/03 8:56:17 PM Reply	It is possible to lament the deaths of ALL senseless Religio- Fundamentalist inspired Violence - including this recent and local one. They aimed for a Symbol; they hit one. And killed many members of their Own Fundamentalist Mindset within those towers too, an irony engaged in daily - wherever American or Other- Fundamentalists with God-Delusions gather to enforce their God-Peace upon All. >That is the Root Cause< wherever it manifests, daily. IMhO. Nor were these 20 ragged villagers, to excuse some atavistic excess via dog-level ignorance: nope, some spent last hours at a Strip Club.. (a much more refined grade of dog-ignorance, some might opine.) These were Rich Kids {too}, but on autopilot via inculcation of religion dope. I'd like to see the event {Only as you have described it..} for a second, if I could - in terms of the massive intelligence and Will which created this gigantic Symbol, needing even.. to first make a 'bathtub' strong enough to keep out the Hudson river! then apply all that Potential Energy in the erection over years - as came crashing down as Kinetic Energy, in moments. but I can't look Only at that. Why should I filter out the actual target: That which the targer Symbolized? Would that be wise, or just comfortable..? Or just: a good impetus for interminable Revenge, as a Neoconman would 'Make God-Damned Sure'? Obviously you intensely dislike the terse distillation chosen by Mike. I grok that, but: juxtaposing the Grandeur of a modern Pyramid-Symbol of Financial and World Political Power - thus all which our highly exploitive local civilization wreaks upon the rest of the planet's resources: Is Bound to Grate. Then or Now. Don't you think? Does such a simile imply a callousness towards the random lives snuffed out just as awfully as.. say, a shot from a Religio-Anti-Abortionist's sniper shot at a doctor? I suppose it seems so, and I wouldn't have chosen his exact wording, either. Or at least not without additions. We Build all right - but what 'we' have had brought to our Attention Suddenly on 9/11 - may be expressed in many different ways, depending upon "whose ox is gored" by the builders - and within their purposes of building monuments to the success of a system which exists only because it Can exploit the many, for the relatively Few: - the 5% who consume from 15-30% of various of the planet's resources. And as to a culture which 'celebrates' its wealth by wasting on principle: those same resources acquired from around the world - creating land-fills of stuff larger than all the pyramids ever begun, and buying battle-tanks for daily transport: Would that qualifly by any stretch as.. say, Obsessively Flaunting it? (Is that even a valid excuse for massive anger, in anyone's lexicon?) Still, As some say - Attitude is All. What do you suppose Our Attitude {was?} Is? What do you suppose the Other 6 Billions' attitudes are? will become? Do we care about any attitudes beside Ours? (Neoconmen have made evident: they don't - and that is as of 9/10/2003) Are 'we' then, 'they' ? Still ? Sorry, but - that shock experienced on these shores 9/11 - has been replayed elsewhere, with far larger total loss of life, far many more families at the peripheral.. and over decades - for all that period beginning from when we remained the sole un-bombed country after WW-II - and 'leveraged our monopoly' [?] to its present Imperial Status. I cannot mourn the wasted lives of 9/11 any more intensely: by also ignoring the non-American lives as helped create what it Symbolised. Unless I erase a lot of memory, quite selectively. YMMV. Selective Mourning - What an Idea. ..an unpublished work of Donne? Merton? Dewey? Ashton Bad moffitt! cut-to-chase too fast and.. ya gets to see trotted-out All the epithets from Trot-sky to Librul to Inellekshul to umMurican schweinehund .. just fer Noticin How We Got to Where We Are Today\ufffd cha. cha. cha. Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on "I am not too sure. --H.L. Mencken via Rand
Post #117,399 by bepatient 9/10/03 9:54:31 PM Reply	No. They didn't aim for a symbol. They aimed at innocent civilians involved in a daily routine. Say we fly a plane into Mecca. Would they view that as aiming at a symbol? Would you? It would be a simple retaliation move...save us all this bullshit in Afghanistan too...how do you think it would be viewed. "But it was the symbol we were after...really!" They had a symbol less than a mile away that would have resulted in the same ire...but cost much fewer civilian lives. They didn't aim for that, did they. Don't kid yourself. They were trying to kill people. Lots of them. Thinking they were attacking a symbol may make it comforting for you. I have no such illusion. They'll be back. And they'll be trying to kill people again. And if they happen to get all symbolic about it again...more better for you...since it seems to make it easier. If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. _{Fudd's First Law of Opposition} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #117,403 by Ashton 9/10/03 10:07:41 PM Reply	Fair point - sorta supposing.. Then you have to consider the Other ones on that day's list: Twin Towers - BIGGEST thing around NYC and perfectly exemplifying the Wealth aspect er 'Symbolised' - no? Pentagon. White House? OR Congress? That third one failed, thanks to cel- communication of the actual intent! to simply ordinary courageous people - who behave in such ways when they know enough to see Why. Did anyone ever suggest that cowardice aided the successful ones? I sure didn't - they Did Not Know, and rationally expected merely to be hijacked. As all surely realize. Surely more people damage could easily have been caused than by picking the Symbolic and massively-walled Pentagon. (There were no Armies compressed inside there). Surely too, the White House (never did hear how 'certain' was that guess) would contain a paltry number of bodies. Congress, for having even more bodies than WH: cannot be other than Symbolic. IMhO. So.. was it Just to kill lots? then why not not [fill in the blanks for people-dense locales in every big city] or wait for a full stadium a la Black Sunday, was it? I Don't Know {how the targets were weighted for Effect} ... Do you think You Do? Ashton
Post #117,408 by bepatient 9/10/03 11:00:06 PM Reply	Oh it is certain... ...that there was consideration of target list...economic, military, leadership...the targets had their symbolic value. But to dismiss the civilian casualties as "just in the way" of the "larger picture" is to dismiss the full understanding of the participants that they were killing >people<. People not involved in their struggle. Strangers. Women. Children. Purposefully. THose buildings weren't buit to show off...any more than the hundreds of folks that climb mountains every year are doing it to show off. They do it because they can...or "because its there". There are examples of such "excess" throughout history. Funny, though...we used to call them [link\|http://ce.eng.usf.edu/pharos/wonders/list.html\|wonders]. If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. _{Fudd's First Law of Opposition} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #117,424 by Ashton 9/11/03 12:06:30 AM Reply	You don't really know - you want to Believe Note the callousness in ME about intentionally killing own people.. if a few of the enemy gets it too. There is a different mindset behind this, one about Fundamentalism as Substitute for Conscience - more than about any particular-flavoured God/Allah from that smorgaasbord. IMO; as good as IYO. {the.. Off Thine Own Son to Show You Love _GRR_ Bull. Shit.} Forget not that this was also the Second Try on the Towers. Think there might be a certain Indo-Eurpean-Murican Stubbornness in the cards? I maintain, believing that I am not inherently more brilliant than any particular group or bin-L: I can think of Lots more dead people/767 than was targetted by Planes 3&4 (was there to have been a fifth? alleged once). Ergo: So Could They. They expected to kill, yes. They intended Primarily to *Shock* (I may impute anthropomorphic motives as well as you; as well even as.. the Priests Do re Their Patented Fear/Love Nemeses from On High\ufffd) They meant to palpably! destabilize the US economically and internally, perhaps via the very curtailment of citizen rights as has occurred.?. the lengthening economic morass as has occurred .?. maybe even the stimulus/response of Afghanistan, Iraq Tar Baby .. As. Has. Occurred. {Iran? NK? France? California?} next: bin-L obv Knows the Murican Mindset of acting from Impulse, never ever employing stealth and patience to achieve long term aims: just Action. Now. WE'LL SHOW EM!!! NOW, no namby-pamby strategy except vengeance. Instant gratification. . . R'US As I said - You Don't Know the equation, and you can't weigh the Shock/life any more than they needed to. For ex: I suspect that, should they have discovered a crappy 'Doze-grade bug in the US power systems (all) enabling them to kill power almost at will? or at least repeatedly - Who Knows if that would have sufficed. You Don't. It's simplistic emotional twaddle to justify vengeance, and especially to raise vehemence for the anniversary, by making Moffitt's intemperate remark into a Wish he Must have had, that: those people died. The very crux! of Murican politico- juju sophistry and hypocrisy .. noted all my life! J'accuse Ashton who really despises that word Certain - especially when it is used.
Post #117,440 by bepatient 9/11/03 7:26:26 AM Reply	Simplistic? Possibly. Shock was certainly an aim. But the methodology was to use >death< as the vehicle. Mindset is a terrible thing to waste after all...but each of the brethren was off to their several dozen virgins after all... If destabilization was the aim...then you certainly are smarter then BinLaden...but the translation of that remark is not something that I alone will make...and while a harsh judgement...is one that needs to be pointed out. Qualification...and excusing...is not an option. Nor is it done without some measure of "we had it comin". If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. _{Fudd's First Law of Opposition} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #117,505 by Nightowl 9/11/03 12:53:24 PM Reply	Re: Oh it is certain... There are examples of such "excess" throughout history. Funny, though...we used to call them [link\|http://ce.eng.usf.edu/pharos/wonders/list.html\|wonders]. Very very good, Bepatient! They were called Wonders, even the Titanic was a technological "wonder" at one point. Ironically though, WHEN it sank, it was suddenly an example of arrogance and excess... and wasn't meant to float, according to some. Odd how the tragedy of it or the events surrounding it, changed what it meant to people. Perhaps that is what happened with the Twin Towers in Moffit's view, or others? I wouldn't know, I never viewed it as excess, or even as deserving to sink, in the case of the Titanic. I viewed it as recklessness, and not erring on the side of caution. As for the Towers well, before 9/11/01, I must admit, (maybe ashamedly), that I never thought twice about them. They were just one more landmark in the USA, one more large building or monument that was of importance, and I had not ever attached any intensity to them before that, having never visited there or seen them anywhere but pictures. That changed for me that day, however, I'm glad to say, they had intense meaning and always will now. Nightowl >8# "I learned to be the door, instead of the mat!" "illegitimi nil carborundum" Comment by Nightowl
Post #117,526 by Ashton 9/11/03 4:25:20 PM Reply	Interesting comparison, Owl The death of the Titanic was pure & simple - a Captain thoroughly immersed in the blind-Certainty [an Awful word, that one - kills so Many People] of the ships Invulnerability - demonstrating his also fatal ignorance Of The Ship's design == those unfinished bulkheads; an Achilles' Heel as big as a well.. Titanic-length. But it took more that just that: it took the bean-counter + Mine's Bigger! mentality - to insanely charge through the North Atlantic {where everyone Knew that icebergs Could-Well Be Found}.. So the final random link needed-be only -- the misplaced WARNING! with exact location: amidst a pile of self-congratulatory, unnecessary 'telegrams' to/about the pampered clients [and not involving the miserable Steerage masses, of course].. - all blissfully unaware of the miniscule 'size' of the Titanic VS The Ocean. Similarly, as the towers collapsed: we heard that metronomic whomp .. whomp .. whomp .. whomp .. as a very Elementary physics Law was enacted horrifyingly: That of Impulse [Force X Time] a trip-hammer which perfectly illustrated how it can appear, when: All the Potential Energy 'stored' in that building during the years of construction, Kilogram X Height.. added each day - - - Was turned into Kinetic Energy .. the total Energy State restored to er 'equilibrium' in those few seconds of progressive collapse -- such as no feasible "floor hangers" could ever have withstood. Towers came down precisely as would have a demolition team designed them to fall: straight down. {Ugly} yet also The Beauty of Physics! simultaneously - the horror of unintended consequences.. (I too had no particular appreciation for the square boxes as 'art', though the erection qualified as YAN successful completion of millions of details. I did however always 'See Them' as the very Symbol -- about which this thread is arguing.) But then.. I have perhaps the least 'Respect' hereabouts, for that definition of Murican Success which -- derives from cannily milking the Suckers as sneakily -and extensively- as you can get away-with - so that Yours Becomes Bigger.. by the odious mechanical process of: stealing a share from each of the poorest -- of whom there are So Many, that pretty soon: You're Rich! [and always: Want More\ufffd - don't we call that insatiable?] (As to the marks that supply the labor and make the toys? Fuck Them. They aren't as Smart as I!) So no, I don't 'miss' The Towers, nor did I miss noting the suffering that random people endured - that seed-group of 9/11 - for an inexorable stimulus/response exchange of many more deaths which can easily be in the millions next, if Shrub's new nukes come on line soon enough? (before the Sucker + Men of Hench are impeached or, he chokes on a pretzel: correctly, next time?) Ashton just gettin in the Spirit o' the Times . . . Vengeance is Mine! saith the humanoid whose ox was gored. I see dead oxen. Lots of dead oxen. And Flags.. waved Furiously. LET'S GET EVEN !!!
Post #117,504 by Nightowl 9/11/03 12:48:30 PM Reply	No. They didn't aim for a symbol. They aimed at innocent civilians involved in a daily routine. "But it was the symbol we were after...really!" Actually, I viewed them as having two aims. One was yes, quite obviously, to kill people. But the other one, and possibly more important, even, was their aim to undermine us, scare us, terrorize us into feeling less secure, less safe, much more vulnerable... Unfortunately, both aims worked. Nightowl >8# "I learned to be the door, instead of the mat!" "illegitimi nil carborundum" Comment by Nightowl
Post #117,533 by Arkadiy 9/11/03 5:07:42 PM Reply	Talking about Mecca I wonder how much wealth is concentrated in that area. I know that Christian churches tend to house quite a lot. If Mecca has as much stuff as St Peter, hitting it would have been pretty much justified from Mike's point of view. It has an added benefit: the worse-off around Mecca are much worce off that those around WTC. -- One Buffalo Bill And one Biffalo Buff
Post #117,536 by Ashton 9/11/03 5:36:13 PM Reply	Arkadiy___you be BAAD :-\ufffd
Post #117,611 by mmoffitt 9/12/03 9:39:35 AM Reply	Re: pretty much justified from Mike's point of view... I'm not taking that bait, sorry. :-p bcnu, Mikem The soul and substance of what customarily ranks as patriotism is moral cowardice and always has been...We have thrown away the most valuable asset we had-- the individual's right to oppose both flag and country when he (just he, by himself) believed them to be in the wrong. We have thrown it away; and with it all that was really respectable about that grotesque and laughable word, Patriotism. - Mark Twain, "Monarchical and Republican Patriotism"
Post #117,582 by deSitter 9/12/03 12:56:23 AM Reply	Hmm idea Let's crash an empty 747 into that stupid Borg cube while those backwards ass cretins are circling it like robots. Let's do it on 4/11 - hey towel heads, here's some information for you - we're gonna wipe you sons of bitches of the face of the planet. Let's warn them it's coming so they can send all their best martyrs to receive the flames and the scything metal. Then let's get ourselves into Jew-rusalem and pulverize that fucking wall, shave all those stinking atavists, and make them sleep with their filthy Meccan comrades for the next ten years. THAT's how I FEEL about that shithole and every goddamn bastard who lives there. -drl
Post #117,471 by mmoffitt 9/11/03 10:07:32 AM Reply	re: bad moffitt. You are, as is typical, correct of course. I was too terse. bcnu, Mikem The soul and substance of what customarily ranks as patriotism is moral cowardice and always has been...We have thrown away the most valuable asset we had-- the individual's right to oppose both flag and country when he (just he, by himself) believed them to be in the wrong. We have thrown it away; and with it all that was really respectable about that grotesque and laughable word, Patriotism. - Mark Twain, "Monarchical and Republican Patriotism"

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