[personal profile] napoleonherself
I wrote this between classes today. It is rushed and badly-phrased in places, but I still present it here as originally written. They are my thoughts. Take them as you will.

It's now 10:42. Chem instructor just got done reading an account of what "a friend of a friend" saw at the WTC. I liked this instructor before. I'm not so sure I do anymore.

Maybe I'm... too self-centered, too withdrawn, too apathetic. I dunno. But when he had finished reading the account -- when he explained his reasoning for doing so afterwards -- I was terrified. Of him, and of all the people in this nation who agree with him, and of what the sentiment represents.

He went on to say that he wanted us to remember this tragedy in the months ahead -- "Because this is war," he said, "and a lot of people are going to die, and it's not going to be pretty. War is not pretty." We're going to kill the people who did this, he said, and we're gonna kill a lot of other people at the same time. "But I don't care," he said. "Those bastards deserve everything they're gonna get."

More hate. More blind hate. I'm not arguing we not retaliate -- I'm coming more and more to the decision that war, as much as I hate it, may be the closest thing to a satisfactory answer we have. But you don't GLOAT about it. You don't CHEER that more innocents are going to die. Their nationality doesn't make them automatically evil any more than being an American makes any of us automatically good.

I'm scared. I'm scared of war, what it might mean for me and mine and for the innocents who happen to be living in the wrong country. But most of all, I'm scared of my own people -- my fellow Americans, the "good", patriotic people -- because they have discovered the fine, bitter taste of hate.

And I think they like it.

Date: 2001-09-14 01:14 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] penguintotem.livejournal.com
There's a guy in my middle ages westen civ class that was screaming to nuke all the middle eastern countries. And if it was later determinded they were innocent, issue an apology, but say "that's what you get".

I cringe along with you.

Date: 2001-09-14 02:08 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ryl.livejournal.com
We're going to kill the people who did this, he said, and we're gonna kill a lot of other people at the same time.

Yeah, including our own military personnel, one of whom has been my best friend since the seventh grade.

Don't they see that by reacting this way they're acting like the Palestinian footage?

I had to walk out of Psych Wednesday because the professor, who was in Special Forces during Vietnam, was talking about the kind of guerilla warfare they were doing over there. There are a lot of people from New York going to school here. I wonder how many of them are in that class. They didn't need to hear that. I didn't need to hear that. Bite me, Army boy.

Date: 2001-09-14 02:17 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] xidus.livejournal.com
The average American scares me. Fortunately, those in charge don't seem to be ruled by blind hate, so I think everything might turn out okay in the end. For all the talk about not discriminating between terrorists and those who harbor them, I really can't see the US coming to the conclusion that they have to bomb the citizens of a country whose _government_ has harbored terrorists.

Maybe it's too idealistic of me, but I actually trust our government to respond appropriately. 'Appropriately' in this case rules out the possibility of genocide.

Maybe hate isn't a bad thing, when expressed occasionally... everyone here is so quiet and sad that I'm going nuts. Isn't catharsis supposed to be a good thing?

Ick, I don't like me when I get pensive.

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