We’re more than halfway through 9/11/06 and I’m feeling like we’ve fetishized it.

Thousands of innocent citizens were murdered, and they deserve remembrance. But listening to the public voices chattering without pause, today seems to have become about something else: Justifying the sacrifice of American ideals and values in the name of our fear.

On 9/10/01, if someone had told you that in response to a terrorist attack, a majority of Americans would back preemptive war and torture, would you have believed it?

For five minutes forget whether or not we’re safer now, five years after the attacks. The question I wish they’d talk about is: Are you proud of how our country has responded? I’m not. Our soldiers are brave and our fire fighters are heroes. We’ve done some things right. But, overall I’m not proud. And if the authorities weren’t out whipping up fear, I think most Americans would answer the same way. [Tags: 9/11 terrorism wtc]

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The Boston Globe today endorsed Deval Patrick for governor of Massachusetts so strongly that it ignored the customary writings-off of the other candidates, as in: “Chris Gabrieli has shown himself to be a straightforward leader with some new ideas, and we remain impressed by the precision and resilience of Thomas Reilly’s comb-over.” I’m glad. I’m a Deval Patrick supporter, too, and have the lawn sign to prove it.

But I don’t understand why newspapers take editorial positions. Doesn’t that contradict everything newspapers believe about the value of a neutral point of view? Alternatively, if expressing a point of view gives the reader valuable insight into the inevitable bias of the paper—as I think is the case—wouldn’t it be at least as helpful to allow reporters to state their own stands, in blogs if not in the stories themselves? [Tags: journalism deval_patrick]

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Jonathan Mahler, in a NY Times review of Joel Meyerowitz’s book of photos of the World Trade Center clean-up, joins the congregants at the church of the WTC, saying of the workers: “…they are reclaiming this hallowed ground, making it possible once again to imagine a future there.”

The attack on the World Trade Center was a despicable act of mass murder. As is true for too many of us, people I know lost loved ones there. But those deaths did not make the ground sacred. There’s something dangerous and unseemly about referring to it as such: Unseemly because it implies that the lives that were stolen need a special nimbus of grace to be valued; dangerous because imbuing a horrible crime with religious significance puts it within the realm where the murderers want it. They want a jihad. It’s real important that we not give them one.

IMO.

I have not seen the movie WTC, and I will not. In fact, I would pay an annual subscription never to see another Oliver Stone movie.

[Tags: wtc terrorism 911 oliver_stone]

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Peter W. Galbraith has an excellent column in the Boston Globe today explaining the deep irony of Donald Rumsfeld’s attempt to associate those opposing his Iraq war with those who appeased Hitler.

Ronald Reagan sent Rumsfeld to meet with Saddam Hussein in during the war Iraq started with Iran:

… the Reagan administration was afraid Iraq might actually lose. Reagan chose Rumsfeld as his emissary to Hussein, whom he visited in December 1983 and March 1984. Inconveniently, Iraq had begun to use chemical weapons against Iran in November 1983, the first sustained use of poison gas since a 1925 treaty banning that.

Rumsfeld never mentioned this blatant violation of international law to Hussein, instead focusing on shared hostility toward Iran and an oil pipeline through Jordan.

…

[after the war]…President George H.W. Bush’s administration actually doubled US financial credits for Iraq. A week before Hussein invaded Kuwait, the administration vociferously opposed legislation that would have conditioned US assistance to Iraq on a commitment not to use chemical weapons and to stop the genocide against the Kurds. At the time, Dick Cheney, now vice president, was secretary of defense and a statutory member of the National Security Council that reviewed Iraq policy. By all accounts, he supported the administration’s appeasement policy.

In 2003, Cheney, Powell, and Rumsfeld all cited Hussein’s use of chemical weapons 15 years before as a rationale for war. But at the time Hussein was actually doing the gassing — including of his own people — they considered his use of chemical weapons a second-tier issue.

Galbraith, by the way, interviewed survivors of Iraq’s slaughter of Kurds in 1988, gathering evidence to support Claiborne Pell’s bill that would have ended US financial support for Iraq. The leader of the Reagan administration’s opposition? Colin Powell.

Rumsfeld has looked Hussein in the eye when our government was supporting him. Rumsfeld calling other appeasers is yet more evidence that the flaws we see in others are the flaws we see in ourselves.

And I don’t want to let the appeaser charge stick in any way. I was not against the Iraq war because I wanted to appease terrorists. I want to fight terrorists. I just oddly insist that we fight them where they are and not where they aren’t.

[Tags: rumsfeld iraq appeasement peter_galbraith politics terrorism]

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Mark Warner, an unannounced candidate for the presidency, is going to be interviewed in Second Life on Thursday at 3:30pm (eastern time, I think).

I wonder what his avatar will look like… [Tags: politics mark_ warner secondlife]

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365Gay.com points out that as Bush calls Marines back to active duty — that’s got to be tough news to get — the number of troops discharged for being gay is increasing. Apparently, two a day are now being kicked out, for a total of 11,000 since the policy went into effect in 1993. “According to the GAO more than 800 of those had skills deemed ‘critical’ by the Department of Defense, including linguistic training, medical skills and expertise in combat engineering,” says 365gay.

[Tags: gays iraq]

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Thomas Vander Wal posts the bad news about the FTC entering into the Net neutrality debate. It looks like the FTC’s method is not itself neutral. [Tags: net_neutrality thomas_vander_wal ftc]

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He contrasts the voices of those fellow souls and of the politicians who have benefited. If you’re not a paid member of Salon, you can choose to watch a commercial first. It’s worth it. [Tags: garrison_keillor 911 wtc rudy_guiliani]

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A coalition is asking citizens to research the 1,800+ “earmarks” in the appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. “Earmarks” are special grants aimed at particular groups. They’re a species of pork, and they’ve tripled over the past ten years.

The diverse coalition, which includes the Sunlight Foundation, Citizens Against Government Waste, Porkbusters.com, Human Events Online (Pat Buchanan’s outfit), and Examiner.com, will maintain a single database that they will expose in their own ways. For example, you can see how Sunlight has Google-mapped some of them. More info in Zephyr’s post and here.