|
 |
|
Judgment Day
|
|
|
Return to Main Campus of New Rukin College.com
Link to Moynihan Library at New Ruskin College.com
|
|
Imagine the mixed emotions as I watched
the WTC Twin Towers burning.
After they had collapsed and the Pentagon was
on fire, and the fourth plane was still missing, I went into work and said to the Claims Supervisor, Dean Sodos, that I had
just witnessed both towers collapse. He looked up, oblivious, "Oh, yes," he said, "I heard about it." I explained that two
jets had hit both towers. "Was it an accident?" he asked. I told him that the Pentagon had also been hit by a third plane.
"Well they will figure out what happened," was his only comment, and returned his attention to his laptop.
As I look back over all that has happened I
wonder, is it just me? I know it is not just me. I've been thinking about the men abandoned on Corregidor, of those left to
die all over the globe: the U.S.S. Cole, Al Khobar Towers, the embassy bombings, not just the ones in Africa, but the two
in Lebanon, the one in Kuwait also, the abduction and torture and killing of Bill
Buckley in Lebanon.
(Did anyone else hear the Director of the F.B.I.
say he held his report so he could give it to President Bush because he did not trust Billy Clinton? (The Director of the
F.B.I. could not trust the President of the United States.)) I have been thinking of all those betrayed and abandoned.
I now know that this is why Rome fell, too many
betrayals, finally they just no longer cared to rebuild it. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Your actions have consequences, and your inaction also has consequences.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
But this week George
Bush wrote to Mr. Hussein. “Your country,” the letter runs, “will pay a terrible price
if you order unconscionable acts.”
------George Bush in
a letter to Saddam Hussein , Prime Suspect, The Economist, 10-18-2001 (Shortly after the first anthrax attacks.) (Photo credit The Enconomist)
After 9-11-2001 several
evangelical preachers claimed it to be God's judgment on our wickedness. These preachers were roundly criticized. I don't
know why.
It is a difficult thing
to believe in God. Is it so much more difficult for you to believe in a wrathful or vengeful God? Indeed the vengeful God
predates the merciful one which is now so popular, and this suggests that the former wrathful God was dreamed up first precisely
because it is easier to imagine. The first Gods were animal, wholly other than man. Their cruelty was not man's cruelty but
nature's. Early man trembled in his alienation. The development of God can be seen as stages of mental development and a lessening
alienation.
Every child is told the story of Noah. The plot is God's destruction
of all mankind is it not? Had you forgotten that part of the story? You tell this to your children but you do not yourselves
understand it? Can you imagine a people so wicked that total destruction is a just punishment?
After 9-11 I recognized how complete was my own alienation
from this society. Everyone else looked at the terrorists in anger. I accepted them as a given. I focused my attention on
those who allowed the air liners to be taken over and flown into the buildings. Ms. Rice, the President's National Security
Adviser, was heard to say "No one could have foreseen . . ."
She is wrong. Many foresaw. I recall that, thirty years ago,
there were specific recommendations that the cockpit doors should not be opened precisely because of the danger the hijackers
would fly the planes into office blocks. And I recall that the Air Line Pilots Association specifically rejected these recommendations
because "Our lives are on the line." Yes, and how about the people in the WTC, were their lives not on the line?
And after the event, months later, I
was still hearing the entertainment conservatives in the media claiming they would not accept two hour waits to board their
air planes. Would not accept it. Would not accept positive means of identification either. What will they do when 3 day quarantines
are required of all travelers? Many terrorists have been interviewed and they all have expressed disgust with the liberty
they were given in the West. They regard it as racism. As if they were being treated like children: "Yes, ok, go where you
like, do what you like, learn to fly jets, fine, we don't care. . . there is nothing you can do." It was very exasperating
for these hard-bitten terrorist to take, the condescension.
If we are to avoid the major catastrophe in the coming bio attacks it
will be just blind luck. If 40 million Americans are not killed in the next few weeks it will not be because of our preparations.
No quarantine zones have been established. No bio detectors have been installed in our public places. No limitations on travel.
Import anything you like. No identification required.
Such a careless, foolish, self-centered
society. You were so liberal. So very liberal. Utterly oblivious to the mounting dangers. This is how I understand the evangelical
preachers. A society this careless . . .
© COPYRIGHT 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, by NewRuskinCollege.com
All Rights Reserved.
|
|
