Steyn discusses the widespread efforts to turn the 9/11 anniversary commemoration into something, anything different -- a Hallmark holiday on which to tack any nice-sounding cause -- to the detriment of remembering the attacks and their victims, and by extension, of discussing the ideology that drove the attackers.
"Let’s Roll Over," by Mark Steyn for the National Review Online, September 10:
Waiting to be interviewed on the radio the other day, I found myself on hold listening to a public-service message exhorting listeners to go to 911day.org and tell their fellow citizens how they would be observing the tenth anniversary of the, ah, “tragic events.” There followed a sound bite of a lady explaining that she would be paying tribute by going and cleaning up an area of the beach.
Great! Who could object to that? Anything else? Well, another lady pledged that she “will continue to discuss anti-bullying tactics with my grandson.”
Marvelous. Because studies show that many middle-school bullies graduate to hijacking passenger jets and flying them into tall buildings?
Whoa, ease up on the old judgmentalism there, pal. In New Jersey, many of whose residents were among the dead, middle-schoolers will mark the anniversary with a special 9/11 curriculum that will “analyze diversity and prejudice in U.S. history.” And, if the “9/11 Peace Story Quilt” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art teaches us anything, it’s that the “tragic events” only underline the “importance of respect.” And “understanding.” As one of the quilt panels puts it:
You should never feel left out
You are a piece of a puzzle
And without you
The whole picture can’t be seen.
And if that message of “healing and unity” doesn’t sum up what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, what does? A painting of a plane flying into a building? A sculpture of bodies falling from a skyscraper? Oh, don’t be so drearily literal. “It is still too soon,” says Midori Yashimoto, director of the New Jersey City University Visual Arts Gallery, whose exhibition “Afterwards & Forward” is intended to “promote dialogue, deeper reflection, meditation, and contextualization.” So, instead of planes and skyscrapers, it has Yoko Ono’s “Wish Tree,” on which you can hang little tags with your ideas for world peace.
What’s missing from these commemorations?
Firemen?
Oh, please. There are some pieces of the puzzle we have to leave out. As Mayor Bloomberg’s office has patiently explained, there’s “not enough room” at the official Ground Zero commemoration to accommodate any firemen. “Which is kind of weird,” wrote the Canadian blogger Kathy Shaidle, “since 343 of them managed to fit into the exact same space ten years ago.” On a day when all the fancypants money-no-object federal acronyms comprehensively failed — CIA, FBI, FAA, INS — the only bit of government that worked was the low-level unglamorous municipal government represented by the Fire Department of New York. When they arrived at the World Trade Center the air was thick with falling bodies — ordinary men and women trapped on high floors above where the planes had hit, who chose to spend their last seconds in one last gulp of open air rather than die in an inferno of jet fuel. Far “too soon” for any of that at New Jersey City University, but perhaps you could reenact the moment by filling out a peace tag for Yoko Ono’s “Wish Tree” and then letting it flutter to the ground.
Upon arrival at the foot of the towers, two firemen were hit by falling bodies. “There is no other way to put it,” one of their colleagues explained. “They exploded.”
Any room for that on the Metropolitan Museum’s “Peace Quilt”? Sadly not. We’re all out of squares. [...]
And so we commemorate an act of war as a “tragic event,” and we retreat to equivocation, cultural self-loathing, and utterly fraudulent misrepresentation about the events of the day. In the weeks after 9/11, Americans were enjoined to ask, “Why do they hate us?” A better question is: “Why do they despise us?” And the quickest way to figure out the answer is to visit the Peace Quilt and the Wish Tree, the Crescent of Embrace and the Hole of Bureaucratic Inertia.
If there isn't already a website called 9/11, there should be. And it should be the job of such a website to act as a public memory for free people around the world to commemorate the victims of the jihad attack against America for which Islam is 100% responsible.
9/11 should be considered as important as the 4th of July, in the sense that it is one of the most significant days in US history.
Ten years ago, to the day, I was working in the house of a former employee of Cantor Fitzgerald. He called my name suddenly, in an urgent tone. '' A plane has crashed into the WTC'', he said, and as he was telling me that he used to be based in those offices, we watched in disbelief as the second plane approached and plunged into the second tower. He was tearing his hair out with worry, as his brother still worked in the WTC office. After what seemed like an eternity he got a call from his brother, who had miraculously missed his train to work that morning.
Like London Jim I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing ten years ago when my wife called me into the next room to see the apalling atrocity (NOT just 'tragic event') that had just been carried out.
Over the next few weeks I waited for the return strike that would teach the mohammedan world a lesson they would not forget. I could not believe that the USA would simply pretend that this awful, barbaric attack had not really happened.
I'm still waiting.
If these people want to make it a day of service, I can think of one service they could provide: ENLIST!!
Steyn has put his finger on the pulse and told a few uncomfortable truths. 9/11 was no more a tragedy than Pearl Harbor or the Blitzkrieg. That was an act of war and the start of the Third Great Jihad carried out on the anniversary of the end of the Second Great Jihad. Acts of war aren't tragedies, and the response to an act of war has to be overwhelming. But the wimps who make up the bulk of the population of the West have no stomach for an overwhelming response - indeed the hard Left is firmly in bed with the enemy - the modern day Quislings but only more stupid and blockheaded. It is no surprise that the last time we defeated an enemy soundly was back in 1945, because then we treated wars as they should be treated - it's him or me, them or us - but today we go to war to merely capture the enemy and put him in court so he can put us on trial, or the futile 'winning hearts and minds' nonsense. But war isn't about winning hearts and minds. it's about winning and overwhelming the enemy. Our response to 9/11 will have lasted longer than both World Wars combined by next January. And why is that? It is because we haven't fought to win. We have hamstrung our military by brainless rules of engagement. Instead of killing the enemy when you see him, we allow the enemy to escape unscathed, even when we see him planting roadside bombs, so not to 'wake up the civilian population' - that same civilian population that is indeed the enemy. Had this been 70 years ago, any enemy seen planting roadside bombs would have been shot dead, not allowed to go about his wicked business unmolested. And there's nothing more brainless than the attitude that "If we resort to the enemies tactics, that makes us as bad as the enemy, and we're better than that". That is a cop out statement to try to justify doing nothing. We didn't win World War II without being as ruthless as the enemy. If you're not prepared to be ruthless, you'll lose, and that is the history of warfare.
Let's roll over
Well, you can roll over and die, or you can convert to Islam and worship their pedophile psychopathic false prophet and Satanic moongod, or you can become a dhimmi and accept humiliating second class citizen status under their evil shariah laws and have your sons murdered and castrated and your daughters gang- raped, or you can develop some HARBITUDE and become a Counterjihadist - a Harbi with Attitude... http://crombouke.blogspot.com/2010/01/harbitude-harbis-with-attitude.html
OBAMA'S REVISED GUIDELINES FOR CELEBRATING 9/11
Just heard that President Obama at the last moment revived his guidelines for celebrating 9/11 today. Says the President "This should be a day of reflection, meditation and healing. We should start today by playing and replaying my Moslem outreach speech at Cairo. This should be followed by finding a Moslem in your neighborhood to hug and kiss and fawn over. To win over his trust and affection you tell him what a great religion Islam is; mention some of its magnificent cultural and scientific achievements (these can be found in my speech); then apologize and beg his forgiveness for Pam Geller, the Crusades, Israel's occupation of the West Bank and oppression of Palestinians, and the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. This will promote interfaith harmony, peace and a More Perfect Union. Do these things and together with our Moslem brothers and sisters we can win the future and march forward to a better world."
From Alan Jackson. . http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/alanjackson/wherewereyouwhentheworldstoppedturning.html
Not only is obama in bed with the islamics, he is PREGNANT with their child-
"Over the next few weeks I waited for the return strike that would teach the mohammedan world a lesson they would not forget. I could not believe that the USA would simply pretend that this awful, barbaric attack had not really happened.
I'm still waiting."
George W Bush called Islam a "religion of peace" and submitted.
He didn't do nuthin' to avenge our dead and respond to this act of war called Jihad by kicking their azzes.
I'll never forgive him his submission, and now 10 years later the Muslims are even more aggressive and emboldened. Just in everyday life, never mind a Jihad.
It's disgusting. How low the U.S. has fallen.
Fireman out!?!?!
When the towers collapsed, I didn't see any politicians running to save lives or to risk their skin in the process.
It is a fallacy that the flip-flopping mayor of New York City has ousted from this milestone event the people that, amongst all, have earned their right to ever be in these remembrance events. That is like to have a parade of veterans of foreign wars with everyone but the soldiers that fought and lost so much in those wars.
Bloomberg, you are a disgrace and should abdicate of your little delusional reign of terror in New York City. Also for the record: There is no "separation of church and state" in the US Constitution (interview to Neil Cavuto on Sep. 10, 2011). Perhaps, Mr. Mayor, you read too much propaganda from the french revolution and other Jacobin or Marxist related. Here in America, the government must not promote one religion or forbid the practice of thereof.
I didn't listen to the speeches of Bloomberg, whom I detest, and Hussein, whom I also detest, this morning on TV.
Why should I listen to their PC BS?
Hear, hear, Mark Steyn. The left still prevails but the right defends us. I saw a bit on CNN last night Profiles of 911 or Faces of 911, something like that and they had Cindy Sheehan who said her son did not sign on to go into battle and the mean old Sargent forced him and an hour later he was dead. But he took the pay check and was willing to use the GI benefits like the PX and the hospitals etc.
They also had on Daisy Khan who made us remember that her husbands mosque was pretty close to the "tragic events" Gads!!
Boy Spirit you have put it right. We need to fight wars to win. Israel needs to get that as well. Gengis Khan and Napolion, Atilla the Hun didn't win hearts and minds and neither did the moslems as they 'spread the word'. No hearts and minds in Constantinople when it became Istanbul.
John McCain said that Abu Ghreib made us look bad and indeed it did but, he should have just said 'things happen'
Al Queda and those hyena's in Somalia look bad, do they care, yes, they want to look really bad so that no one messes with them. So well written Spirit.
Mark Steyn, right on the nose again. Where would we be without him?
Doesn't anyone feel at odds with a 'leadership' that would prescribe proper forms of memorializing and "PROSCRIBING" certain participants from participating; controlling freedom of expression while employing a once independent national press as a propaganda ministry?
Obama must be waking on egg-shells this weekend. Is he considering his Cairo Speech, the Islamic NASA or his high-level Brotherhood appointees?
But, Steyn's point is in citing the vacuum where a tenacity of spirit should be.
Forgiveness is great stuff. So is Penance.
"This should be a day of reflection, meditation and healing. We should start today by playing and replaying my Moslem outreach speech at Cairo. This should be followed by finding a Moslem in your neighborhood to hug and kiss and fawn over."
Pass the vomit bowl.
Beautifully-put. .It's a hard fact, there's no avoiding it.
''rules of engagement''. Very pertinent gail.
''rules of engagement''. Very perecient gail.
Whatever the spelling, Samuel Jackson sez it better than me.
Mark Steyn: "We commemorate an act of war as a 'tragic event,' and we retreat to equivocation, cultural self-loathing, and utterly fraudulent misrepresentation about the events of the day"
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Very true. Excellent article by Mark Steyn. His reworking of "Let's Roll!" to "Let's Roll Over" is all too apt.
Listen to bad accounts of 9/11, and you would think that the towers fell down in an earthquake or a hurricane. Listen to *worse* accounts of 9/11, and you would imagine that it had been some sort of "Isamophobic" attack *on* Muslims-Americans—rather than an attack on innocent Infidels by Muslims.
More:
"Let’s Roll Over," by Mark Steyn for the National Review Online, September 10:
...Whoa, ease up on the old judgmentalism there, pal. In New Jersey, many of whose residents were among the dead, middle-schoolers will mark the anniversary with a special 9/11 curriculum that will “analyze diversity and prejudice in U.S. history.”
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Well—that sure makes cleaning up the beach as an appropriate commemoration of 9/11 look pretty benign in comparison. Let me guess—after a general session of gnashing of teeth over slavery and the treatment of the Native Americans, we can bring up the bogus idea that the "real" victims of 9/11 were Muslims in America because they have come under a bit of increased attention from law enforcement.
More:
And, if the “9/11 Peace Story Quilt” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art teaches us anything, it’s that the “tragic events” only underline the “importance of respect.”
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Well, the Jihad terrorists sure picked a "diverse" target in the World Trade Center—they managed to horribly murder almost 3,000 people of all colors and creeds. Diversity in action! sarc/off
More:
You should never feel left out
You are a piece of a puzzle
And without you
The whole picture can’t be seen.
...............................
Wow—you'd think the issues surrounding 9/11 were insufficient handicapped access, or perhaps the absence of a "bi-racial"—or "bi-cultural"—box to check on census forms—not the savage actions of an ideology that wants to see us all dead or enslaved.
More:
And if that message of “healing and unity” doesn’t sum up what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, what does? A painting of a plane flying into a building? A sculpture of bodies falling from a skyscraper? Oh, don’t be so drearily literal.
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Here's my too "literal" response:
ALWAYS REMEMBER
NEVER SUBMIT
http://s478.photobucket.com/albums/rr144/gravenimageartist/?action=view¤t=AlwaysRemember.jpg
More:
“It is still too soon,” says Midori Yashimoto, director of the New Jersey City University Visual Arts Gallery, whose exhibition “Afterwards & Forward” is intended to “promote dialogue, deeper reflection, meditation, and contextualization.” So, instead of planes and skyscrapers, it has Yoko Ono’s “Wish Tree,” on which you can hang little tags with your ideas for world peace.
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God, what idiocy. Here's *my* idea for world peace—a world where we consistently oppose violent Islam. Or is that "too soon"? sarc/off
Spirit of 1683 wrote:
And there's nothing more brainless than the attitude that "If we resort to the enemies tactics, that makes us as bad as the enemy, and we're better than that". That is a cop out statement to try to justify doing nothing.
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It is indeed.
We fought to win in WWII-and yet, that didn't mean were were using the tactics of the Holocaust and the Bataan Death March. The occupation of Berlin and Tokyo were *not* conducted along the lines of the Rape of Nanking.
The idea that we either refrain from arresting Jihadists planting IEDs lest we "wake up" the locals—an *actual* recent directive to our troops in Afghanistan—or else turn into Al Qaida or the Taliban is ridiculous—a false dichotomy that can only lead to suicidal actions.