If I search through my highest impact diaries, many of the top entries are about my 9/11 victimhood. I wrote about being in 2 WTC when the plane hit. And I wrote about Bush et al. stealing my victimhood. Now, thankfully, Bush is gone. But a new breed of hatemongers is among us. Sarah Palin and her tea party hooligans are now stealing my victimhood, and I am mad again.
More below the fold
UPDATE I have to go to sleep. Thanks for rec list. I'll be back in the AM
I wrote this diary in 2008. It's a repost (more or less) of something I originally wrote in 2006.
Here's the start:
I'm a victim of 9/11. I was in the building when the plane hit.
Compared to some people, I was lucky: I wasn't injured. I kept my job. I got home easily. But compared to the vast majority of Americans, I am a victim. I had glass in my hair. I lost a year's work, and some irreplaceable items. My family went crazy for a while. My kid had nightmares. You explain to a 5 year old why (in his words) "They crashed into the building on purpose?" or reply to "I thought pilots were good people".
But I am a victim another way.
I share part of this other victimhood with all Americans. I am a victim, not of terror, but of the so-called `war on terror'. I am a victim of a government that is out-of-control. I am a victim of crushing national debt. I am a victim because I live in a country that went from having the sympathy of the world to one that is a pariah, an outcast among nations, a rogue state. I am a victim because I now have to `watch what I say'. I am a victim because my rights are violated, not by some nebulous and inimical group of terrorists, but by my own government.
They do not speak for me
But in another way, I do not share this other victimhood. My victimhood is being abused.
Thankfully SO THANKFULLY Bush is gone. Say what you want about Obama, but he is a decent human being. I like him. Yes, I wish Gitmo was closed; yes, I wish the Patriot stolen freedom act was repealed. But Obama isn't Bush. He is not exploiting 9/11 to advance an agenda of hatred, war and bigotry.
But others are. And I'm mad.
When Sarah Palin says that there shouldn't be a mosque near the site because the pain is too raw, and because the heartland is against, just whose pain and heart is she talking about? Did SHE lose her workplace? Did the people in Alaska die? Was Montana or Idaho exposed to ashes? No. They were not.
Now, I am sure that there are many good people all across America and the world who really do mourn for the victims of 9/11.
But, while the perpetrators of 9/11 were Muslims, they were not typical Muslims. What the perpetrators were, more than anything else, was bigots. They were people who were sure they were right. They were people who imagined that God spoke to them. What they were is the modern descendant of Pope Innocent III, who killed heretics en masse and said "kill them all, and let God sort them out".
Now Sarah Palin says there should be no mosque there. Well, I'm an atheist who was raised as a Jew and who spent 3 years living in Israel. And I say: Yes. Build a mosque. Build a mosque for the Muslims and a temple for the Jews and churches for the Catholics and Protestants and a meeting hall for the Quakers and a shrine for the Hindus and build places for people of all religions. Build a house for atheists and agnostics to come to. Let us ALL mourn the tragedy as we see fit. This is America, and that is the American way.
Sarah Palin doesn't see it that way. Sarah Palin thinks that, since the terrorists were Muslims, no mosque should be built. I know what to call it when you condemn a mass of people based on the actions of a few. I call it bigotry. And I hate it. Bigotry has been too much a part of our history as a nation. Let us end it.
The golden rule is part of 21 religions and philosophies. The people who flew planes into buildings didn't follow it. Let us do so.