I have thought about what it is that 9/11 really evokes in people. It is assumed that it is fear, and I think that most people probably interpret it that way...but this country does not feature the psychological traits of a country that is really at war... It features the psychological traits of a country watching a horror movie, which is not the same thing at all. [T]he endless evocations of pre-9/11 and post 9/11 thinking reminds me of nothing so much as people who are hooked on a stimulating drug.

I think the drug analogy is a better one than the horror movie. One watches a horror movie as a non-participant, but the real power of 9/11 that Bush and his crowd have tapped lies in people's need to be a part of the drama, not to watch it from the sidelines. Stay with me here...

Dozens--dozens!--of people have died. The subject itself has been nearly diaried to death here at Daily Kos, front-paged on a weekly basis, used as yet more fodder for (admittedly righteous) attacks on Bush administration incompetence.

But a few articles I've read in the last two days have gotten me thinking--is this another 'shark attack' scare? Is this next year's candidate for 'whatever happened to (SARS)(Anthrax scare)(Ebola)'?

Or in other words, aren't there more important things to be worrying about right now?

Organizers of the Pentagon's 9/11 memorial Freedom Walk on Sunday are taking extraordinary measures to control participation in the march and concert, with the route fenced off and lined with police and the event closed to anyone who does not register online by 4:30 p.m. today.

The march, sponsored by the Department of Defense, will wend its way from the Pentagon to the Mall along a route that has not been specified but will be lined with four-foot-high snow fencing to keep it closed and "sterile," said Allison Barber, deputy assistant secretary of defense.

...

Officers are prepared to arrest anyone who joins the march or concert without a credential and refuses to leave, said Park Police Chief Dwight E. Pettiford.

America, fuck yeah! So, get off your ass and register today if you want to see Clint Black and his "I fucking love Republicans" anthem, because this is America sucker, love it on time or go to jail.

From the top down, it's:

Apathy:

See you at the 'freedom walk,' you prick.

Impotence:

Governor Kathleen Blanco said on ABC's "Good Morning America.": "The National Guard has been dropping sandbags into it, but it's like dropping it into a black hole.".

and Frustration:

"There is way too many fricking ... cooks in the kitchen" said Mayor Ray Nagin. He said the sandbagging was scheduled for midday, but the Blackhawk helicopters needed to help did not show up. He said the sandbags were ready and all the helicopter had to do was "show up." He said after his afternoon helicopter tour of the city, he was assured that officials had a plan and a timeline to drop the sandbags on the levee breach.

It doesn't have to be like this.

For smaller homegrown groups, like the one that acted in Madrid and whatever operation may have been behind the London attacks, the daily example of the havoc that can be created by suicide attacks in places like Iraq and Israel may have proved impossible to ignore.

And it occurred to me that, in all the talk about terrorist training ground and lives lost in this pitiful, pointless war, this is something that doesn't get a lot of discussion: the desensitizing of the entire world to extreme violence, caused by a full blown urban conflict involving America in the information age.

1. this redesign, like any, will have its (comparitively small) problems ironed out in no time


2. this redesign will vastly improve loading time in the long term, and will have a huge impact on the bandwidth Kos serves to his half million daily visitors or whatever the number is


3. this redesign is taking into account technology that within a short time will be the standard on the internet, for good reason

If and when that day comes, I will be proud to stand next to people like John Danforth, who has a truly inspiring piece today in the NY Times.

"That was a show for urban hip people," Mr. Foxworthy said. "But that show left out the people who were not hip. They're the ones who wake up every morning and go to work and go to war, and, dadgum, there's a whole lot of 'em out there."

In other words, if you are into comedy like that stuff you see on BET, dadgum it, you're cool and unemployed.

And if you mosey on into a factory outside Detroit, or over to Aye raq, none of those average joes is gonna know who Cedric the Entertainer is. Sure.

So, you might be a redneck republican if:

The Dutch vote today on the EU constitution, and they look set to vote even more decisively against it than their French counterparts. This will mean the second rejection in four days, which is all the more jarring because both rejections came from the two principal founders of the original union.

I've been asking around to every Dutch person I know about how they're going to vote and why. It's been an interesting experience, full of lessons not just about Dutch politics but also about the nature of democracy, nationalism and post-nationalism, the irrelevance of the political elite, the growing resentment of populations governed by a faceless and distant authority, and the future of the territory-less state that is the EU.

Will they ever stop with this anti-american, anti-bush garbage? Listen to this bleeding heart liberal tripe:

Yawn. They've been chaining people to ceilings since the Inquisition. I don't hear anybody calling for the Spanish to apologize!

Good riddance. This is what's wrong with the current party, and what's right about Dean.

So thanks Terrry. For nothing! Update [2005-2-11 15:33:46 by Lud]:Ok, I obviously touched a nerve here. Pardon my initial brevity; as one poster put it, I assumed McAuliffe's incompetence (as measured in getting electoral results) was a given. Additionally, crying baby in left hand one handed typing with right doesn't allow for much specificity. But since he's in bed now...

Quick quiz: can anyone tell me what economic class this guy calls home? When I read shit like this it truly makes me want to put my fist in the air and take back the means of production.

Your work on Abu Gonzo has been outstanding and an inspiration, a model of what opposition is about: tireless, aggressive, relentless, self confident. You took an issue that we all knew we were right on but that most Democrats were ready to concede, and helped turn the tide against that soulless bastard. Yesterday was a day for all of us to be proud of, and you were the one pushing it to the fore.

So thanks, I'm glad you're here.

Then of course I would swing back to my optimistic, patient, let's educate everybody and get out the vote persona. That was my jekyl and hyde. Well, I got my wish.

The Netherlands was the largest coalition partner I believe next to Italy from the European continent, and the center-right government's support was very helpful for the Bush administration's selling of the war as a multinational effort. The Prime Minister, who was primarily responsible for this decision, was awarded a high-profile White House visit for his efforts, which resulted in quite a few jokes at home about how he looked like an excited schoolboy during their joint appearance.

There's obviously quite a few angles to this story, but the following quote caught my eye, distilling, I think, the primary moral failure of the Bush administration: their Straussian, morally relativistic approach to everything from Social Security to foreign policy, that allows them to justify anything to themselves because they 'know' that it is all for the greater good.

So our job isn't to spread the word about all the good works we're doing, but to sucker as many people as we can in order to further our short term interests. How fucking sad.

However one issue they totally dropped the ball on was Bush's plan to privatize Social Security. Just like the draft issue, Bush was able to totally avoid any specific, substantive discussion of how he would handle the aftermath of his radical intentions. And just like the MSM, factcheck.org pussed out on the whole discussion.

And now we're going to pay for it: