Paciencia y barajar
The reminiscence of the twin towers fades into background leaving room for perversities like the above and the Wars on Terra that are brought on us in the name of the 9/11 victims and other terror prey. Let us not be duped into such suppressions.
Spanish author Javier Marías writes:
It's also certainly true that for most of us, not a day goes by without remembering the almost 200 victims of March 11, with pain and a keen awareness that chance, fate and bad luck continue to be as important today as they were in humanity's less foreseeing epochs.There is no such thing as a war on terrorismHere in Spain, we don't feel as if we are at war because we aren't. And neither are the inhabitants of the United States, however vociferously many Americans may insist that they are.
...
There is no war against terrorism. There can be no such thing against an enemy that remains dormant most of the time and is almost never visible. It's simply another of life's inevitable troubles, and all we can do as we continue to combat it is repeat Cervantes's famous phrase "Paciencia y barajar": "Have patience, and keep shuffling the cards."
Posted by b on September 11, 2004 at 05:25 AM | Permalink
Bernhard, thank you for posting the Javier Marias article, I agree with him. If you compare the US, who has invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and still seems to be afraid and unsure of how to deal with this kind of violence, and Spain who had to live with violence for 30 years - making war on terrorism proofs useless, ineffectiv, and unnecessary. Interessting that Spain seems to have catched many culprits, but the US none. From the very beginning I was against this war. Looking at history, war was never a solution, it was always disastrous and had always to do with someone wanting to increase their own power and/or wealth. The same goes for this war on terrorism which seems to have nothing to do with terrorism, and all with a selfish power grab by Bush and his consorts.
Posted by: Fran | Sep 11, 2004 9:29:38 AM | 2
No comment, does articles speak for them selves.
Is this how to remember Sept. 11?
Analysis: Al-Qaeda three years on
Posted by: Fran | Sep 11, 2004 9:41:46 AM | 4
This is my last post, other things need to be done.
This is awful if it is true. How can you commemorate the victims of 9/11 by using the steel from the towers in a navy warship called New York. If find this idea disgusting.
Now this is how to pay a tribute
Posted by: Fran | Sep 11, 2004 9:58:53 AM | 5
In the Parliamentary Investigation Comitee about
what happened 11 March, in Madrid, only one thing is clear. The terrorist were all confidents of differents arms of Spanish Police.
All of them were marginal drug trafficants at very low scale, and no any parties in the actual or past goverment are truly interested in the truth. One high official reciently said. We Never we know the truth.
Escuse my english.
Posted by: | Sep 11, 2004 10:12:38 AM | 6
In the Parliamentary Investigation Comitee about
what happened 11 March, in Madrid, only one thing is clear. The terrorist were all confidents of differents arms of Spanish Police.
All of them were marginal drug trafficants at very low scale, and no any parties in the actual or past goverment are truly interested in the truth. One high official reciently said. We Never will know the truth.
Escuse my english
Posted by: curious from spain | Sep 11, 2004 10:16:16 AM | 7
"Curious from Spain" ...the truth is something nobody is interested in nowadays. It comes to mind that truth must be bloody awful.
Do not worry about English…nor do me, haha. Here nobody cares how good your English is as long as they can understand what you want to say. Welcome aboard!
And about "American way" IT'S JUST DISGUSTING!!!
Plainly it is why none likes you any more cause it's not funny any more...I mean this raw materialism that actually is a form of primitivism that you are indulging your selves in is perverse.
Friend just came from visiting USA and told me “They are soooooooooo materialistic... all of them". I couldn't understand what scale he is talking about until now.
What I had to say here is so gross I had to edit it few times and decided not to write anything more but this one word:
Disgusting.
Of course there is no such a thing as war on terror but this farce sells fog very good.
There is one simple way to at least scale down terrorist attacks: Do not STEAL from others, do not force others to desperate situation…
Look what ever you suggested to Serbs how to “deal” with separatist like Albanians, Croatians, Bosnians and others or to Russians how to deal with Chechens the same way you should deal with Iraqis, Palestinians and others. Forget about your INTEREST and let them do what they want, govern how they want, have the territories they want etc. See how it’s peaceful now on Balkan. Your advices are good! You just need to follow them(irony here).
Posted by: vbo | Sep 11, 2004 11:10:48 AM | 8
"Curious from Spain" ...the truth is something nobody is interested in nowadays. It comes to mind that truth must be bloody awful.
Do not worry about English…nor do me, haha. Here nobody cares how good your English is as long as they can understand what you want to say. Welcome aboard!
And about "American way" IT'S JUST DISGUSTING!!!
Plainly it is why none likes you any more cause it's not funny any more...I mean this raw materialism that actually is a form of primitivism that you are indulging your selves in is perverse.
Friend just came from visiting USA and told me “They are soooooooooo materialistic... all of them". I couldn't understand what scale he is talking about until now.
What I had to say here is so gross I had to edit it few times and decided not to write anything more but this one word:
Disgusting.
Of course there is no such a thing as war on terror but this farce sells fog very good.
There is one simple way to at least scale down terrorist attacks: Do not STEAL from others, do not force others to desperate situation…
Look what ever you suggested to Serbs how to “deal” with separatist like Albanians, Croatians, Bosnians and others or to Russians how to deal with Chechens the same way you should deal with Iraqis, Palestinians and others. Forget about your INTEREST and let them do what they want, govern how they want, have the territories they want etc. See how it’s peaceful now on Balkan. Your advices are good! You just need to follow them(irony here).
Posted by: vbo | Sep 11, 2004 11:12:52 AM | 9
Careful--not _all_ of us Americans are materialistic. Yes, it's our cultural disease, more like a drug addiction, but some of us resist. And think, and pray. And we will be voting, and I fear that won't be enough.
How many human tragedies come from the fact that there are just too many of us, and we're not as bright as we'd like to think we are?
Posted by: catlady | Sep 11, 2004 11:28:34 AM | 10
Those who are not regulars at Atrios, should read "Operation Ignore"
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Sep 11, 2004 4:01:25 PM | 11
Gee...I can't hardly believe it.
Someone actually saying today what I said a couple of years ago:
On Tuesday September 11, 2001, at least 35,615 of our brother and sisters died from the worst possible death, starvation. Somewhere around 85% of these starvation deaths occur in children 5 years of age or younger. Why are we letting at least 30,273 of the most beautiful children die the worst possible death everyday?
(Note: some fuck up at yahoo got so mad at a similar web-published message I wrote two years ago that HE [yeah I am pretty sure it is a he] deleted my yahoo account)
I know I am supposed to get all teary eye for the 9/11 victims...and I do:
To those children that starved to death that day...without any fanfare or camera recording and replaying your last breath over and over again... and to every child since that day that has similarly died... yeah verily all of you... without a grave, without media mourning, without so much as a whisper of world care or worry... would that I had the power of God to make you live.
Posted by: koreyel | Sep 11, 2004 4:02:47 PM | 12
Oddly enough, the NY Times is right on point:
Sept. 11, 2001, is a central event in this nation's history. It's important that we who live most immediately in its shadow press hard to learn everything that can be learned about that day and to make sure that nothing is allowed to fade into the world of the publicly unknowable.
Whereas Ira Chernus is a caricature of liberal soft-headedness:
It would be far better for all of us to acknowledge that we will never know the ultimate truth about 9/11, or the Kennedy assassination, or anything else for that matter.
Just another day in bizarro-world...
Posted by: | Sep 11, 2004 6:22:15 PM | 13
Nameless quoting the NY Times: Sept. 11, 2001, is a central event in this nation's history.
Ya mean like "Wounded Knee", or the "Trail of Tears" Or how 'bout Hiroshima or Nagasaki? How about the Phillipines? How about Panama? Manzinar? The Tuskegee Airmen? I could go on...
I'm not in agreement that Chernus's statement is soft, although I'm betting that we can know about all of it, and many of us already know.
Posted by: Kate_Storm | Sep 11, 2004 10:17:26 PM | 14
Bernard, the Javier Marías piece is very good. I was struck by this little paragraph...
Here in Spain, we don't feel as if we are at war because we aren't. And neither are the inhabitants of the United States, however vociferously many Americans may insist that they are.
He might have only said differently: "however vociferously the US government tries to convince many Americans that they are."
Here in the LA area, on the local big Clear Channel station they are airing a promo for the afternoon rush hour guys. He says inanely to cap it off: "It's war time!" The blanket slogan for all the idiocy we are expected to swallow here in the US after the government named their avaricious crusade a "war on terror[ism]". Makes me retch and wince each time I hear it.
Two words. Two Planets. Mine and the sleepers'.
Posted by: Kate_Storm | Sep 12, 2004 12:45:49 AM | 15
Two planets revisited....
-------------------
It was horrific.
I had never seen death up close like that.
Never knew death like that could exist in a world like ours.
But there it was...the death rattle rasp of a young starving boy in Sudan on 9/11/2001.
On that same day at least 20,000 other children on earth starved to death.
And every day since that day at least another 20,000 children have starved to death.
No cameras record their last breath.
No endless oratory or endless memorials greet them on their starvation anniversaries.
No flags fly at half mast.
No one calls out their names.
They count for nothing.
Except for perhaps fertilizer.
Would that we could bring every one of them since 9/11/2001 back to life again...
And place them in two grandiose man-made towers of steel and glass.
And dentonate the buildings in a fiery crashing heap of stinking ash...
Then,
We might have a Great War on Starvation
To overmatch,
This pathetic little war on terror.
Posted by: koreyel | Sep 12, 2004 2:10:58 AM | 16
@Kate
Freeway Blogger is at it again. Some crisp slogans being promulgated there.
Not everyone's sleeping. But (as we've all said repeatedly in various ways) it sure is scary. Hanging out this weekend with some friends in their 70's who remember vividly the Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis, and other high points of the Cold War. They say frankly things seem scarier now than then -- not because of Asp-craft's colour coded alerts du jour which leave them, like most intelligent people, unmoved -- but because of America's lurching, sudden dive into flagrant rather than covert bullying, utter fiscal irresponsibility, re-ascendant police-statism, and the promotion of instability all the hell over the place. Says my septaguenarian friend, "We're too old for Canada to allow us in as immigrants, but if it gets bad enough maybe they will take us as political refugees?"
de
I have seen a few of the Freeway Blogger's (or clone's) stuff here too, De... Turns my wince into a grin.
And thank you for the words from your septuagenarian friend...
""We're too old for Canada to allow us in as immigrants, but if it gets bad enough maybe they will take us as political refugees?"
I was only 10 years old at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. I remember it as if it was yesterday. Then along came Ronnie Raygun in my early 30s. Only time I've ever written a letter to a president. At least now I know that when I have occasion to tell myself I feel "crazy", it's because I live in the land of "crazy-making" and "crazy-makers". ;-)
Posted by: Kate_Storm | Sep 15, 2004 9:51:56 AM | 19
The comments to this entry are closed.
9/11 letters exchange between Arthur Schlesinger and Timothy Garton Ash.
Schlesinger:
Ash:Posted by: b | Sep 11, 2004 6:59:47 AM | 1