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Morrow: The Case for Rage and Retribution [BRILLIANT]
Time.com ^ | 11/15/00 | Lance Morrow

Posted on 09/15/2001 3:41:34 PM PDT by BurkeanCyclist

The Case for Rage and Retribution

What’s needed is a unified, unifying, Pearl Harbor sort of purple American fury — a ruthless indignation that doesn’t leak away in a week or two

For once, let’s have no “grief counselors” standing by with banal consolations, as if the purpose, in the midst of all this, were merely to make everyone feel better as quickly as possible. We shouldn’t feel better.

For once, let’s have no fatuous rhetoric about “healing.” Healing is inappropriate now, and dangerous. There will be time later for the tears of misfortune note.

A day cannot live in infamy without the nourishment of rage. Let’s have rage. What’s needed is a unified, unifying, Pearl Harbor sort of purple American fury—a ruthless indignation that doesn’t leak away in a week or two, wandering off into Prozac-induced forgetfulness or into the next media sensation (O.J. … Elián … Chandra …) or into a corruptly thoughtful relativism (as has happened in the recent past, when, for example, you might hear someone say, “Terrible what he did, of course, but, you know, the Unabomber does have a point, doesn’t he, about modern technology?”).

Let America explore the rich reciprocal possibilities of the fatwa. A policy of focused brutality does not come easily to a self-conscious, self-indulgent, contradictory, diverse, humane nation with a short attention span. America needs to relearn a lost discipline, self-confident relentlessness—and to relearn why human nature has equipped us all with a weapon (abhorred in decent peacetime societies) called hatred.

As the bodies are counted, into the thousands and thousands, hatred will not, I think, be a difficult emotion to summon. Is the medicine too strong? Call it, rather, a wholesome and intelligent enmity—the sort that impels even such a prosperous, messily tolerant organism as America to act. Anyone who does not loathe the people who did these things, and the people who cheer them on, is too philosophical for decent company.

It’s a practical matter, anyway. In war, enemies are enemies. You find them and put them out of business, on the sound principle that that’s what they are trying to do to you. If what happened on Tuesday does not give Americans the political will needed to exterminate men like Osama bin Laden and those who conspire with them in evil mischief, then nothing ever will and we are in for a procession of black Tuesdays.

This was terrorism brought to near perfection as a dramatic form. Never has the evil business had such production values. Normally, the audience sees only the smoking aftermath—the blown-up embassy, the ruined barracks, the ship with a blackened hole at the waterline. This time the first plane striking the first tower acted as a shill. It alerted the media, brought cameras to the scene so that they might be set up to record the vivid surreal bloom of the second strike (“Am I seeing this?”), and then—could they be such engineering geniuses, so deft at demolition?—the catastrophic collapse of the two towers, one after the other, and a sequence of panic in the streets that might have been shot for a remake of The War of the Worlds or for Independence Day. Evil possesses an instinct for theater, which is why, in an era of gaudy and gifted media, evil may vastly magnify its damage by the power of horrific images.

It is important not to be transfixed. The police screamed to the people running from the towers, “Don’t look back!”—a biblical warning against the power of the image. Terrorism is sometimes described (in a frustrated, oh-the-burdens-of-great-power tone of voice) as “asymmetrical warfare.” So what? Most of history is a pageant of asymmetries. It is mostly the asymmetries that cause history to happen—an obscure Schickelgruber nearly destroys Europe; a mere atom, artfully diddled, incinerates a city. Elegant perplexity puts too much emphasis on the “asymmetrical” side of the phrase and not enough on the fact that it is, indeed, real warfare. Asymmetry is a concept. War is, as we see, blood and death.

It is not a bad idea to repeat a line from the 19th century French anarchist thinker Pierre-Joseph Prou-dhon: “The fecundity of the unexpected far exceeds the prudence of statesmen.” America, in the spasms of a few hours, became a changed country. It turned the corner, at last, out of the 1990s. The menu of American priorities was rearranged. The presidency of George W. Bush begins now. What seemed important a few days ago (in the media, at least) became instantly trivial. If Gary Condit is mentioned once in the next six months on cable television, I will be astonished.

During World War II, John Kennedy wrote home to his parents from the Pacific. He remarked that Americans are at their best during very good times or very bad times; the in-between periods, he thought, cause them trouble. I’m not sure that is true. Good times sometimes have a tendency to make Americans squalid. The worst times, as we see, separate the civilized of the world from the uncivilized. This is the moment of clarity. Let the civilized toughen up, and let the uncivilized take their chances in the game they started.


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Amen.
1 posted on 09/15/2001 3:41:34 PM PDT by BurkeanCyclist
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To: BurkeanCyclist
Fire the grief counselors and give them a shovel or export them to Tabul.
2 posted on 09/15/2001 3:48:25 PM PDT by Woodkirk
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To: BurkeanCyclist
Nothing will stem my anger. I hate having people call it a "tragedy." It's an OUTRAGE. May our rage come out! Put the fatuous grief counselors out of business. We do, indeed, need the power of our fury.

Thanks for posting this brilliant editorial that so eloquently states my thoughts and feelings. Let's not forget that rage, fury, and anger are feelings, too, wholly appropriate now and in the days, weeks, and years to come.

3 posted on 09/15/2001 3:51:24 PM PDT by PoisedWoman
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To: BurkeanCyclist
Good article. I would like to see a stop to all of these candlelight vigils and "national prayer services." Prayer has its place, but not if it promotes the development of sappy, effeminate men who should instead be laying steel to the neck of the enemy.
4 posted on 09/15/2001 3:53:12 PM PDT by Alberta's Child
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To: Alberta's Child
I would like to see a stop to all of these candlelight vigils and "national prayer services."

I think we needed to mourn the victims (though we do get a bit soppy these days). However, I would have liked a few references at prayer services to the God of Battles strengthening our arm, or "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, and the United States of America is His instrument."

5 posted on 09/15/2001 3:57:34 PM PDT by BurkeanCyclist
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To: BurkeanCyclist
exactly right. just perfect.

now, let's find and kill the bad guys. let's find and kill those who sponsored the bad guys. let's find and kill those who merely cheered on the bad guys. let's find and kill everyone to whom news of the world trade center and pentagon brought a smile.

and let is delight in the task, for our cause is just.

dep

6 posted on 09/15/2001 3:58:39 PM PDT by dep
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To: BurkeanCyclist
They did sing the Battle Hymn of the Republic and the end of the service on Friday.
7 posted on 09/15/2001 4:04:04 PM PDT by Coolidge
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To: PoisedWoman
I believe that pure fury, properly focused, can be an incredibly productive and positive emotion. I am going to worship God tomorrow. If anyone tells me it is time to begin the healing, I will lovingly tell them to take a long walk off a short pier. I am full of rage and I will not be assuaged until the blood of my brothers and sisters is avenged. May God Bless this Republic!
8 posted on 09/15/2001 4:10:01 PM PDT by Don'tMessWithTexas
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To: BurkeanCyclist
ANOTHER THING! This is NOT, I repeat..NOT, a tragedy. Hamlet is a tragedy. Oedipus is a tragedy. This was an atrocity. I was getting a battery for my watch this afternoon. I heard a bimbo complaining that the thing about this atrocity that ticks her off is that a marine ball has been cancelled. I wanted to pick that babe by the hair and bunny slap her. I wanted to say girl, you better get on your knees and pray that your man don't come home in a body bag. Another example of a prozac-sedated mind-numbed automaton. May God have mercy on her sin-sick soul.
9 posted on 09/15/2001 4:18:20 PM PDT by Don'tMessWithTexas
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To: Don'tMessWithTexas
If anyone tells me it is time to begin the healing, I will lovingly tell them to take a long walk off a short pier.

LOL! What restraint -- I'd get behind them and shove.

10 posted on 09/15/2001 4:20:05 PM PDT by PoisedWoman
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To: Alberta's Child
And for God's sake, get Joyce Brothers off TV!
11 posted on 09/15/2001 4:26:02 PM PDT by BurkeanCyclist
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To: BurkeanCyclist
The Case for Rage and Retribution

Only Jehovah God, Lord of ALL UNIVERSES have the right to VENGENCE!!!

12 posted on 09/15/2001 4:32:17 PM PDT by AMMON-CENTRIST
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To: BurkeanCyclist
In for the long haul with "purple American Rage".
13 posted on 09/15/2001 4:34:27 PM PDT by Diva Betsy Ross
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To: Don'tMessWithTexas
BTTT
14 posted on 09/15/2001 4:37:21 PM PDT by Max McGarrity (madmax@revolutionist.com)
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To: AMMON-CENTRIST
Vengeance is Mine, saith the Lord...

...and the U.S.A. is His instrument.

15 posted on 09/15/2001 4:38:21 PM PDT by BurkeanCyclist
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To: BurkeanCyclist
Thank you for posting this!
16 posted on 09/15/2001 4:40:26 PM PDT by neutrino (neutrino)
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To: BurkeanCyclist
and the U.S.A. is His instrument.

WRONG!!!!

17 posted on 09/15/2001 4:40:45 PM PDT by AMMON-CENTRIST
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To: AMMON-CENTRIST
Only Jehovah God, Lord of ALL UNIVERSES have the right to VENGENCE!!!

Really? Then I'll go for payback. With interest. And handling charges.

Though the payback may be of Biblical proportions...

18 posted on 09/15/2001 4:42:27 PM PDT by neutrino (neutrino)
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To: neutrino
You need to REPENT!!!!
19 posted on 09/15/2001 4:45:14 PM PDT by AMMON-CENTRIST
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To: BurkeanCyclist
Absolutely excellent post!

"As the bodies are counted, into the thousands and thousands, hatred will not, I think, be a difficult emotion to summon. Is the medicine too strong? Call it, rather, a wholesome and intelligent enmity—the sort that impels even such a prosperous, messily tolerant organism as America to act. Anyone who does not loathe the people who did these things, and the people who cheer them on, is too philosophical for decent company."

That was certainly worth repeating.

20 posted on 09/15/2001 4:45:52 PM PDT by Clinton's a liar
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