Posted on 09/23/2003 5:21:42 PM PDT by Clintons-B-Gone
Last week, on the anniversary of the September 11th attacks, Lawrence F. Kaplan published an extraordinary article in the Wall Street Journal. Titled, “Are you a September 10th American?”, Kaplan detailed polls which indicate that America is essentially split into two, mostly partisan, groups - those who consider their lives and the world changed by the events of September 11th and those who consider the attacks as “an event whose significance is emotional…and historical” not “the opening salvo of a years-long struggle”. According to Kaplan, September Eleventhers are comprised of “evangelical Christians, whites, rural dwellers, southerners and self-described conservatives”. September Tenthers are made up of “secular Americans, African-Americans, residents of cities, non-southerners, or self-described liberals.” Predictably, this schism manifests itself along party lines, with Democrats making up the majority of the September Tenthers and Republicans falling into the Eleventher camp.
The evidence is clear - Kaplan has phrased it succinctly. For most of us, September 11th was a watershed event, a heart-stopping moment when we reality finally punched us smack in the face. The pundits had been right. Terrorism was real. Terrorism was here. The unbelievable, the unthinkable had happened, just as they had warned us it would. Sobriety set in, after the endless party-on dude decade. Islamism - unveiled - revealed a secret world of fanatical crusaders, bent on our destruction. We could no longer pretend they didn’t exist. On September 11th, we immediately realized the necessity of taking the terrorists on, of stopping them before they could strike again. The bursting of the tech bubble, and the attack on the Twin Towers proved irrefutably that the fantasy make-believe world of the nineties was over. Saddened, wiser and grim, we grew up - overnight.
Unbelievably, the September Tenthers never did. After the briefest of respites, the Left dove back into the mud pit. Decency and polite discourse went the way of the dinosaurs during the Clinton era, and the Left has continued on that path straight to the bottom. Democratic Presidential hopefuls spew a barrage of visceral, hate-laced invective at President Bush, mixing outrageous accusations with convenient revisionism of historical facts.
The mainstream media has waged an endless campaign to try and convince the American people that the war in Iraq is a Vietnam-like “quagmire”, and that American troops are disgruntled and unhappy with their mission. Every incident which causes American casualties is eagerly and breathlessly reported upon, while successes are blithely ignored. The September Tenthers are at war - but not with the terrorists of September 11th. To the Tenthers, September 11th was not a watershed. It provided no epiphany. Their real war is with the right.
September Tenthers apparently cannot see the forest for the trees, blinded as they are by their unbridled loathing of President Bush and conservatives. The War on Terror takes a back seat to the War on Bush.
Many of us view September 11th as our generation’s Pearl Harbor, and Islamic terrorism as our modern day totalitarian fascist enemy. The September Tenthers do not. Their blinders prevent them from recognizing the truth - that Islamofascists hate us all equally and wish to destroy us all. If we don‘t tackle this threat today, it will continue to grow.
Imagine if, in 1942, the following column had run - “to label any group in Germany as an enemy is to take sides, or at least appear to, and that is not acceptable. One person’s enemy is another’s freedom fighter and it’s not for journalists to judge.” Or this one’s - “the poll findings (fingering Japan as having a hand in Pearl Harbor) are significant because they help to explain why the public continues to support operations in the Pacific despite the setbacks and bloodshed there.” Or, imagine a U.S. Congressman saying the following about FDR - “He is the worst President of the five that I have served with. He’s done a terrible job.” Or, a U.S. Senator saying, “We have not been told the truth. The President didn’t do the things necessary to protect our troops…this war is one of the most faulty, ill-advised, badly implemented policies I’ve seen in years.”
In 1942, with American dander up and with our boys getting creamed in the Pacific and elsewhere, these comments would have been met with derision and a swift boot in the pants. When Pearl Harbor happened, Americans instantly rallied together to defeat our common enemies. Our survival was at stake, and we were determined to prevail. September 11th was an eerily similar event, and our survival is similarly at stake. Yet, September Tenthers seem not to care.
To September Tenthers, the enemy is not Usama, he is George W. Bush and he is us.
© 2003 Jennifer King
Good point. One problem. The vermin who infest our educational system despise our country, and they despise white people. Don't believe me? Find a public school teacher and ask them to say something nice about white people. Then stand back and watch the show!
The fact is that our educational system has been taken over by racists of the most extreme and virulent kind, it is just that they are not recognized as being racists because they hate white people.
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