Putting 9/11 in perspective - now THERE'S a concept!

ah...! that all-too-rare glimpse of truth and common sense...

About Paul Campos
A native of Colorado, Paul Campos practiced law in Chicago before returning to his home state in 1990 to join the law faculty at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He has written extensively on the role of law in American society.

When Stu Bykofsky, a columnist for The Philadelphia Daily News, wrote a column last week in which he openly hoped that America suffers "another 9/11," he merely had the poor judgment to say what many a right-wing politician and pundit is thinking.

Evidence for this is everywhere: in the fact that Bykofsky was invited to appear on the GOP's unofficial network, Fox News, to "explain" his comments; in the keen disappointment that ripples throughout the right-wing blogosphere every time the collapse of a bridge or a steam pipe explosion turns out not to have been the work of Scary Brown People Who Hate Our Freedoms; and in predictions such as that made by former Sen. Rick Santorum, that the GOP's electoral fortunes will improve as soon as there's another terrorist attack.

[...]

The narcissism at the heart of the Cult of 9/11 is captured by an episode of Larry David's mordant comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm. David meets with a rabbi whose brother-in-law was killed in uptown New York in a bicycle accident on the day of the terror attacks. When at the meeting's end David innocently exclaims "Let's roll," the rabbi is outraged: "You knew my brother-in-law died on Sept. 11! How dare you say something like that!"

A nonplussed David replies, "I didn't realize that if you died uptown it was still part of the tragedy."

The fact is that if you, like me, are one of the 99.9 percent of Americans who doesn't know anyone who was killed or injured in the 9/11 terror attacks, or in the subsequent rescue efforts, then 9/11 was at bottom a very disturbing thing that you saw (over and over again) on TV.

It didn't "change everything," and it didn't (and doesn't) justify the Iraq war, indiscriminate spying on Americans, extrajudicial renditions, torture, or any of the other immoral actions that continue to be done in its name.

It's high time to stop wallowing in our obsession with what is becoming the most overblown and shamelessly exploited event in American history.

go read the rest of it... it's well worthwhile...

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