Sunday Morning Rant

From the Timesonline we get a clearer picture of the timeline of Mohammed Atta's movements before September 11 with a video of him reading his will. Absolutely chilling how normal he behaved, how cold and calculating he really was. With everything to live for he chose to martyr himself for a cause that Americans just don't understand.

Worst of all is the fact that the average American doesn't want to understand. Unfortunately what isn't understood is usually feared and demonized. It is a sad truth about Americans, we tend to go overboard with our reactions, it is our history.

When we fear a culture we make it out to be an evil that must be eradicated. Like it was polio or something. When Europeans first came to the continental US, they hunted and killed the Indians, took their land by force and made them out to be vicious, angry savages because they were different. Totally forgetting that if it wasn't for the Indians they wouldn't have survived their first year in the new country and that they were the invaders who didn't really have the moral high ground. Not that it stopped them then, just like it isn't stopping us now.

In recent history it was herding the Japanese into camps and taking all that they owned, just for being Japanese. It didn't matter if their family had been in this country for generations, they were made out to be loyal to a country they had never seen. And we are at it again, with every new law that rolls out of the do-nothing Congress and the "I will pick and choose which laws I want to follow" President who signs them. It's just a matter of time before certain groups of people become "enemy combatants" and disappear into camps, for our safety, wink, wink.

We have become such a "me" country that people feel that it is ok to not only have prejudices, but to feel free to act on them. Not letting someone fly because you are scared of the way they look is absolutely ridiculous and should be called racism, because that is what it is. Personally, overweight women with manicured fingernails and a whispy little girl voice drives me right over the edge but I shouldn't impose my beliefs (gross!) about them prevent them from being who they are or denying them the civility that I myself expect from the world.

Somewhere in the last thirty years we lost the ability to empathize with other people. Not just people from other countries, but from our countrymen, neighbors and family. We have become one dimensional caricatures of what we used to be, a pale reflection of glory gone past. Superficiality has become our modus operandi. When people know more about who has won on Survivor or Dancing with the Stars than they do about their civil rights and how they have disappeared in the last few years and think it is for the best, we have lost our way and are without a candle to light the path.

Our military is stretched to the breaking point with no relief in sight. For those people who support the war from their couch it is long past time for you to step up and support your country. If you believe that bringing democracy and "eliminating" terrorists is a reason for war, then you should enlist to fight the battle. Otherwise, shut up, because the people you want to make war on are willing to die for their cause and since we aren't willing to give up going to McDonalds, much less stand in harm's way and at two billion dollars a week, it might be a better idea to take care of our own country first.

That's why we pay taxes.