This morning, I saw on Facebook a wonderful posting on Facebook about 9/11 written by Jim Wright, and of course, I shared it. A couple hours later, I found out that Facebook had taken his posting down. They said it violated their rules. It didn’t. But it hurt some feelings. Since then, he has reposted it to his website at Stonekettle Station. You can find the article here. In addition to the original posting, he has added an explanation of what Facebook did, although no explanation seems to exist as to why they felt fit to do it. What we know is that people were offended.
It is a funny thing about truth. It offends people. It especially offends people who wave the flag and pound their chests and always stand with hand over heart for the national anthem. They love to watch our bombs go off over foreign lands, even when they have done nothing to deserve it. They love when our nation expunges basic American liberties (like privacy and the right to protest) in the name of security. They are totally happy with our nation violating our own treaties, as is being done in so many that involve Native Americans. They sing the anthem loudest when we are threatening those within our borders who have darker skin and/or perhaps speak with a foreign dialect (although a Southern dialect seems to be most acceptable).
Jim’s article didn’t go nearly as far as I would go in my feelings about 9/11. I probably would have said something about an administration that used such a horrible tragedy to justify invading a country that was not involved because they went into office trying to find an excuse to invade that country. They used those deaths and the fallen towers to justify attacking a foreign sovereign nation to gain access to its oil. In the process, they destabilized the entire region. It was a heartless lie they told the world and the American people. And not one of them has been called to account. That is what the anniversary of 9/11 means to me.
I also would probably have said something about the people who made such a deal, who still make such a deal, about the people lost, but fought AGAINST funds to the first responders who have subsequently found that their response has cost them their health. That is something else the anniversary of 9/11 means to me.
Those who objected to Jim’s posting are people who insist we honor “the colors.” But in so many instances they have shown their own colors, and those colors are not the colors that I was taught our country stands for. Our country is supposed to stand for justice and mercy. It is supposed to stand for tolerance and diversity. It is supposed to stand for peace, with war as only a last and unavoidable option. These people who were offended by Jim’s piece don’t appear to believe in any of that.
Please go read Jim’s posting. It is thought provoking and moving. I will not write any of it here, because I can’t do it justice. If you missed it above, the link is:
Stonekettle Station:Renegade 911