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Disgruntled, Freakish Reflections™ on Recent Events
Well, I suppose I've been avoiding this long enough. I'm having a really hard time articulating how the recent tragedies have affected me, and I really don't have much to say. Its not because I don't care, or that I haven't thought about it; its that I don't know about it - and you know what? No one really knows about it. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you should keep in mind that just about everything you hear is pure speculation, including what you are reading right now. The world is a delicate place, and bad things are going to happen. That much seems clear. A military strike is unavoidable, and it looks like it will be happening soon. I'm glad to see that we're not rushing into this; that there seems to be some strategy involved. But I can't help but feeling that we may be counter-productive in the long term. Still, I feel some sort of display of force is necessary, and I'll support anything short of nuclear war (which is just insane). I like the way Bush is handling things as well. I'm curious to see how he will be percieved 20 years from now (which, of course, depends on the pending "war on terrorism"), because right now, he doesn't seem like the inspirational type (though his speech the other night was quite good). Some other random thoughts:

• My confidence in the media has been steadily dwindling for quite some time now. Their bias is so utterly blatant, yet they won't let reporters wear a red, white, and blue ribbon for the sake of "objectivity". The media has completely avoided asking the question "Why?", while at the same time reporting that Palestinians are celebrating in the streets. The media knew how that would affect the American public; that's why they showed the now-infamous video. Yet, according to many other sources, the celebrations were small isolated incidents, and some doubt that the celebration was even related to the WTC tragedy(German link: Stern Magazine). How much should we be trusting the media? Not very much. Most of the time, they are speculating just as much as everyone else.
• Those who are critical of America's foreign policy are, in some ways, right to do so, and I support their right to free speech. I don't think they are unamerican at all. But, in all honesty, I think its in bad taste, especially if you think we're going to do something about it. Consider this great example: "a man drives his wife to the store and gets into a traffic accident where she's killed. As he sits on the ground next to his car sobbing, you don't walk up to him and say "You know, this wouldn't have happened if you'd been driving slower." Even if that was true, that is not the time for that message. A true friend knows when to speak and when to shut up."
• U.S.S. Clueless - the personal weblog of Steven Den Beste has some thoughtful, intelligent, and properly enraged commentary on the attacks and our impending response. Of particluar note are some of his essays, including: What are we fighting for?and Theres no such thing as a 'civilian' (this is also where I got the above story about the car crash) I do wonder how he views his article on Theory and Practice of Terrorism now (considering that he wrote it before the attacks, and that the article seems to imply that any military response is giving the terrorists what they want)...
• Red Cross relief funds and such:
• via Red Cross
• via Amazon
• via Paypal

So, to summarize, take everyone's opinion with a grain of salt and try not to rush to hasty conclusions. No one knows as much about this as they think. I hope our response is exacting, measured, and absolutely, brutally, conclusive. Well, that's that. I'll be returning to my normal posting shortly. Stay tuned.

This post is part of the Kaedrin Weblog. It's been categorized under Politics and was originally published in September 2001.

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