Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] facism gaining ground in US

[Pierce T . Wetter III]

On Jul 19, 2004, at 3:32 PM, John Seifarth wrote:

> At 10:48 -0700 19/7/04, Pierce T.Wetter III wrote:
> >  A month later, 3,000 people are dead, our stock market is in a  
> > shambles, and wherever you go, you see pissed off Americans waving  
> > flags.
> >
> >  That was the moment that the US was closest to facism. We're a  
> > little calmer now, but at the same time, when I think about 9/11 I  
> > get pissed off all over again. One thing most Europeans don't realize  
> > so much is that Bush took a very measured response given the feeling  
> > in the country at the time. We would have been perfectly accepting if  
> > he'd nuked someone.
>
> And this is precisely what has always scared the shit out of me. I  
> grew up in the 60s in suburban America near Philadelphia, with "Duck  
> and Cover", regular air raid drills at my elementary school where we  
> hid under the desks and waited to hear radio say that "This has been a  
> test of the Emergency Broadcast System...". I saw the movie Fail-safe  
> and the high-pitched squeal of the phones melting in Moscow and New  
> York are still strong in my mind.
>
> In 1970, my family moved to Belgium. The Soviets were deploying SS-20  
> intermediate range missiles in Eastern Europe, so the US located some  
> Pershing II missiles in southern Belgium to maintain the balance of  
> terror. I always had the feeling that the average US citizen, feeling  
> safe back in America, would prefer Europe reduced to radioactive ashes  
> rather than seeing the USSR gain a strategic advantage.

   The Cold War is kind of too broad a topic for me to refute this  
viewpoint in an email.

 Here's a good book on the Cold War.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0805034544/ 
qid=1090276877/sr=8-5/ref=pd_ka_5/104-4706452-2725516? 
v=glance&s=books&n=507846


> When I read Pierce say that "We would have been perfectly accepting if  
> he'd nuked someone", and not perceive the enormity of the  
> disproportionate reaction between receiving  an assuredly painful  
> terrorist blow and a riposte involving nuking somebody (who? anybody  
> who might have been involved? men, women, children, babies?) because  
> you're so "pissed off", I can only sigh.

 Well, I should say that I was being overly dramatic, I didn't mean to  
push your nuclear fear button.

 We all felt very frustrated and definitely wanted to find those  
responsible and have at them. We wouldn't really have nuked them,  
however I could probably come up with some hypothetical situation where  
something that would make Iraq look like a garden party would have been  
ok.

 For instance, if it had been Saddam instead of Osama, we would have  
just started bombing Iraq continuously. We wouldn't have targeted  
civilian areas, we wouldn't have needed to, just the palaces would have  
kept us busy. Would that have been proportionate? Probably not. Anger  
isn't rational.

 In general though, Americans very much blame the leader and not the  
people.

> This impenetrable, self-centered, borderline crazy attitude Americans  
> have toward the use of deadly force is what sometimes scares their  
> friends even more than their enemies.

  Too peaceful a history most of us think. Having not experienced the  
horrors so much of war, perhaps it gets glorified. However, we're not  
really as bloodthirsty as I probably implied either, I was trying to  
explain the depths of our anger, not the breadth.

 Pierce