Since 9/11, We've Embraced Our Inner Coward

[marmar]

Published on Thursday, December 31, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
Since 9/11, We've Embraced Our Inner Coward

by Ted Rall


NEW YORK -- Home of the free and the brave. Live free or die. Shoot first; ask questions later. Kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out. These were the mottos of a brash, impetuous, audacious-to-a-fault nation.

That nation is dead.

Once we Americas did brave things: We sat on boats, crossing the English Channel, knowing that most of us would die on the beach in Normandy. We sat at the lunch counter in the Deep South, waiting for white goons to beat us up. We also did brave things that were stupid: When the president sent us to Vietnam, some of us went, risking death. Others went to Canada, sacrificing everything for principle. We bungee jumped. We tried New Coke. Bravery can be dumb.

But it's still brave.

Then came 9/11/01. It was the defining event of the decade that ends today, a fin-de-siècle moment for a previously proud nation's once glorious history.

The Fear Decade had begun. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/12/31

[valerief]

1. They weren't the mottos of a nation. They were the mottos of a national media. nt

[marmar]

2. True

[timeforpeace]

3. By blaming us, without a word against those who attacked us, Ted fails.

[marmar]

4. I think you missed his larger point.

[rfranklin]

5. Those who attacked us are insignificant. If we always react...

with fear and trepidation to the big bad Muslim Islamofascists, we are a fearful, psychologically little nation.

[kenfrequed]

6. Uhm wow...

No. You REALLY missed the point.

Are you sure your on the right board?