A Bearded Jim Jones

Via Andrew Sullivan, Spencer Ackerman on a Khalid Sheik Mohammed trial in New York City, and the possibility that KSM will grandstand or make idiotic pronouncements somehow.

My hope for the KSM trial is that it does more than all this. It should forever shatter the pernicious myth that al-Qaeda is composed of supermen — supermen against whom America has no choice but to alter its character and most precious laws in order to confront. I suspect we’ll have an Eichmann-in-Jerusalem moment — and sorry for the unfortunate Nazi/al-Qaeda analogy; al-Qaeda are not the Nazis; but I couldn’t really think of any other parallel — except instead of the banality of evil, we’ll see the lunacy and vanity and self-absorption of it. That’s because al-Qaeda’s weltanshauung depends on a myth that holds America to be implacably determined to snuff out the glory of Islam. In reality, most Americans couldn’t give a fuck about Islam and only started to know the first thing about it because of 9/11. But that America — an America bearing no resemblance to the actual America — will be what KSM seeks to counter-indict. It’s farcical, and farcical in ways that can only benefit the real America.

But what grandstanding?

How is KSM going to grandstand?

Federal criminal trials are not state criminal trials like the OJ Simpson case.  There won’t be cameras in the courtroom, and there won’t be audio recordings, either.  He probably won’t do a perp walk, and he’ll certainly be held without bail, thus eliminating the possibility that he could hold impromptu press conferences on the courthouse steps every day.

The feds don’t put up with the kind of BS that state criminal courts let happen.  The most you’ll get is a dull recitation of the day’s events from some well-coiffed network talking head, or from some airheaded dullard on the Insider or Extra, and some courtroom sketches.  We won’t have, for instance, Nancy Grace picking video nits from the trial on a daily basis.  There won’t be OJ Simpson trying on a glove.  This will not be the media circus everyone’s assuming it will be.

But to Ackerman’s underlying point, echoing that of AG Holder – really, who cares what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has to say?  He’s a former, indicted board member of a morally bereft, financially troubled, ideologically unpopular terrorist death-cult.  Who gives a shit what he says or thinks?

“Patriots”

A tea party was held today in Washington to protest the dictatorial regime of President Kenya Muslim Commie B. Hitler. This is the same crowd that informed everyone that disagreement with George W. Bush was equal to treason. This is the same crowd that had no problem spending a trillion or so to invade a sovereign country on false pretenses. This is the same crowd that looked the other way when the government wiretapped them, didn’t care when the government committed torture, and had no problems when the government manipulated the terror threat levels to help them electorally.

This is the same crowd that ridiculed people who protested war. This is the same crowd that ridicules people who protest poverty and social injustice.

Fascinating that consumer protection for health insurance and a public option bring out the Hitler comparos. For them.

And that’s not all.

Yesterday was 9/11. The first tweet I read yesterday was this, from a person who purports to be a leader in the new media conservative movement:

Even the locals were all “Obama’s going to ask ACORN to invite al Qaeda to re-attack America”.

Of course, the Canadian Twitter friend he was responding to was a bit more, shall we say, pointed.

The irony of course is that they fundamentally misunderstand and forget what the world was like in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. George W. Bush’s election in 2000 and the subsequent legal battle over Florida left a bad taste in many mouths, given the almost 50/50 split in the popular vote. But in mid-September of 2001, practically the entire nation was dead-set on exacting revenge on those who attacked us, and many differences were set aside in order to get that accomplished. When the teabag crowd gathers in Washington to celebrate 9/12, they’re celebrating fear and anger. Not unity or patriotism. Or taxes. The Cheneyesque fetishism of fear and anger is something that apparently lurks deeply in the hearts of people like Matt Margolis and whoever “Right Girl” is, but that is not an American value.

When I posted a picture of the World Trade Center yesterday, I posted what affected me the most about 9/11. I was born in New York City. I grew up not far from there. It’s my city. Those towers were built as I grew up, and I still remember visiting them about once a year, but most especially the first year they were open to visitors sometime in the late 70s. To remember 9/11 for me isn’t to recall that I was safely ensconced in an office in Buffalo when I first heard about it. It’s to remember the fact that almost 3,000 were murdered, and a scar burned out of the city of my birth.

To suggest that George Bush wanted 9/11 to happen is wrong. I didn’t raise anything political about 9/11 at all. But for Republicans, it’s a political issue. After all, Bush and Cheney went to great lengths to make it so after 2002. That’s why they feel comfortable saying that our current elected President – a native of the United States who prays to Jesus, raises two kids, and has a funny, foreign-sounding name – hates America and wants to keep it unsafe.

Anyone who suggests that Barack Obama wants Americans to die, or that he hates America, is a detestable excuse for humanity, and frankly I don’t know how someone with so much misguided hate sleeps at night.

Our greatest accomplishments as a country didn’t arise out of fear or anger. They arose out of hope, hard work, opportunity, and freedom. And when the country shook itself back to some semblance of normal after the attacks of 9/11, we didn’t demonize each other. Yet that’s what the people quoted above (just a tiny sampling of mouth-shits I saw on the internet yesterday) feel comfortable doing. And that’s a great deal of what went on in Washington today.

Reading things like the snippets above, I realize that some people have no concept of humanity or politics or fairness or what it means to be American. Seeing how easily some throw around pictures of Hitler and Lenin, hammers and sickles, and swastikas as comparisons with President Obama, my expectations of right-wing hysterics have been fully realized, in spades. I am ashamed to share a citizenship with these so-called “patriots”, because they. have. no. idea.

Photos via ninetwelve photos at Flickr

Live Alert: 9/11 Ceremony At Ground Zero

Live Broadcasting by Ustream

Maybe after 9/11/08, Everything Changes

A new local blog I stumbled upon today is called “Be the Change“, which offers some sentiments that I’ve been contemplating throughout the last couple of days:

I think my instincts were right…

Those that threw the most mud are going home.

Hmmm…maybe we are on to something here? What do you think?

and

I believe, as I have said before, that Obama has shown that you can stay positive, you can keep to the high road, and not come across as weak. You can counter attacks without attacking candidates personally and remain strong.

So when the local politicians don’t follow that model, the voters are pushing back. They are saying – we have had enough. It doesn’t have to be like that.

I can’t tell you how many people over the past two days have said to me “if I hear from this campaign again, I am not going to vote for your candidates”. And these are identified prime voter, supporters. You expect to hear it once or twice – but not again and again.

It’s a lesson folks – people are pushing back. They want politicians who will take the high road. They are done with the personal negative attacks. They are not going to take it anymore.

I think there’s negative and there’s negative.

And some people just deserve it, as I think Jack Davis did during the primary. I told someone today that although Jon Powers not getting the nomination was a loss, the fact that Davis’ political career is over means I’m batting .500. But I’m not a candidate. I’m a commentator.

Today, to commemorate 9/11, the McCain and Obama campaigns called a truce, and the two men vying to be President prayed together at Ground Zero.

I wonder if they had a friendly conversation, Senator to Senator, and pledged to tone down the nonsense and compete on issues. I wonder if they pledged to criticize each other’s policies and voting records, but to keep the extraneous noise to a minimum? They are both running to change Washington. They are both running on a platform of change. A campaign worthy of them, and of us, would be a great start towards change, indeed.

We may differ on taxation, the wars, spending, trade, and other issues. But we’re all Americans – and not just on 9/11.

Image via NYT