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Edited on Thu Aug-18-05 11:15 PM by Redstone
I was starting to answer a post in another thread about how many people at DU immediately jumped to the defense of the police in London who murdered that poor Brazilian guy. But as I wrote it, it developed into a longer piece that I (humbly) believe might be worthwhile for people on both sides of that issue - and, indeed, many DUers, to read and think about.
I don't make a habit of writing lengthy, thoughtful screeds, and may indeed be off track with this one, but read the whole thing anyway, if you would, and tell me if I'm on the right track.
I was shocked, immediately after the London Tube execution, that so many DUers instantly rallied to support the police officers involved in the incident, without questioning the facts of the event, as those fact were fed to us, at all.. Now, at some resolve, I believe I have gained some understanding of just why that happened, and have calmed my attitude toward those DUers considerably.
It was tough seeing all those DUers essentially succumb to panic; but now that I think back on it, I think I understand the fear that was palpable in their eagerness to feel that a blow had been struck against terrorism, and that for just once, the police and others who were hired to protect them had actually done what they were hired to do, and had whacked one of the evil terrorist fuckers before he could kill someone.
That's why I haven't gotten--and will still not get--angry with the doubters. It's just human nature, in these times, to want --to really want to feel safe, to feel that your "protectors" are actually competent to protect you.
So when we see a news item that has the kind of drama that we, children of movies and television, interpret as a "daring operation" by "special police forces," we want SO badly to believe that the Heroes have come to rescue us from the Evil Ones, as we've been taught to believe they will.
And in this case the Evil Ones are evil in a way that we DUers, for the most part, simply cannot comprehend.
It's a sad fact of America that many, many right-wingers can mentally put themselves in the kind of psychological space that McVeigh inhabited; they can actually visualize themselves with psyches so overheated with perceived insult or injustice that they could indeed, and without compunction, no matter if innocents (such as babies) were in the target space, set off a fiery volcano of misplaced revenge, without the slightest moral compunction.
In other words, they are eminently capable of of acts of terrorism; whether on a scale smaller than the Islamic terrorists' acts or not, they do without question share the same blinding fanaticism that engenders an utter disregard for any morality or sanity or judgment beyond their desire to destroy.
We DUers simply are not capable of understanding at a basic level how some people can kill others, without consideration of guild or innocence. I'd dare to say we're just not wired that way--and therein lie the roots of this temporary schism we had here in DU. We can't imagine ourselves thinking like the far-right and Islamic terrorists do; it seems to us like they're another species only vaguely related to us.
How many times, after all, have you seen or heard some freeper rightwinger advocate the large-scale murder of a group of people who he or she finds offensive? Happens pretty frequently, doesn't it? When was the last time you saw or heard such sentiments from a DUer or another liberal? Bet you can't remember when.
Nonetheless, we never know if we're going to be in the building the next McVeigh targets. We never know if we're going to be in the next building that Al-Queda targets. If a terrorist, home-grown or imported, sets his sights on a place where we just happen to be, it won't matter to us whether we're a good person who understands the terrorist's grievances, or even sympathizes with his cause, we'll die just like everyone else.
We just don't know.
What we do know is that we have placed our lives in the hands of men and women whom we have hired (we pay their salaries with our taxes) to protect us from the McVeighs and the Al-Quedas.
And they don't seem to have done a very good job so far. (This statement is not meant to insult the many brave, dedicated people who work hard in law enforcement and intelligence-gathering services; I happen to believe that the failures we've seen were because of political meddling and incompetent management, not a lack of dedication by the people in the field and on the front lines.)
The public, the constituency of these agencies, for the most part feels the same way. They know that these agencies and police forces are staffed with good, well-meaning people. The public wants, no, craves an occurrences wherein these dedicated people can win a clear victory over the Evil Ones, thus reassuring us that we are indeed, protected.
And when such an occurrence occurs, it is only natural that a large part of the public will be so grateful for the opportunity to breath a sign of relief, for the first time in so long, that they'll immediately drop their guard, and because of that long-pent-up desire for good news, excoriate the doubters.
People: I knew the very next day, and just from reading the little old Hartford Courant's gutted AP and Washington Post reports, that something was not right with the accounts of that shooting. That doesn't make me any more intelligent than anyone else, just more cynical.
But for day afterward, I continued to be stunned at how many DUers blindly took the position that what the police did was justified. I was angry about that at the time, but am not now.
Now I understand. Any of you who felt that the police were justified at first, but do not now, please don't think I'm flaming you. I think I do understand why you took that position, and if you really want my position, I think it's perfectly natural for you to have done so.
But you'll be more skeptical next time, I bet.
Do not let fear cloud your thinking, my friends. If you do, they win. All of the "they's."
Redstone
Edited for spelling and typos.
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