Thumb-twiddle time...
Sep. 12th, 2001 01:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpI don't know what the deal is, but late yesterday afternoon I was instructed not to report to the Execute Package this morning, as JSC would not be open. I went on down to the client's office around 9 am anyway, just be close by should JSC open its doors. Around 11:15, I gave up waiting and came home.
I'm following doctor's orders and sucking down liquids after donating a pint yesterday. Yesterday's pre-donation screening, by the way, was way more extensive than my first experience giving blood, back when I was in boot camp.
Then, I recall, the basic two questions we were asked were: "Have you ever had hepatitis?" and "Have you been tattooed in the past year?" Answering "no" to both earned you a cot for the time it took to donate the blood. Yesterday, they asked about a half dozen questions to try to identify AIDS risk factors, and then a slew of others that were intended to screen for things such as mad cow disease. I then lay down to donate maybe my fifth or sixth pint of blood overall, certainly the first in many moons.
* * *
Like many others, I've been reading what other have to say about the news of the day, both here on LJ and around the net. Some observations:
On the "kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" option: This line of thinking (or of action) is ill-considered. The people in New York and Washington were victims of a criminal act, no matter what kind of pretty political duds anyone tries to put on it.
On the "our country deserved it" argument: Funny how rapists often posit the same kind of reasoning to justify criminal assaults against their victims. Victims of violent crimes - and especially victims chosen at random - never deserve what happens to them.
On the "one more excuse to pile dirt on Bush" opportunity: I read one rant that accused Bush of hiding in an underground bunker while death and destruction rained down upon the citizenry from the sky. This is an extreme case, I think, of someone who simply hates Bush, and who finds a justification for that hatred in everything the man does. I suspect, had Bush flown directly to D.C., the same writer would have taken "W" to task for a grandstanding gesture that recklessly exposed the country's Chief Executive to needless risk.
Sure, I know, the same kind of yahoos were plentiful back when Clinton was in power, but it's disturbing, nonetheless. I know it's too much to ask, but might it not be a better idea to criticize - if necessary - after the President orders some action taken?
On that note, I shall do my best to stay away from this subject from now on.
Cheers...
I'm following doctor's orders and sucking down liquids after donating a pint yesterday. Yesterday's pre-donation screening, by the way, was way more extensive than my first experience giving blood, back when I was in boot camp.
Then, I recall, the basic two questions we were asked were: "Have you ever had hepatitis?" and "Have you been tattooed in the past year?" Answering "no" to both earned you a cot for the time it took to donate the blood. Yesterday, they asked about a half dozen questions to try to identify AIDS risk factors, and then a slew of others that were intended to screen for things such as mad cow disease. I then lay down to donate maybe my fifth or sixth pint of blood overall, certainly the first in many moons.
Like many others, I've been reading what other have to say about the news of the day, both here on LJ and around the net. Some observations:
On the "kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" option: This line of thinking (or of action) is ill-considered. The people in New York and Washington were victims of a criminal act, no matter what kind of pretty political duds anyone tries to put on it.
On the "our country deserved it" argument: Funny how rapists often posit the same kind of reasoning to justify criminal assaults against their victims. Victims of violent crimes - and especially victims chosen at random - never deserve what happens to them.
On the "one more excuse to pile dirt on Bush" opportunity: I read one rant that accused Bush of hiding in an underground bunker while death and destruction rained down upon the citizenry from the sky. This is an extreme case, I think, of someone who simply hates Bush, and who finds a justification for that hatred in everything the man does. I suspect, had Bush flown directly to D.C., the same writer would have taken "W" to task for a grandstanding gesture that recklessly exposed the country's Chief Executive to needless risk.
Sure, I know, the same kind of yahoos were plentiful back when Clinton was in power, but it's disturbing, nonetheless. I know it's too much to ask, but might it not be a better idea to criticize - if necessary - after the President orders some action taken?
On that note, I shall do my best to stay away from this subject from now on.
Cheers...
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no subject
Date: 2001-09-12 11:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2001-09-12 03:50 pm (UTC)Rationality and cool heads are badly needed here.
no subject
Date: 2001-09-12 04:17 pm (UTC)On the "our country deserved it" argument: Funny how rapists often posit the same kind of reasoning to justify criminal assaults against their victims. Victims of violent crimes - and especially victims chosen at random - never deserve what happens to them
"
this is reductionism.
i don't believe that our country is without blame,
but of course we didn't DESERVE it.
people are afraid at all times to criticize our country's foreign policy, or else they'll be called unamerican, unpatriotic, traitorous.
i feel it would be wrong not to voice my concerns over my government's policies that i feel are incorrect.
i am furious over this event, and i feel very strongly about my opinions.
i take it as a foregone conclusion that obviously whomever is responsible for this deserves multitudes of misery heaped upon them for eternity.
whether or not that means someone shoving a 10,000 pound bomb up someone's nose is for someone else to decide.
Bush is, erm, not my idea of a choice president,
but he IS the president, so he obviously needs to survive. if he had put himself at high risk by taking a seat at the Oval Office or otherwise high profile area, and had been killed, the symbolic value of that hit for the other side would be enormous, not to mention multiplying the nation's confusion and hurt.
no subject
Date: 2001-09-12 06:31 pm (UTC)For the past two decades, I've espoused the libertarian viewpoint, which basically ticks off both liberals and conservatives, so I know what it's like not to be "Mr. Popularity" in political discussions.
That said, I guess we must live in different countries, because I have never encountered an environment in these United States where I or the people around me have been "afraid at all times to criticize our country's foreign policy, or else they'll be called unamerican, unpatriotic, traitorous."
And what's the big deal with name-calling, anyway? I've been called plenty of names. Commie. Fascist. Dope-head. Gun nut. Jew-lover. Anti-semite. (I never bothered to keep a complete list.)
Freedom of speech is not having a license to say what you want without facing criticism; it's being able to speak without an official goon squad showing up to take you away and apply a cattle prod to your gonads, or engage in some similar unpleasantness.
(On the other hand, I have lived - as has my wife - in Soviet Russia, where people were afraid to criticize anything about their country, under penalty of unpleasant police interrogations at best, with less pleasant fates being the norm.)
Cheers...
no subject
Date: 2001-09-12 08:25 pm (UTC)dissenting views were not very tolerated.
jingoism was the rule of the day.
i am commenting on a curious view that is prevalent which is that dissent should not occur during times of national crisis. i am criticizing the criticism aimed at myself and many others who have raised what i believe to be valid questions.
of course i'm not afraid to voice my opinions, in the same way as a person in some other country might be afraid...
my point is that cultural pressure is mounting in this direction, and those who might question OUR country's foreign policy are generally unwelcome because we are "blaming the victim" because the USA could've never done anything wrong, or we're chanted the chorus of the ignorant "if you don't like it, get out of my country."
no i don't believe my ideas, or dissenting ideas in general are being suppressed, of course not,
but repressed, perhaps.
no subject
Date: 2001-09-12 08:52 pm (UTC)i am an unapologetic Nader voter.
and i'm not a damned stoned hippy, like the Greens were portrayed in the media coverage of the recent election.
so we're on the same page as far as not having mainstream opinions.
a further comment on your lucid (thank goodness) criticism (referring back to getting your message across) of my reply;
where the fear existed in voicing dissent during the gulf war, and where i imagine it will again exist, is in our congress, where the senators and representatives raised and will raise no single criticism of policy or else they would have committed (or will commit) political suicide.
my voice, and the voices of those in agreement with me will not be represented... which i surmise is the way things are supposed to work, the majority rules, and the minority quietly sulks in the corner.
PS: i presume you were called Jew-lover by a jealous husband, no?
PPS: who says a cattle prod to the gonads is unpleasant?