"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast"
-Oscar Wilde		 Brilliant at Breakfast title banner "The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth, shall be watered also himself."
-- Proverbs 11:25
"...you have a choice: be a fighting liberal or sit quietly. I know what I am, what are you?" -- Steve Gilliard, 1964 - 2007

"For straight up monster-stomping goodness, nothing makes smoke shoot out my ears like Brilliant@Breakfast" -- Tata

"...the best bleacher bum since Pete Axthelm" -- Randy K.

"I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum." -- "Rowdy" Roddy Piper (1954-2015), They Live
Friday, July 08, 2005

Chicken Little vs. the Stiff Upper Lip
Posted by Jill | 6:03 AM

Yesterday afternoon as I was driving home from work (yes, I survived the purge, though 9 of my co-workers weren't as fortunate), I heard Sam Seder, subbing for Randi Rhodes, actually lose it on the air with a caller. The caller, "Paul from New York", was a dittohead of cosmic proportions. His call was the standard litany of wingnut talking points -- September 11, Saddam Hussein, WMD, he supports the troops and we don't, Karl Rove was right about "you people", yada yada.

Of course callers like this are standard issue on Hannity's show, which runs opposite Randi at that time, but usually even the wingnuts who call Air America are more intelligent than this guy. However, what was interesting about him was the undercurrent of fear and panic in his voice, a fear that underlies most of the ranting about destroying Islamofascism. Seder, who completely lost patience with this guy, ended up screaming, Randi-style, right on the air, whereupon the caller resorted to the last refuge of someone with absolutely nothing to say and nothing to back up his statements: He called Seder a faggot, whereupon Seder went completely postal and dared the guy to call him a dirty Jew while he was at it.

Departure being the better part of valor, the caller hung up. Now, this might have been great radio theatre, but it was pretty bad radio. Someone should have nipped this in the bud, and CERTAINLY cut off the guy before the word "faggot" went out over the airwaves. But still -- it was pretty instructive as to the terror -- in the fear, not the tactical sense -- that underlies right-wing ideology these days.

John Aravosis, reporting from Edinburgh after going to London, notes how Britons, while frightened and outraged, are not in the state of full-scale panic that has gripped far too many Americans unabated for 3-1/2 years now, whipped up by the Bush Administration for its own ends:

I just saw a beautiful report on ABC News tonight about London, they rebroadcast it here. The final report, about how the city reacted to today's attacks was spot on. It really is giving me chills, because of how much ABC got it right. People were shocked by the attacks, but they really are determined not to let it get them down - I'd say much more so than we were on September 11. Meaning, we were more freaked than they are now. Much of that is due to their experience with the IRA bombings - this isn't exactly new.

Still, they were shocked, and saddened. And many businesses closed tonight, though I think of a lot of it was more out of respect than fear. Many however were open, and the restaurants, including outdoor restaurants, were packed. The trains were packed. The buses were packed. People walked through the Kensington Gardens (where we walked by Michael Stipe taking a walk with some friends).

I can imagine it would take me a long time to get back on any public transportion in DC after an attack. Here, they all did right away, and I joined them, and it didn't phase me. I'm not sure why. All I can say is that their calm in the face of all of this calmed me as well - I can't imagine I just rode the train in London and didn't really give a second look to who was on the car with me, or about the threat of any further attacks.

I've got lots more details to give, but really need to get to bed. I will say that more than one person has expressed a certain amount of sympathy, well, perhaps empathy or understanding is the better word, for why this happened. Again, none of those are the "right" word, they're not saying "we deserved it," but more than a few are saying, between the lines, that Blair's, and Bush's, actions led to the attack, even caused the attack. Perhaps the most surprising was a cop in front of Buckingham Palace who, when asked by my friend why he thought today happened, the cop responded: "Because some people just want to be free." Pretty interesting words from a cop guarding Buckingham Palace on the day the flag is at half mast for the second time in history (Lady Di's death being the first time).

But in the end, London still stands, strong, and lovely, calm, and resolved, and with dignity. It really is an amazing city.


Meanwhile, this morning the New York Times is reporting that the London attacks have fed the fears of Americans, particularly those living and working in cities:

It is usually hard to say what everyone is thinking about, but yesterday you could say it: "It's dangerous to live here," said Craig Fols, an actor. "But I thought this through after 9/11. It's a kind of danger I'm going to live with."

In Chicago, Boston, Miami and San Francisco, people said similar things yesterday, whether with a certain bravado, or on the legs of denial, or from a more tentative resolve. "When I stop to think about it, I don't feel very safe," said Nancy LaMantia, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., business owner. "But then again, on a day-to-day basis, I feel fine."

The American psyche, if such a four-time-zone mind exists, has for the past four years been poised somewhere between the frantic alarm of Sept. 11, 2001, and the daily routine of the low-grade anxiety that has replaced it. But with a bombing in the heart of a world capital like London - a capital so closely related to America culturally - that equilibrium seems lost, and in its place yesterday, you could sense the raw emotion, and even the fatalism behind it.

"It's only a matter of time before something happens in New York again," said Jason Falk of Brooklyn. He described his certainty about his statement as "definitive."

Phil Spencer, a sales executive from Kansas City who was interviewed in Chicago, said: "Things are just not the same as they were before 9/11. "It's just different. I wouldn't call it a sense of fear. Call it a sense of awareness."


And "awareness" is what it should be, because living in the constant state of worry and fear and terror that has gripped Americans like "Paul from New York" for the last 3-1/2 years is not going to change anything. A therapist I used to go to wisely said that worry and anxiety keep you busy and give the illusion that you can do something about a situation that in reality you can't change. This continued state of, for lack of a better word, terror, in which Americans have lived just has to stop. You are not going to be safer by giving up your freedoms. You are not going to be safer by slapping a yellow ribbon magnet on your SUV. You are not going to be safer by freaking out every time someone swarthy gets on the subway. In fact, it's quite possible that this is just the state of the world we have to live in. The British seem to know this.

I think "Paul from New York", and those who think like him; who believe that throwing more bombs, more killing, more death, and more occupation at the problem is going to somehow eliminate terrorist rage, could learn something from the British.
0 comments
Bookmark and Share