Ones and Zeros: Watching an anti-American protest

Watching an anti-American protest

September 14, 2002

There were a couple of dozen of them, lined up across the street with their signs. It's not a big turnout, we said to ourselves. They're new at this, we decided. Only two or three of them worked up the nerve or the vitriol to even shout at us. Mostly they took photographs, mostly of each other. One year ago this week thousands died in New York City. Today the protesters I saw had signs that called for:

God's Judgement on America for Murdering the Innocent

Which is almost exactly what Osama bin Laden said in this interview from Nov 10th, 2001

God's Judgement on America for Tolerating Sodomy

In Texas, it's only legally tolerated when performed by heterosexual couples. I'm not sure we're staying on message here, people...

GOD will not Bless a Wicked Nation

Jerry Falwell was named MAD Magazine's Dumbest Person of 2001 for blaming the Sept. 11th attacks on gays, lesbians, feminists and other people he considers 'wicked'. These advocates of religious hatred of the United States for our policies might never personally kill or bomb anyone, but others do, for the cause. The vast majority of their co-religionists don't support the violence or the hatred of the US. Many are loyal Americans and a bunch of them are fighting and dying to preserve the American way of life. There are a lot of reasonable, thoughtful people who would never hold signs like that but who agree with these people on some of their (other) key principles. I wasn't in Karachi or Kabul or even Canada. I was in Houston, Texas. I was at a Planned Parenthood Clinic that, amongst the other medical services it offers, does indeed perform abortions. Calling on God to destroy America because you are offended by her policies, even if they promote "toleration" and "wickedness" is despicable. These religious fanatics are free to hold and even promote their anti-american agenda, but they bring disrepute to any cause they are associated with. This wasn't a high-profile national protest for the evening news. It wasn't even covered, which is fine. But I don't think their grass-roots call for the Judgement of God on Wicked America should go uncondemned.

.:Posted by Michael on September 14, 2002 11:06 PM:.

Amen.

Most people, not exempting myself, are fantastically oblivious to their own ironies. When those people echo bin Laden's rhetoric, they're just being foolish.

Some of them, though, probably know what they're saying, and really agree with it. Those people scare me.

.:Posted by Greg Morrow ( total) on September 17, 2002 10:14 AM:.