Bombs or Conscience?
Congratulations are in order to you for breaking the mold. Thank you for printing an alternative viewpoint via Massimo Pigliucci's [March 20, Rationally Speaking] article, "Those Who Understand Bin Laden." It has become far too commonplace for the media to automatically condemn the terrorists for their actions without actually looking at the how and why of the attacks. And it has yet to be said that, perhaps, in a way of thinking, they might have been justified in their attacks.
I do not for one second mean to say that September 11 was not a tragedy. I do not intend to demean the fact that thousands of innocent people lost their lives. However, consider for a moment how many thousands of innocent people have been murdered by the American government and American corporations throughout the 20th century. How many innocents have been murdered by the "war on terrorism?" How many children are led to untimely deaths thanks to Nike sweatshops in Indonesia? How many thousands of people will die without a home because their native lands in South America have been taken over by American oil interests?
The United States creates terrorists, in both the literal and figurative senses. Not only do careless and arrogant foreign policies give birth to deserved ill-will towards Americans and our government, but we cannot forget that the CIA itself trained Osama Bin Laden. We are at least partly to blame for September 11, whether we want to believe it or not. It is a shame and a tragedy that thousands of innocent people were murdered for this point, but I believe that it is equally a shame and a tragedy that the limited view of the media has seemingly eliminated our role as Americans in the attacks and therefore eliminated any chance of September 11 creating a positive change in our American governmental and corporate foreign policies. Why blame ourselves or try to change when we can terrorize innocent people across the globe and feel better about ourselves, feel justified? In the end, it simply is easier to drop bombs than to grow a conscience.
Chuck Taylor
Maryville
Resent the Living, Not the Dead
If Jack Neely [March 20, Secret History] wants to vent his resentment towards rich people, why not let the dead rest in peace and concentrate on the living. If we started tearing down all the buildings in Knoxville built by rich men pretty soon we would have few buildings left to worry about. Does he not realize that both the Sprankle Building and the J. Allen Smith House were built by rich men.
Presently rich men are stewards of two handsome old buildings that have graced our city for the almost a century. It is a sad commentary on the rich men of today that the officers of our only locally owned bank and the board of the city's most prestigious country club can think of nothing more imaginative to do with their legacies from the past other than destroy them for asphalt parking lots.
Dorothy Stair
Knoxville
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