How cynical have we all become?
Waking up this morning to the news of the breakup and destruction of the space shuttle over Texas, one of my first thoughts was:
They’ll find some way to suggest that there was some sort of connection to terrorists.
By they, I mean of course the war parties like the Bushies, Fox TV, Rush, et al. That one of the astronauts was an Israeli may be used in that manner by some. Perhaps the ultra-Orthodox findamentalists will find it significant that Colonel Ramon was “working” on Shabbat during the landing.
For the moment, I’m chiding myself for my cynicism. We’ll soon see whether that cynicism needs to be transferred elsewhere.
I hope I’m wrong about this.
Comments
Nice looking site…
On your cynicism, you’re not alone. I had similar thoughts this morning, but not directed at anyone specific or of a particular ideologue. There are always nutty conspiracy theorists who will try to assign the blame for a tragic accident on terrorists or government or something.
Sadly, this is simply an accident. A terrible, terrible accident.
If I hear Bush trying to tie this into the war jingoism, I’ll pop.
On CNN, there was a concerted effort to discourage terrorist talk. No known weapon can intercept a target moving faster than Mach 3. No known weapon can intercept a target 200,000 feet in the sky. But we’ll wait and see.
Oh, I agree that there isn’t a shred of a chance that Columbia was shot down. Clearly it was a systems failure of some sort, with loss of refractory materials at a crucial location the most likely candidate. I was referring more to the Bushian reaction. Speaking of which, I thought his speech was overtly (and overly) theological. At least he used an Old Testament verse, probably “for” Col. Ramon’s sake.
BTW, when you say no known weapon, are you including the “Star Wars” system?
It was a very spiritual speech, wasn’t it? But it would be unseemly to complain about it on such a tragic day. It was from his heart, no question about that, but he seems to forget that he’s representing an entire nation, many of whom are neither Christian nor Jewish. It just doesn’t seem to register.
Nope...I wasn’t even thinking about the Star Wars system....
Oh. I added the XML button so that your site can be syndicated (news feeds).
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