Some of us knew, even as the second WTC tower fell, that ‘our’ very own C-Plus Augustus and his quasi-adult handlers were going to weaponize !!! 9/11 !!! and release all their vilest realpolitik fantasies. I had dear friends who only survived because circumstances had them out of their WTC offices that day, and yet I could still fear for the millions of innocents who would suffer because a Saudi terrorist hiding out in Pakistan would give Dubya Bush the chance to work out his murderous daddy issues on millions of innocents elsewhere. WE’LL PUT A BOOT IN YER A**, IT’S THE ‘MURICAN WAY…
This broke my heart, a little more.
The first thing I think of when 9/11 comes up is Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh man murdered days after 9/11 by Frank Silva Roque, who told friends he was going to "go shoot some towelheads". Sodhi's murder was part of shootings at three locations. pic.twitter.com/Pm6XJVEr8c
— Jean-Michel Connard 🎃 (@torriangray) September 11, 2023
Sodhi's family are amazing people. His brother wrote an op end recently that I think is worth reading. https://t.co/QyT59fKGtW
— Jean-Michel Connard 🎃 (@torriangray) September 11, 2023
USA Today, June 2022:
My family received a letter last month from the Arizona Department of Corrections. In it, they told us that the man who murdered my brother died in prison on May 11.
Today, I am writing to express my public condolences to the family of Frank Roque.
Twenty-one years ago, my brother Balbir Singh Sodhi was shot to death in front of his store in Mesa. Balbir was a Sikh American father who wore a turban and kept a long beard as part of our faith. He was the first person killed in the wave of hate violence against people of color that followed the terrorist attacks on 9/11.
The man who killed him, Frank Roque, was arrested and eventually sentenced to life in prison…
On the 15-year anniversary of my brother’s death, I was tired. I had been telling my brother’s story to everyone I could – to media, lawmakers and students – but the hate in our country was getting worse. I was tired of racial violence against Sikhs, and against people from so many other communities.
“Nothing has changed,” I said to our family advocate. When she asked if I wanted to speak with Frank, I said yes.
We called Frank in prison in a recorded conversation on Sept. 16, 2016. It was the first time I had ever spoken to him. At first, Frank defended himself. “The events of 9/11 so broke me down as a man that I could not control what happened,” he said.
It was hard to listen, but I kept trying to understand Frank – and then, Frank said to our advocate, “I’m sorry for what happened to his brother.”
I spoke up, replying: “This is the first time I’m hearing that you feel sorry.”…
“I want you to know from my heart, I’m sorry for what I did to your brother,” Frank said to me. “One day, when I go to heaven to be judged by God, I will ask to see your brother, and I will hug him, and I will ask him for forgiveness.”
“I already forgave you,” I told Frank, because in my heart, I believe that forgiveness is freedom from hate. “If one day you come out [of prison], we can both go to the world and tell the story,” I said…
Four days after Frank died, I saw the news of the mass shooting in Buffalo, N.Y., where an 18-year-old white supremacist killed 10 Black people in a grocery store. Then, a few days after that, we learned of the school shooting that left 19 children and 2 teachers dead in Uvalde, Texas. Frank took my brother’s life before either of these gunmen were even born.
My heart breaks for the families who lost loved ones in these attacks, and I join so many in asking our elected officials to take action in response to these massacres. In the case of Buffalo, we must acknowledge that white supremacy is a horrible disease that keeps spreading from generation to generation…
And in both cases, the need for the most basic, commonsense gun reform is as clear to me, as it was when my brother was shot to death 20 years ago.
Ultimately, if Frank can be changed, I believe we can reach anyone before they succumb to hate. We can reach them with love. So today, I send love to Frank Roque’s family. I express my condolences for their loss.
And I mourn Frank. He’s not outside of our hearts – no one is.
There’s an Irish-American mantra: Forgive, maybe. Forget, never.
War for Ukraine Day 565: Russia Attacked a Liberian Flagged Cargo Ship in the Black Sea
brantl
The motto of the Fedaykin, in Dune, “Never to Forget!”
mvr
We went to the local Palestinian restaurant that night, figuring that they needed support and protection. We were heartened that we weren’t the only ones with the same idea.
I kept waking up for weeks with dreams of mobs in the streets waiting to attack people they associated with the attacks. In the end it was both worse (our country attacked Iraq and killed at least 600K innocent people – low estimate from early days in the debacle, I know) and less bad in that the domestic backlash was not what I had feared.
I hate the GWB administration with all my heart. But the one thing they did less badly than the rest of what they did was resist domestic violence against people who looked like they were from the middle east. Which is not to say that there was not such violence. But I know the country was capable of much worse than it actually got – within our borders. Outside of our borders we did about as badly as we could have done.
brendancalling
Mr. Sodhi is a better man than I am.
Alison Rose
I want to believe this. Some days, I do. Most days, though…it’s not just that I’ve seen so much hatred-driven violence. It’s that I see people who are proud of their hatred and of the acts they and others commit because of it. Maybe there are some Franks among them, but sadly I don’t think they’re the majority.
schrodingers_cat
@mvr: Bush going to the mosque in DC was helpful. I appreciated that.
Betty Cracker
@mvr: GWB was a terrible president. But as we quickly learned, it can always get worse.
mvr
@Betty Cracker: Yep. We did.
Rand Careaga
I am so fucking tired of seeing people wave the 9/11 bloody shirt online. I hold no brief for the hijackers, but the butcher’s bill on that day did not even amount to a rounding error measured against the deaths from the sky that this country has inflicted upon civilian noncombatants during the past three-quarters of a century. Just because al-Qaeda availed themselves of improvised tools instead have having recourse to cruise missiles like civilized people doesn’t make this country’s conduct in aggregate over the decades any less monstrous. Whining that no more virtuous or blameless a people was ever subjected to such an atrocity is not a good look for a predatory empire like ours.
CaseyL
The only reason for forgiveness that ever made sense to me was the idea that forgiveness allows you – the person who was wronged – to put the wrong behind you and get on with your life. It has nothing to do with being nice to the person who did the wrong, and there are obviously situations in which forgiveness is not at all appropriate.
But forgiveness also makes me think about restorative justice. I’m not sure forgiveness per se is part of that, but restorative justice is less interested in punishment or vengeance than it is in healing, of the wider community as well as the person(s) who were the victims of the crime. If I understand restorative justice correctly, it sees perpetrators as damaged as well, and punishment/vengeance does little more than perpetuate the damage, to everyone’s detriment.
But restorative justice, as I understand it, can only “work” on a local scale, among individuals and communities. There’s no place for it when entire populations are demonized and victimized.
Shalimar
I was listening to talk radio on my way home an hour ago and there was a guest bemoaning how the country needs to come together like we did after 9/11. Politics is so divisive now. He then went on to criticize Biden for stopping in Alaska instead of coming home from the G20 early to attend memorial services. After that, he blamed leftists for pushing all the hate that is out there now. “Come together” apparently means bend the knee to Republican rule in his mind.
jame
I’m with the Irish on this one.
HumboldtBlue
Fuck forgiveness, fuck Frank Roque, and fuck every asshole who cheered this fucking war on and excused the barbarity of our nation’s actions.
Betty Cracker
It might be a quirk of my bespoke media bubble, but this year had the least amount of 9/11 remembrance hoopla than I can recall. Good. Headline from Fox News:
My first uncharitable thought was “fuck y’all.” Upon reflection, that’s not fair. People who were personally affected can’t be expected to be rational about it. Maybe they expected the POTUS to show up every September 11th forever. It’s not realistic or healthy, IMO, but it is understandable.
But fuck every fake patriot Repub shithead who has relentlessly humped a national tragedy for 22 years. To the extent 9/11/2001 fades into history, it will lessen their power to use it for evil purposes.
Good.
HumboldtBlue
@Betty Cracker:
Obama never went to the memorial, he gave speeches at other locations. It’s all just more right-wing fever swamp bullshit that the media won’t check or question.
And Betty, I meant to share this Alabama fella with you six months ago. He built a five-acre pond, and while that construction was fascinating in its own right, what is really fantastic, is now that it’s been up and running, are his delighted accounts of the wildlife it has attracted.
Ruckus
@Alison Rose:
Frank sounds like he learned something in prison. Why in the hell did he have to live in prison to figure that out. Not hating people you don’t know should be normal because I could never remember several million names and faces. Nor should anyone have to. I’m in my 8th decade on this planet and sure there have been some people I haven’t liked in that time, but hate for hates sake? That is a damn shitty up bringing or culture if all one knows how to do is hate.
wjca
Because before prison he was just reacting without thinking. Driven by whatever idiocy he had been raised to or around. But in prison, he had lots and lots of time with nothing to do but think.
The challenge is to get people to think without having to spend time in prison to do it. Especially challenging when there is a major effort being made to keep kids from ever learning how to do that. Or even learn that it is possible, never mind acceptable, to do that.
HumboldtBlue
Trump seems to be in a bad temper.
Mike in Pasadena
I just read an opinion piece in the Wash Post by a Russian political prisoner advocating investigations and prison sentences for Putin and earlier regimes under the Soviets when Russia’s next brief window of opportunity presents itself to assert democratic order. I read the opinion and thought as I was reading, this is what must be done to the Republican party. Then I woke up. The broader picture was also apparent: our country still suffers because we did not fully outlaw the confederacy (I note the presence of the traitorous Confederate flag at rallies today and note the Nazi swastika as a flag is rare in Germany); we let Nixon escape and only a few of his cronies served time, much more should have been known about his crimes by trying Nixon; Barr and Bush I ensured, again by use of the pardon, that the Iran-Contra schemers were never fully investigated by the government in a trial. The lawless nature of the R party has been allowed to metastasize into Trumpism. We are on the edge. I provided a link (in the wrong way, no doubt) because I could not attach a Word version.
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/09/11/russia-post-putin-democracy-window-nuremberg-lustration/
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Betty Cracker:
@HumboldtBlue:
Exactly. I doubt the POTUS goes to Pearl Harbor every single year on December 7th. Peter Doocy, the dweeb, asked why Biden wasn’t going to be in NYC for 9/11. WH staff answered that the POTUS wasn’t traveling to Hawaii 22 years after the Pearl Harbor attacks.
Of course, bad faith critics tried to assert that wasn’t the same at all, because Hawaii wasn’t technically part of the US at the time and it was an attack on a military base not civilians.
Which I mean, sure, it wasn’t an attack on civilians but thousands of American sailors were killed by a foreign power. It was an incredibly traumatic event on par with 9/11 and that’s the point that those people (intentionally) miss
Suzanne
So I lived in Mesa when Singh’s shooting took place. I was devastated to realize there was so much religious bigotry, so close by. Mesa was founded by LDS settlers and is still a heavily Mormon area (Jeff Flake lives a couple of miles away from where this shooting occurred). But I remember feeling just absolutely disgusted, and worse. I didn’t think I could feel worse that week…. but I did.
Ruckus
@HumboldtBlue:
You’d be in a bad mood too if you were such a fuck up your entire life and after catching the game winning home run and then dropping the ball because, well, you are such a fuck up. SFB is the kind of person who has never fucked up in his life because just look at him or ask him!
OK I’ll give everyone a minute to clean up after that…
His reality has no actual, factual, measurable truth to it and never has. But he’s the shinning light for idiotic, moron subhuman beings who need moment by moment coddling and reassurances that he isn’t the absolute fuck up that he actually sees in the mirror every day. (half a million times a day I’d imagine) His world has zero reality, which is seemingly difficult to imagine, but then he thinks he’s something. someone’s gift to the universe but really he’s just 300 lbs of shit in shitty shoes who has zero concept of reality.
RevRick
@Rand Careaga: I hear you on this one. One thing that troubled me was how quickly the grief turned into a vengeful bellow of rage. All those cars flying flags from their windows morphed from an affirmation of solidarity with the victims into an in-your-face bellicosity.
The church I served organized a prayer service the following evening. We sang peace hymns. We lit a candle of peace. We prayed for the victims and the terrible wound we all suffered. And I opened my sermon with the same words that Harry Emerson Fosdick spoke, the Sunday after Pearl Harbor: God damn it! I wanted the people I served to know that I shared their deep anger. But I also wanted to let them know that the dogs of war that had been unleashed would not solve the deeper conflict. I reminded them that even in this moment we are called to be peacemakers.
Chetan Murthy
@CaseyL:
I read what I thought was an excellent description of forgiveness: you forgive, when you reach a point where you honestly don’t want to change the past. When you’ve moved past the injury or harm sufficiently that you’re a different person and you no longer want to be the person who would not have suffered that harm.
HumboldtBlue
Well, if there are any Jets fans who were wondering if their franchise is still horribly snake-bitten, Aaron Rodgers tearing his achilles is another sign that yes, it is.
Jackie
@HumboldtBlue: He’s trying to make Judge Chutkan recuse herself. Watching O’Donnell tonight, he read the recusal arguments made by TIFG’s lawyers. The tag team of Katyal and Weissmann blew up those arguments to smithereens, ending with “you don’t wait 45 days and then decide you don’t like that judge.” TIFG is off to another very bad week!😁
HumboldtBlue
@Jackie:
I didn’t see the show, but I knew the blow up was coming. He’s scared, and I’m here for it.
Jackie
@HumboldtBlue: Poor Aaron…🎻
Jackie
@HumboldtBlue: 👍🏻
eta O’Donnell’s show repeats at 1:00 a.m. ET
Jackie
McKevin calls Gaetz’s bluff:
Thinking on it, WHO IN THE WORLD wants to replace Kevin as Speaker to the hornets nest aka the very dysfunctional MAGA GQP? No one – including Gaetz.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@HumboldtBlue:
Captain Caps Lock lmao
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jackie:
It’s interesting. McCarthy was ritualistically humiliated earlier this year and was forced to give a ton of concessions to people like Gaetz, and yet they’re too afraid to use them against him. There was literally no point to anything the Crazy House GOP Caucus has done this year so far
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jackie:
Maybe he can go on Rogan’s podcast to get a pep talk and discuss the evil of vaccines
Yarrow
@HumboldtBlue: Don’t really care about the Jets and not an Aaron Rodgers fan but that’s a sucky injury.
karen marie
@Suzanne:
Mormons are terrible people. Of course they’re bigots. Their religion is based on exclusion of everyone but white men and boys.
The worst politicians are kept in office in Arizona, and Mesa specifically, because Mormons are terrible people.
karen marie
On a lighter note, if you’re not listening to Strike Force Five, you’re doing it wrong.
Citizen Alan
@mvr: True. As much as I hated and still hate george w bush, I will give him credit for at least trying to tap down on hatred and bigotry towards Muslims in general in the aftermath of 9/11. Had someone like shitgibbon been president instead of him I feel certain we would have gotten internment camps for all arab americans and/or muslims. And probably for every democrat who wouldn’t been the knee.
TS
@HumboldtBlue:
Hasn’t even got a judge he appointed to protect him – nothing congress can do. He surely didn’t think this nonsense through.
hueyplong
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Sometimes we forget how deeply stupid the freedom caucus types are. There is a downside to being completely ignorant of how to be a professional politician.
Citizen Alan
@Jackie: I still hold out hope that if the freakshow caucus pulls the plug on the mccarthy speakership and brings us to the point of a shutdown, there will be at least 5 centrist republicans who will say they finally had enough and will caucus with the Dems.
TriassicSands
@hueyplong:
There is also a downside to being a terrible human being. Then, add gross stupidity to the mix and, amazingly, things don’t get any better.
Jackie
@TS: He’s got Cannon on the MAL stolen documents case. He appointed her, and she’s doing what she can to aid him. Notice she’s the ONLY JUDGE he’s complemented thus far.
barbequebob
@Yarrow: Have been a Jets fan since the days of Joe Namath. They have been dead to me since they hired Rogers.
Jackie
@Citizen Alan: That’s a distinct possibility. The Republican Senate has stepped away from the MAGA House. I’m expecting a Democratic House assistance to step in again “at the right moment” like they did to avoid the debt from defaulting.
Jackie
@barbequebob: I feel ya.
piratedan
maybe, just maybe there’s a certain amount of finding out that is permeating thru the GOP side.
It seems like we’re just at the beginning and I have no idea on just how much political/ethical/moral will there is to follow thru on what needs to be done. I kind of wonder how it will go once TFG has a criminal finding confirmed by a judge/jury. Does the DOJ think it stops there, crisis averted or will it slog thru and bring down the entire edifice?
My fear is if there is not follow thru, we go thru this again, with the base of the iceberg intact to accrue a more capable frontispiece.
wjca
She can help him delay her case (and is). Which is his standard MO, so he probably thinks that’s enough.
But on any ruling of substance, she’s getting regularly overturned. Regularly and caustically. Which likely means he’s toast there, too. Eventually.
Mai Naem mobile >
I worked with a woman who used to shop at Sodhi’s convenience store. She was a single mom with 3 kids with an ex-husband who wasn’t paying child support so she was often living paycheck to paycheck. She said there were times when she ran short Sodhi would let her buy foodstuff on credit until she got paid. Try getting Kroger to do that.
prostratedragon
@Jackie:
Once more, leaping into the basket of deplorables.
(Judge Chutkan mentioned no names.)
FastEdD
I will never forget Bush the Lesser hijacking America’s grief and flying it into Iraq.
Ruckus
@Jackie:
TIFG is off to another very bad week!😁
Oh what a shame…… Not.
frosty
@hueyplong: Yeah, but Scott Perry keeps getting reelected and nothing I’ve done for a couple of cycles has stopped that from happening, dammit.
At least we kept Mastriano out of the statehouse though.
Ruckus
@TS:
He’s never thought anything through in his life. He’s been shit his entire life because I believe he isn’t capable of actual thought. He is a reactionary, and seemingly not a very smart one.
Shalimar
@karen marie: Mormons have been very successful in their missions around the world, especially in South America. The majority of Mormons worldwide now are non-white. It isn’t reflected in their top leadership yet, but they will get their equal representation eventually.
Ruckus
@TriassicSands:
Yep, gross stupidity has never been a good selling point for any human endeavor because it always goes bad. And they never see it coming because they are grossly stupid. Sort of a vicious circle of their own making, chasing the tail they don’t even have.
eldorado
Yes yes but let’s not let this unpleasantness get in the way of our golf tournaments
frosty
@barbequebob: Joe Namath…
I had a job round-robin interview in LA for an engineering job in 1974. One of the interviewers was a black guy from Baltimore, near where I grew up. At a lunch with all the interviewers and interviewees the subject of football came up. I opined that I’d only seen one game, Superbowl 3, Jets and Colts. I said it was a great game and I loved how Namath trashed talked how he was going to win and then he did it. My Baltimore guy said: “I hated that game! Do you know how much money I lost??”
When he found out I’d been hired, he pulled me into his unit. First major career job I had and still one of the best bosses I ever worked for.
Ruckus
@piratedan:
You have a more than big enough portion of the conservative party that now has pretty much zero idea about doing anything humane or in the least bit reasonable. And I’ve been looking at US politics for about 60 yrs now and really, they were never any better, other than they mostly understood that they lived in a 2 part world of right and left. I think the really misunderstood what the word right means in this context, especially the radical side of conservatism, as in how can they be wrong they are on the right side. They can’t even understand actual english and that some words have more than one use or meaning.
frosty
That’s a very poetic description of what he did. Well said.
sab
Oklahoma City bombing was 1995. Tim McVeigh was arrested almost immediately, convicted in 1997 and executed in summer 2001. Then 9/11/2001. We completely forget that home grown right wing militias are still around and can be dangerous. But they vote Republican so Bushes and Cheneys don’t much care about them. Let’s focus on foreigners.
ColoradoGuy
The grief was very carefully steered away from Saudi Arabia … which directly financed the attacks … to Iraq, which had a secular dictatorship that caught and imprisoned Jihadi fanatics. Iraq has never been a friend of the Kingdom, or its worldwide export of Islamic radicalism.
And the Pakistani ISI supplied the technical expertise as well as a long-term refuge for Osama bin Laden, the world’s most wanted criminal. Both nations, chock-full of well-financed terrorists, got away scot-free for murdering 3000 people.
The only reason to attack Iraq was the fear of “Peak Oil”, which was rampant in the oil biz at the time (before the fracking revolution took hold).
prostratedragon
“Llueve sobre Santiago [Rain Over Santiago],” Astor Piazzolla
mvr
@Citizen Alan: Yes. One of the things that worries me. TFG would certainly have gone in for camps. He may anyway if he gets a second act. Why we must prevent his getting one.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Citizen Alan: there were people picked up and detained in the US after 9/11 by the hundreds based on often only suspicion or having a similar name.
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: Understatement of the century.
Paul in KY
@ColoradoGuy: The reason Iraq was attacked was to help out Likud Israel. Remove a functioning Arab power for them. If Israel themselves had attacked Iraq, would have been a general Mideast war. It’s all spelled out in that PNAC document.
Emmyelle
My Indian graduate student’s mother told him to shave his beard and get a haircut and “dress respectfully” after that shooting.
Geminid
@Citizen Alan:
@Jackie: Another possibility is that 5 or more Republicans make a deal with Jeffries and his team to back a caretaker Speaker like former Rep Tom Read. Republican Rep. Don Bacon floated an idea similar to this going into the January Speaker election.
The idea would be to allow floor votes on critical legislation that the Republican caucus would otherwise block. The Democrats would avoid the stress of trying to govern as a minority, while the Republicans would be left to stew in their own toxic juices.
Meanwhile, Bacon and his buddies would hang out with Tom Reed in the “Independent Republican Caucus” office and sip bourbon while they talk about their retirement plans, and about what a relief it is not to have to listen to Lauren Boebert and Matt Gaetz anymore.
unctuous
@wjca: Did they allow him to have Fox News in prison? That might be a clue.
unctuous
What the Bush, the Neocons and the most of the rest of the Right did was weaponize 9/11.
All we had to fear as a nation was fear itself, and Republicans stoked that fear (and hatred) for political gain and in the case of Dubya’motivation, for his own petty ends.
They did the exact opposite what FDR astutely counseled, the only thing that could ever really break the strength of One into weaker Many.
We see that come to fruition even now. Republicans divided America with fear order to conquer it.
No outside enemy ever could though many tried. All it took was one weak feckless president and a handful of opportunists in congress and in the media.
The Lodger
@Betty Cracker: Giving the memorial speech in Alaska was a reminder that 9/11 should be remembered by and in the whole country. not just a few spots on the East Coast, notwithstanding the parochial butthurt from the New York Post.
karen marie
@Shalimar: “Women will be subordinate to their husbands for eternity”
That’s the basis of Mormonism. Not much of a religion based on “God’s Word” if it can be put to a vote by mere mortals to change dogma about how God will receive you in heaven.
As I said, Mormons are assholes.
Meth is also popular. Doesn’t mean it’s not harmful.
H-Bob
@Geminid: You wildly overestimate the rationality and underestimate the partisanship of the “moderate” Republicans.
unctuous
@karen marie:
This is the case in some evangelical christian churches. They vote on the pastor. This is how many evangelical churches became a heretical mix of christ and q-anon. And why the leaders of some congregations are now struggling to retain core teachings of the gospel, because their congregants no longer think Christ’s views non-violence and taking care of the less fortunate should be part of it.
It’s heretical AF but they want what they want and they vote out the ones they dislike.
unctuous
@unctuous: Also, re “God’s Word”, Southern Baptist leadership actually supported Roe, hailed it as an advance for women’s healthcare. Those leaders were removed as abortion became politically useful to the Right.
The Catholic Church has always been anti-woman.
Geminid
@H-Bob: Wildly overestimate? It just takes 5. Two members of the caucus already voted to impeach Trump. That would be Valadeo (CA) and Newhouse (WA), which you should know if you pay attention. A third, Bacon (NE) floated this idea in January. He will likely retire and has nothing to lose. They would just need two more members, likely prospective retirees.
You may be underestimating how sick and tired some Republicans might be of seeing the Freedom Caucus push Kraven McCarthy around. Maybe you think that all Republicans are stupid and venal, but that’s just a gratifying stereotype.
If Gaetz moves to remove the Speaker and succeeds, Republicans had better agree on a replacement quickly or all bets are off.
Ed. I will add that I don’t think there are any “moderate” Republicans in this caucus and have said that here many times now, so don’t lay that “you are are being naive” crap on me.