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What we have here is a failure of human understanding

With absolutely nothing else to talk about, the right wing has, of course, decided to raise the question of why Deval Patrick hates America. David Bernstein creates a chronology of the frenzy following Patrick's 9/11 speech yesterday and puts his use of the phrase "failure of human understanding" in its WWJD context (Patrick has used the phrase before).

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I'd have to say I agree with Deval:

"9/11 was a failure of human understanding, it was a mean and nasty and bitter attack on the United States.

It was a failure of the humans in recognizing that the savages who've been saying 'death to America' for decades weren't just chanting an empty slogan.

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Our Massachusetts version of Neville Chamberlain.
"Failure of human understanding" equals
"Peace in our Time." And let the Panzers
roll into Warsaw.

What part of two planes flown into my friends
workplaces and beheading Daniel Pearl doesn't
this f'ing Moonbat panderer understand?

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What part of men on horses wearing white sheets in the name of their religion and way of life lynching uppity literate blacks in the night don't you wingnuts recall from history?

You don't overcome tragic nonsense by finding new excuses for it, or new excuses for doing it to somebody else in the current era.

Roasted chickenhawks, anyone?

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Robert Byrd was still a Democrat, and still on the side of the moonbats.

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Straight from the Karl Rove playbook--if I oppose
the war in Iraq then I'm not patriotic and I don't
support the troops.

If I disgree with Governor Moonbat, then
I'm a cross burning racist because I'm being critical
of an "uppity" black man.

Who's the real racist here?

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I think we know who the bombastic chickenhawk is, unless you are posting from your posting in Iraq.

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...over-simple though processes like this are wrong headed and un-helpful. i'm pretty sure Patrick understands that two planes flew into the side of those buildings.

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It's funny how often the Foxists pull out that name. There's some important history there. Neville Chamberlain was too soft with the rising fascist movement in Germany. The "general policy of appeasement" was entirely the wrong way to deal with a twisted maniac who wanted to take over the world by force of arms.

That's not the funny part, though; the funny part is how misguided the Foxists are about historical parallels. Saddam Hussein was a tinpot dictator like many others, with an iron grip on a rag-tag army that threatened nobody by 2001. Hitler, in comparison, was the democratically elected leader of one of the most powerful industrial powers in the world, with expansionist dreams of empire and global control.

I agree that we should not take a policy of appeasement towards fascistic leaders of powerful nations, towards social movements based on racial and religious intolerance and persecution. I believe we should not pull our punches when we deal with serious threats to world peace and democracy. And that, and an oath I once swore to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, lead me to believe that George Bush and Dick Cheney must be impeached.

I wonder if the Neville Chamberlains of today's America will ever come to terms with the damage to our nation caused by their appeasement of the most dengerous fascists in today's world -- the radical neo-cons leading what's left of the Republican Party.

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Agreed on the Chamberlain point. Hussein wasn't
who I was talking about. He had nothing to do
with the attack that Governor Moonbat was attempting
to commemorate. Four years and thousands of
lives lost in Iraq is a tremendous, arrogant mistake
that can be laid at the feet of the Bush, Cheney,
Rumsfeld, et al. (Of course, the recently elected
Democratic-majority Congress is almost complicit in
the crime through it's incompetence.)

I was talking about Bin Laden and Al Quaeda, which is
who I thought Patrick was SUPPOSED to be talking about
as well. The Chamberlain reference was to a state "leader"
who could stand up in front of the families of the slain
and describe their killers language you would use to describe a
puppy who piddled the carpet.

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The Chamberlain thing has become a kind of a pet peeve for me. After all, Chamberlain declared war on Germany in 1939, and the response from the US was ...deafening silence. Much of Hitler's damage to Europe might have been avoided if the US hadn't been so disinclined to get involved, not to say cowardly. And, of course, those who most strongly opposed getting involved in the war were the Republicans, who called Roosevelt all kinds of nasty names for suggesting we should. Some of them, like our current Bush's grandpa, were making too much money financing the Nazis to want the war to end. If Willkie had won...

As for Deval's sound-bite, I'll agree it works pretty poorly as a sound-bite. It's rather awkward, and he should fire his scriptwriter. When I hear it, however, my first impression is that he's making a religious sort of comment, that one of the major reasons 9/11 happened is human arrogance: the al Qaeda folks felt so sure they were in tight with God that they violated Humanity. His words to allude to this are so different from what people usually say - that everybody did a big huh? Whaddya mean "failure of human understanding?" They wanna destroy Democracy!!

People have become quite accustomed to understanding religion as a sort of tribal warfare whose language is jingoism, e.g. Them damn Islamicals hate God. But Islamic radicals actually think they love God. And that God tells them to do things like bomb innocent people.

I think that could be correctly classified as a "failure of human understanding." Quite the same kind of failure evident when Bush claims God told him to bomb innocent people in Iraq.

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those who most strongly opposed getting involved in the war were the Republicans, who called Roosevelt all kinds of nasty names for suggesting we should. Some of them, like our current Bush's grandpa

*Cough* Teddy Kennedy's father *cough*.

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[blah blah Foxists blah blah Foxists] ... damage to our nation caused by their appeasement of the most dengerous fascists in today's world -- the radical neo-cons leading what's left of the Republican Party.

Yeah, that's why you were rounded up by "neo-con" stormtroopers and put into a detainment camp immediately after pressing Post Comment.
(--Dave, a NESNist)

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Do you watch it even when the Sox aren't playing?

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I don't think I ever have, unless you count the once in a great while when I catch part of a B's game.

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I have no idea what's even on that channel once the Sox regular season is over.... though I sure wish they'd broadcast the playoffs so I could avoid the atrocity of Fox Sports.

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"Because among many other things..."

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"Failure of human understanding" might be true in a broad sense; Osama's terrorists want to push the world toward a state of superstitious ignorance. But Patrick used the words "failure of human being to understand each other," which implies that the blame falls on both the killers and the victims.

I guess my not accepting that makes me a "right-winger."

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The Governor was substantially wrong. Whether the 9/11 Arab-Muslim terrorists were driven by something as simple as plain old Arab nationalism or something as grandiose as a Global Caliphate (if there's no Sharia in Cuba, there is no Sharia anywhere, to paraphrase Barack Obama) it is highly unlikely their actions were the result of a "failure of human understanding." They understood perfectly well what they were doing and why.

Style wise, the Governor's choice of words is infuriating since his trademark response to criticism and even inquiry is "I get that." Yes, the Governor always gets it and the rest of us wallow in failure of human understanding.

You can take that to the subprime-mortgage lender.

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Sibel Edmonds, 9/11 Whistle Blower: Will Now Tell All - and Face Charges if Necessary - to Any Major Television Network That Will Let Her

Who is Sibel Edmonds?

9/11 family member Patty Casazza talks about the 9/11 commission and reveals that Sibel Edmonds had incriminating insider information about the 9/11 attacks:

Sibel came to, actually, the four widows, and asked us if she could get a hearing with the Commission because nobody of the Commission was responding to her requests to testify... Um, Sibel brought us many whistle-blowers, and I submitted them personally to Governor Kean, who was the Chairman of the Commission. And I said, “these people are not being subpoenaed. They will not come before the Commission voluntarily unless they are subpoenaed.” And, he promised me… to my face that “every whistle-blower would be… indeed heard.” And, most were not heard. Sibel was only heard because we dragged her in and surprised the Commission on one of the days we were meeting with them… that we had her with us. Um, we met other whistle-blowers on the side of the road in Maryland, ya know, to hear what they could tell us. None of them revealed state secrets to us by the way (laughs)… um, but, they had information… and basically,

the Government knew… ya know, other than the exact moment… they knew the date, and the method of which the attacks were supposed to come... And none of this made it to mainstream media. None of it made it into the Commission.

And yet, again, all of your Representatives, on the day that the Commission book came out, were on their pulpits saying, “What a fabulous job this Commission has done. A real service to this nation.” And it was anything but a service. It was a complete fabrication.

What's Sibel trying to tell us?

9/11 Related:

Information omitted and covered-up regarding documented and confirmed case of a long-term FBI Informant & Asset who provided the FBI with specific information and warnings in April & June 2001 regarding 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Information omitted & covered up regarding documented information in the procession of the FBI in July 2001 regarding blue prints and building composite information of Sky Scrapers being sent to certain groups in the Middle East by certain Middle-Eastern suspects in the State of Nevada.
Information omitted & covered up regarding arrangements made between the State Department and certain countries to deport certain Middle-Eastern and Central Asian detainees from jails in New Jersey & New York off the record and without having them interrogated in November 2001. (Documents related to these suspects were forged at the FBI).
Information omitted & covered up regarding nuclear related information illegally obtained by certain foreign entities and US persons (government officials) from several US labs being sold to a certain Middle-Eastern group in the United States in 1998-2000. The operation involved individuals with Diplomatic cover, foreign Ph.D. students, and US employees.
Information omitted & covered up regarding money laundering & narcotics operations, some of which involved entities from the Middle East and the Balkans, in several US cities.
Information omitted & covered up regarding certain Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI)-related activities linked to the 9/11 attacks between August & October 2001.
Certain terrorist related Counterintelligence/FISA information & investigations were prevented from being transferred to counterterrorism & criminal division by the Department of State and the Pentagon; "preserving sensitive diplomatic relations" and "protecting certain US foreign business relations (mainly involving weapons procurement)" were cited as reasons.
Intentional mistranslation & blocking of foreign language intelligence of FBI counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigations.

Penetration of FBI, Department of State and Department of Defense:

Melek Can Dickerson: FBI; formerly employed by the American Turkish Council (ATC) and American Turkish Association (ATA).
Major Douglas Dickerson: Air Force, DIA; formerly worked with the American Turkish Council (ATC), had on going relationship with International Advisors Inc (IAI) principles who worked as lobbying arms for certain foreign nations and foreign non-state entities (some of whom were engaged in illegal activities in the United States and against US interests and national Security.)
Cases reported by John M. Cole, Veteran FBI Counterintelligence Operations Manager, to the DOJ-IG & Congress involving Hadiya Roberts (ISI-Pakistan), and several other individuals.
Documented cases under FBI counterintelligence surveillance between 1997 and 2002, involving US government officials from the Department of State, DOD, and certain elected officials who were recipients of regular payments made by state and non-state foreign entities, some involved in criminal operations against US interests & national security. These cases were prevented from being transferred to actionable criminal and/or counterterrorism divisions/investigations.
A reported case of penetration of FBI New York Field Office by an Iranian rouge agent.

Corruption & illegal activities involving US persons:

Illegal payments to several elected officials in Congress; on going (1997-2002).
Joint illegal activities between certain foreign agents (state & non-state) and US lobbying firms, government officials (Pentagon and the Department of State) and several elected officials. These activities include obtaining and passing highly classified and sensitive DOD documents & bribery and/or coercion of US individuals.
Nuclear black market related activities carried out by certain foreign groups/lobbying firms/businesses/individuals & US persons (former & current US government employees and officials).

FBI: incompetence:
(Refer to DOJ-IG report confirming all & more)

Hiring unqualified translators based on nepotism & cronyism, some of these translators did not even pass elementary English proficiency tests; some were granted Top Secret Clearance despite their highly questionable background.
Language specialists charging the United States government for hours not worked and/or services not rendered (Fraudulent invoices, etc.)
...much more; please refer to the DOJ-IG Report

http://arabesque911.blogspot.com/2007/11/sibel-edm...

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=2498

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