Europe having its own 9/11 right now. Turn on the news.

[David Kilroy]

You weren't flip, man.  You were commiserating, using the language to
hand.  There's nothing inherently wrong with that.

Over 14 years ago I blew up at a roomie for weeping to Elton John
performing Candle In The Wind during that awful televised concert that
embezzled proceeds...  I asked why she was crying, she said she was
empathizing, and I snapped "This isn't empathy, this is television!"  The
reality was, she'd broken up with her boyfriend of four years on the
twelfth.  She needed to express her grief, whatever the direction.  I was
wrong then, I'm just as wrong now.

Laura was exactly right, it was my anger talking.  It was also fear.  My
anger stems from the way america has framed the discussion for everyone.
My fear...

To me 9/11 is a doublethink keyword.  It conjures the Us v. Them,
retrograde Christians vs. Muslims crusader schtick, and it's disingenous as
hell because the actual problem is Violent Political Dissent.  There's no
good way to combat that, I know.  Terrorism is nebulous.  But our branding
of September 11th is directly tied in the public consciousness to the
"muslim problem"-- nevermind that freethinking muslims have no interest in
a global caliphate and blanch at the thought of murder, to say nothing of
suicide.  Meanwhile we have our own ISIS bubbling, an underground of armed,
predominantly racist, christian & eschatologist militias who desire nothing
less than to establish their own caliphate.  (i.e. Dominion theology.)
We're not talking about them.  We don't even want to *think* about them.
But there will come a time when that discussion must happen, and when that
comes to pass, I wonder how much empathy & goodwill the world will have
left for the U.S.  Because they're not going to stop with shooting up
churches, schools or theatres in this country.  They're going to drift out
like spores and further infest a wounded world.

That's what I'm afraid of.  My heart goes out to Paris, but it also goes
out to Afghanistan, and Syria, and Mali, Niger, and Chad...  We haven't
been a global village for some time, and I despair of us ever being one
again.  I don't know where or even how this can end.

I fear we're past the tipping point.
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