http://www.newyorker.com/THE_TALK_OF_THE_TOWN/CONTENT/?010924ta_talk_wtc

The disconnect between last Tuesday's monstrous dose of reality and the self-righteous drivel and outright deceptions being peddled by public figures and TV commentators is startling, depressing. The voices licensed to follow the event seem to have joined together in a campaign to infantilize the public. Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a "cowardly" attack on "civilization" or "liberty" or "humanity" or "the free world" but an attack on the world's self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions? How many citizens are aware of the ongoing American bombing of Iraq? And if the word "cowardly" is to be used, it might be more aptly applied to those who kill from beyond the range of retaliation, high in the sky, than to those willing to die themselves in order to kill others. In the matter of courage (a morally neutral virtue): whatever may be said of the perpetrators of Tuesday's slaughter, they were not cowards.
Our leaders are bent on convincing us that everything is O.K. America is not afraid. Our spirit is unbroken, although this was a day that will live in infamy and America is now at war. But everything is not O.K. And this was not Pearl Harbor. We have a robotic President who assures us that America still stands tall. A wide spectrum of public figures, in and out of office, who are strongly opposed to the policies being pursued abroad by this Administration apparently feel free to say nothing more than that they stand united behind President Bush. A lot of thinking needs to be done, and perhaps is being done in Washington and elsewhere, about the ineptitude of American intelligence and counter-intelligence, about options available to American foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East, and about what constitutes a smart program of military defense. But the public is not being asked to bear much of the burden of reality. The unanimously applauded, self-congratulatory bromides of a Soviet Party Congress seemed contemptible. The unanimity of the sanctimonious, reality-concealing rhetoric spouted by American officials and media commentators in recent days seems, well, unworthy of a mature democracy.
Those in public office have let us know that they consider their task to be a manipulative one: confidence-building and grief management. Politics, the politics of a democracy--which entails disagreement, which promotes candor--has been replaced by psychotherapy. Let's by all means grieve together. But let's not be stupid together. A few shreds of historical awareness might help us understand what has just happened, and what may continue to happen. "Our country is strong," we are told again and again. I for one don't find this entirely consoling. Who doubts that America is strong? But that's not all America has to be.
--Susan Sontag


Susan Sontag
Re: TNY200103
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 02:57:49 GMT
From: Bob Burtker
I'd like to thank Susan Sontag for explaining that the terrorists weren't cowards and that the attack on the unexpecting civilian population was understandable, and, well, sort of justified.
The terrorists weren't cowards, rather, they were, I guess, brave, because --what-- they gave up their lives? Is that the standard? Some standard. Count Benjamin Smith, racist killer of Northwestern University basketball coach Ricky Birdsong, among the brave. How stupid.
No, Susan, the attacks weren't understandable. There is no other side to the story. It can't be explained. Your "explanation", whatever it is, is nothing more than a bunch of letters and sounds strung together, uttered as words. But they mean nothing.
Susan, this is your war. It's about freedom, feminism, women's rights, gay rights, abortion rights, free speech, freedom of religion, you name it. You appreciate those things? Grab a gun, dear.


Courage vs Cowardice??
Re:
Susan Sontag (Bob Burtker)
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 14:30:45 GMT
From: HP Updike
I would urge anyone who happens across your commentary Susan, to take it in all with a grain of salt. Your commentary smacks if liberalism in America today taking the oppprtunity of a national tragedy to get your cause back in the headlines. You are nothing but an ambulance chaser trying to sound out over the siren with your views on issues you are personally more involved with. You throw in lines, yes, let us all grieve, but that's just a set up, something you feel you're "supposed" to say at a time like this. Give it another week, and you will be writing about how our country is close minded and that we should open up to the feelings of the Taliban, the one more week and your commentary will be blantant liberalism.
More over, I am astounded to find that you feel the terrorists who killed themselves in the crashes anything more than cowards, and as you suggest, even courageous! I belive that the taking of one's own life is the ultimate act of cowardice. Think about it, everyone from the interrupted teenager who took too many pills, to the destrought banker making that jump all have one thing in common--they were afraid to face their problems. They were scared of hardship or persecution, so what did they do, they bowed out. They were cowards. They are upset at America as the so called "self proclaimed" super power of the world, so what did they do? The killed themselves in their fear and they took innocnet American life with them. That is where you are missing the boat Susan. Our people died at the hand of cowards. You are more focused on spitting on the American government and blaming the government for what happend than on the real tragedy of the actual events.
All in all, I am guessing you voted for the "other guy" this past election. Well, I am sorry you are so upset over it all, but try to remeber, you are still an American and you live in this country not overseas with the people you are touting as courageous. If that is really how you feel, maybe you should try moving out there. Or maybe you should have been on one of those flights this past Tuesday.....

"Grab a gun"
Re:
Susan Sontag (Bob Burtker)
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 19:47:06 GMT
From: jeff fox
"Grab a gun"
Only problem is that she cares more about hating America than she does about all these rights.

Thoughts Regarding Susan Sontag's commentary
Re: TNY200103
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 14:14:28 GMT
From: Nancy Wildey, Lago Vista, Texas
Dear Editor,
It is clear from Susan Sontag's commentary in this week's magazine that her sympathies lie with the perpetrators of last Tuesday's monstrous massacre, rather than with her fellow New Yorkers and Americans who are grieving and suffering.
An appropriate compensation from the publishers should be a first class, one-way ticket to Afghanistan where she may live and work among her heroes. Surely Osama Bin Laden would hire her to write propaganda for his poor misunderstood followers.
Please publish any responses you receive from families of victims, survivors and rescue workers of last Tuesday's senseless horror.
For my part, I respect our freedom of speech no matter how cruel, insensitive and unpatriotic the results may be.
To borrow the phrasing of our President, make no mistake about it, the terrorists who planned, assisted in and acted out last week's violence were and are COWARDLY fanatics who lack an characteristics of civilized society and demonstrated their total disregard for the family of man.

They were not cowards?
Re: TNY200103
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 16:17:17 GMT
From: Tony La Grutta
As I looked around the Internet this morning,I could not help to read the short article by Susan Sontag.As I gazed down the article,I noticed the comment about the people who caused this murder of your fellow readers,your fellow New Yorkers,your fellow Human Beings!. The comment THEY WERE NOT COWARDS! Would you please have Ms. Sontag kindly explain to me what they were?. They were not selling Girl Scout cookies,They were not going door to door for the United Way,What were they doing Ms Sontag,I'll tell what they were doing, they were in the process of killing as many people as they could,using women and children in the process.While you have been sitting safely in your own little world,have you taken a minute to look around lower Manhattan.Both World Trade Center Buldings turned to rubble,300 Fireman Missing,60 NYPD Officers missing,5,400 People are missing,besides the people in those planes who had to die in terror,when those planes crashed into those two buildings. I wonder what the children in those planes were thinking about those people who took those planes that morning. I doubt very much if the thought came to their minds "These People Were not Cowards!
It is too bad we cannot ask the children,in those planes what they were thinking about at the very moment those planes hit those buildings. Why can't we ask this important question? Because Ms Sontag,if you can find the time to take your head out of the sand and look around, I will give you the answer you seek!! THEY ARE DEAD! The died at the hands of the the people who you state were not cowards. They died in a burning fireball, they spent their last moments on this Earth in absoulate terror. No Ms Sontag those people were not COWARDS, on the contary they were pure evil.My question to you is "If they were not cowards WHAT WOULD YOU CALL THEM?


agreed
Re:
They were not cowards? (Tony La Grutta)
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 19:41:26 GMT
From: jeff fox
I think she did a lot to expose her FAR left views here.
The events of 9/11/01 can be seen as a prisim which exposes these anti american zelots abroad, as well as in our midst. These are the same people who bitch that the USSR lost the cold war.
Never mind if they were left to create a society on their own, it would leave to nothing but dispair death, and failure.

Sontag= Anti American wacko
Re: TNY200103
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 19:29:56 GMT
From: Jeff Fox
5000 bodies smoldering in downtown Manhattan. Ms. Sontag states the typical leftest anti American position that the victim is to blame.
Sontag goes on to outright state that America is the coward, and the suicide bombers were the brave ones. Forget that 350 policemen and firefighters lost their lives-- she makes no mention of their bravery. It is the suicide bomber who should be lionized.
Even further, Ms. Sontag expresses disgust because American fighters and bombers will not fly lower over Iraq so Iraq can shoot down American planes and kill Americans. To her, our desire to save American lives is just another example of our "cowardice."
Ms. Sontag stresses that it is America's own fault that it was bombed, and that we need to reevalute whether we should continue to ally with Isreal because the bombers don't want us to.
Ms. Sontag's analysis is reprehensible, utterly defeatest, and incredibly juvenile (especially for someone who takes care to repeatedly infer her alleged position of superior knowledge).
Caving into terrorists leads only to more terrorism. "A few shreds of historical awareness" concerning this simple truth would save us from having to read this anti American drivel.
America was not built with the effort of people like Sontag. The simple corollary is that it will be up to the true Americans to rebuild New York, rebuild the Pentagon, rebuild the economy, protect American lives, and shout-down outmoded leftests such as Ms. Sontag.

1.
"Left" doesn't equal doormat by Tom Martin, 9/19/01
1.
Agreed by Jeff Fox, 9/19/01
2.
FALSE / YOUR WORDY ARTICLE RE S. SONTAG IS IRRELEVENT!!! by Yvan Moallic, 9/20/01
3.
BULLSHIT by PINOCHET, 9/20/01
1.
Pithy by Paige, 9/20/01
4.
Sontag = Idiot by Tom Chiginsky, 9/21/01
1.
ease up by Ted Barber, 9/21/01

"Left" doesn't equal doormat
Re:
Sontag= Anti American wacko (Jeff Fox)
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 21:29:28 GMT
From: Tom Martin
While many of us might feel that Ms. Sontag would be more in her element in a "neutral" (read wimpy) country such as Sweden or Switzerland, her opinions are so out of the ballpark of normal that it isn't fair at all to call her "leftist".
I consider myself way left of many self absorbed Americans but this Sontag philosophy isn't left, it's just absurd.
We all need to be very thankful that our government doesn't formulate defense policy based on the premise that we should try to placate the Saddams and Osamas of the world, lest we bring bad things on ourselves.
Iraq is a mess, but it is a mess of it's leaders own design. Ms. Sontag, bleeding heart that you are, what would you have done for Kuwait ten years ago?
Would you have asked them to play nice-nice with Saddam so as not to further incite his wrath? Would you have told them that they bear the blame because their sovereign country's relative freedoms and internal politics pissed off Saddam?
Saddam is a coward. Who was on the front lines dying for his warped causes? Not he, he let the kids die for him. What a man.
And it's not manipulation that our government is engaged in - we have no choice but to strike hard at terrorism, and our people need to support a prolonged struggle against these mass murderers.
Your commentary does a disservice to all who protect us and is an insult to those who perished and their families and friends.
You can be thankful you are in America where you can say what you want. Even when what you say is pathetic.
We were attacked by cowards, whether you understand the term or not. In Pearl Harbor the enemy snuck up on us and killed many without warning, which was devious to be sure, but in this current conflict the perpetrators are so cowardly as to not even want us to know who they are.
To back away and curl up into a little ball would be a huge mistake. We will do what we have to do. I only wish folks would not confuse your misplaced compassion with being "left". Left of what?
When it comes to "reality-concealing" your comments go a long way.


1.
Agreed by Jeff Fox, 9/19/01

Agreed
Re:
"Left" doesn't equal doormat (Tom Martin)
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 21:54:09 GMT
From: Jeff Fox
Agreed that her post goes further than being "left."
At best it is fringe left, anti american, and I think you put it best at describing it as "absurd".
And don't worry. I have plenty of words for the religious far right, such as Pat Robertson, who also seek to blame the victim. Am I seeing a trend here?

FALSE / YOUR WORDY ARTICLE RE S. SONTAG IS IRRELEVENT!!!
Re:
Sontag= Anti American wacko (Jeff Fox)
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 07:15:57 GMT
From: Yvan Moallic
what is all this bolognese article about????
I heard Susan Sontag for the first time this morning on FranceCulture.com & I have to say I was most impressed & very interested about what she said.I learnt more about America in 15 min. than 3 weeks non stop of CNN.
Her problem if she has any is that she is too clever and this is not to please you.
Yvan Moallic

BULLSHIT
Re:
Sontag= Anti American wacko (Jeff Fox)
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 15:30:33 GMT
From: PINOCHET
All that you say is PURE BULLSHIT

1.
Pithy by Paige, 9/20/01

Pithy
Re:
BULLSHIT (PINOCHET)
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 20:27:56 GMT
From: Paige
and with no supporting argument. For example; on what do you base your "Bullshit" conclusion?

Sontag = Idiot
Re:
Sontag= Anti American wacko (Jeff Fox)
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 14:16:46 GMT
From: Tom Chiginsky
This woman has finally lost her mind. I have never given her writing the time of day. I must be too basic to understand. Please Susan, go live in Iraq, you are a coward who hides behind a pen. How dare you call men in war cowards. You are truly an ass.

1.
ease up by Ted Barber, 9/21/01

ease up
Re:
Sontag = Idiot (Tom Chiginsky)
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 19:25:12 GMT
From: Ted Barber
Come on all, please ease up on Ms Sontag. Hasn't history shown that when a leader makes a simplified remark in a troubled time, that remark is later considered foolish. Consider "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself", "This was their finest hour", "I have a dream", etc. Hmm, maybe not.
Sontag's brand of intellectualism does not appear to make room for leadership. Its such a bourgeois concept after all. Somewhat akin to courage. Disdain on the other hand, now that's what makes the world go round.
Let's put her at the front line, surrounded by hesitant troops with no retreat possible. Let's see if she can do what needs to be done. Should be no problem. After all, with her abundant disdain...

Susan Sontag and the American left
Re: TNY200103
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 20:27:30 GMT
From: Yuval Taylor
Susan Sontag makes several mistakes in attempting to explain, if not justify, last week’s terrorist attacks. First, she fails to take into account a very common connotation of the word _coward_: a person who attacks someone who has no defense (for one example of this use of the word, see King Lear, Act II, Scene I). These cowards murdered 6,000 defenseless people and then ran; that they fled to a place beyond the reach of the law only exacerbates their cowardice, for suicide is a cowardly deed.
Second, she makes no distinction between politically motivated and religious acts. The attack was, by all accounts, religious, and as such has little to do with any political acts for which the United States may have been guilty. The Taliban, Bin Laden, and their associates come as close to the pure face of evil as any figures of the twentieth-century; to call them the twenty-first century equivalent of Hitler is an exaggeration only in terms of their power, not in moral terms. A moment’s thought will elucidate dozens of points of comparison. For the country to unite in this perception of evil is not a thwarting of democracy but a recognition of seemingly incontrovertible evidence.
As a leftist who has always admired Sontag’s ideas, courage, and taste, I find her words even more troubling than a jingoistic patriot might, for I fear they may discredit her cause rather than advance it. Please, Susan, reconsider. To stand united in the face of such evil isn’t so bad.


Agreed
Re:
Susan Sontag and the American left (Yuval Taylor)
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 21:37:39 GMT
From: Jeff Fox, J.D.
As someone who also has left leanings in many areas, I agree that Sontag's article makes us all look bad.
But there is a benefit. She has smoked herself out as not just being "left" but being fringe left, and Anti American. I have faith that her market as a journalist just shrank quite a bit. This pleases me.

This act was only politically motivated
Re:
Susan Sontag and the American left (Yuval Taylor)
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 15:24:24 GMT
From: Karl M.
you should know this because in your country it's all a well mixed soup...
have you forgotten the slaughters the USA have caused in hiroshima, Nagasaki, Cambodja and Vietnam without forgetting Serbia...
We have enough of everything that is a symbol of America, the whole world has enough of your country but no one dares say it...Isn't that a terror from which you even don't speak about???
Your way of thinking and seeing the world doesn't interest us at all but the way you treat the EARTH, the way you keep destroying it is of our concern...

1.
Time For You To Go Karl by Mike, 9/25/01

Time For You To Go Karl
Re:
This act was only politically motivated (Karl M.)
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 00:02:55 GMT
From: Mike
Well, Karl, sounds like you have serious issues. If you feel the way you claim to, I can only think of one reason you are still here - and that's not a very good one. Do us all a favor and move it on out to someplace you like better - or perhaps you have already been moved out.

Susan Sontag is Simply Anti-American, ...
Re: TNY200103
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 20:02:35 GMT
From: Eric Friedemann
... with "simple" being the best word to describe her mindset. Sontag writes:
"Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a 'cowardly' attack on 'civilization' or 'liberty' or 'humanity' or 'the free world' but an attack on the world's self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions?"-
Objectively or subjectively, last week's attacks on New York and Washington, but particularly on New York, were cowardly attacks on civilization, by terrorists who mindlessly hate America for its supposed commercialism and decadence, while spending their time in our strip clubs and using frequest flier miles to buy their tickets. This irony is apparently lost on Sontag.
How does Sontag know that the attacks were "undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions?" The architects of the terrorism are in hiding, denying any connection to the attacks. As the terrorist groups won't even acknowledge involvement in the attacks, the attacks were not a political statement, but simply mass murder.
Tom Nichols, professor of strategy, at our Naval War College said it best:
"Osama bin Laden's 'who, me?' refrain is not only silly on its face -- and this constant attempt to evade responsibility, by the way, is what makes his attacks 'cowardly,' not the bold nature of their execution -- but it also suggests that the terrorists themselves may not have a clear idea of what they want."

Sontag is just espousing the usual self hatred
Re: TNY200103
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 20:19:02 GMT
From: Paige
that a rootless society assumes. It's the attitude that it must be our fault. We must have done something to bring this on ourselves. Much the same as a battered wife feels; always questioning what she could do to modify her behavior so the beatings stop. Never forcing the beater to assume responsiblity for their actions.
In Sontag's case though, like many liberal self haters, it's the underlying feelings of superiority that force the belief that some people aren't responsible for their actions. The reasons for this are usually background or poverty but not always.

Susan Sontag
Re: TNY200103
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 20:22:55 GMT
From: Alice P. Sloan
Since the events of last Tuesday, I also did a lot of soul-searching. I agree that American foreign policy has on occasion committed some tragic blunders, though generally as the result of poor judgment rather than malice. As Americans, we MUST take responsibility for the policy makers that we elect, and we must be more involved in our government.
However, her suggestion that we got what we deserved reflects a bitter soul, wasted and deeply resentful of her disease. Her argument is tantamount to saying that the Jews deserved the Holocaust because they were greedy mercantilists and money-lenders.
How tragic that such an otherwise deft and brilliant mind cannot be put to broader and more useful purpose.

Bleeding Heartless Liberal?
Re: TNY200103
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 20:27:41 GMT
From: Brett Wilder
Dear Susan:
Are your comments the result of an intellect so finely honed that it can completely sever the connection between heart and mind?
Are you so smug as to assert that the United States government should at this time target its message toward the top .05% of the intelligentsia?
Do you think that matters of national security and counter intelligence should be neatly laid out for your personal satisfaction?
Do you think that the nation needs its own ass kicked any more at this particular moment?
You seem stupefied by your own smarts.
Pull your inflated head out from between your buttocks, Susan -
The government is not pursuing a grand conspiracy of deception, but, rather, a grand conspiracy to console as many of its grieving citizens at one time as is possible. That is reality.
Thousands of Americans and foreign nationals are dead - that is reality.
And to use your own words, the reality-concealing rhetoric spouted by Susan Sontag seems, well, unworthy of a mature, intelligent, thoughtful, emotionally connected, compassionate member of this democracy.
I believe you will review your words one day and you will be ashamed of yourself.
You should save some time and be ashamed of yourself right now.


Blessings on Sontag and The New Yorker
Re: TNY200103
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 04:10:06 GMT
From: Scottie Zimmerman
For days I've been disgusted with what seems to me the utter foolishness of our elected representatives in Washington and the stolid clowns on the "broadcast news" who pretend they can predict the future. Now, with Sontag's clear exposition, I can see the real problem. They aren't simply dumb, they're all treating me as if I'm an imbecile! They are too stupid and incompetent to trust my intelligence and competence. They think we're sheep, easily manipulated, easily placated. Yup.
Thanks New Yorker. Great issue. Thanks Susan Sontag for speaking up for me. I'm going out and buy ALL your books!

1.
Untitled, 9/22/01
2.
After The Books, Buy A PlaneTicket by Mike, 9/24/01

Untitled
Re:
Blessings on Sontag and The New Yorker (Scottie Zimmerman)
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 02:32:58 GMT
From:
I'm far too busy being stupid to buy her books.

After The Books, Buy A PlaneTicket
Re:
Blessings on Sontag and The New Yorker (Scottie Zimmerman)
Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 15:29:46 GMT
From: Mike
Do everyone a favor a buy a one way ticket to Iraq.

Better Left Unsaid
Re: TNY200103
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 14:05:53 GMT
From: Brett Wilder
There has been much comment focusing on Susan Sontag’s column - my own included – and what I find troubling is readers’ categorization of Sontag as “left,” leftist,” “fringe left,” “anti-American,” etc.
What Sontag has spelled out is not a definable political position, but, rather, her high degree of insensitivity, self-centered mindset, and seeming inability to think clearly on her feet.
In this case, Ms. Sontag goes quite a way to reveal that she is not truly wise, but merely clever.
Clever. Like a toddler, or a kitchen gadget.
So be wise - avoid those anti-American Agnewisms lest they become ammunition against you “fascist pigs.”

1.
Untitled, 9/21/01
2.
Well said by Ted Barber, 9/21/01

Untitled
Re:
Better Left Unsaid (Brett Wilder)
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 14:10:33 GMT
From:
Hear Hear, this woman is an opportunist, "I must seem relevent"

Well said
Re:
Better Left Unsaid (Brett Wilder)
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 19:34:49 GMT
From: Ted Barber
Reminds me a bit of Jane Fonda sitting at a certain AA gun a few years ago.
Stupid is as stupid does.

Sontag
Re: TNY200103
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 15:39:27 GMT
From: R Cucuzza
Susan Sontag’s piece was appalling not for its politics, but for her severe lack of compassion for the city that she was born in and calls home. For someone who has quite literally lived off the bulbous fat of this land--through Guggenheim, Rockefeller and MacArthur grants, book advances from massive corporate conglomerates, plays produced at theaters boosted by Philip Morris--she seems to have a tremendous amount of contempt for the manicured hands that feed her here. Her human rights work is impressive, but her flippant words in the New Yorker reek of hypocrisy and were shamefully devoid of commiseration in these difficult times.

Sontag for shame
Re: TNY200103
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 16:25:26 GMT
From: Jonathan Banner
Standing on the roof of my office building, 30 blocks away and watching the second jet enter the building. Knowing that one of my oldest friends’ works on the 46th floor. Finding my upstairs neighbor won't be returning to our home, ever. Does not make it easier to listen to our country cry murder but it also does not make it easier to listen to the same old complaining blind blather about our political system and the leaders or our country. A political system that allows and insures all most all ideas. Shame on you Susan for your typical 1960's knee jerk---blame the system crap. Shame on you for not assuming that our country both citizens and politicians known the damage and death we might cause as a result of this event. As powerful as we are we are, if nothing else we are aware of the responsibility that that power holds both for our freedom and the freedom of other countries. Has it not accrued in your mind during your wild blaming of the USA for the horror of these events that we as a country are the largest contributors of Humanitarian Aid to the country that harbors those that incited this event.

Sontag's Shadow
Re: TNY200103
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 17:22:29 GMT
From: B.R. Turnage
Susan Sontag just doesn't get. What a great peice to show how us how brilliant she is. Too bad she can't she anything other than her own shadow. I pity her.

Sontag... so much smarter than the rest of us.
Re: TNY200103
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 02:23:50 GMT
From: david curtin
If America’s terrorist enemies are at all discouraged that the attack of September 11th has brought about a sense of determination, unity, and patriotism rather than the fear, divisiveness, and self-recrimination they might have wished for, they would be greatly heartened after reading Susan Sontag’s contribution to the Talk of the Town. When it comes to “self-righteous drivel” Ms. Sontag knows from whence she speaks.
Yes, we occasionally bomb Iraq, in order to destroy anti-aircraft radar installations which lock on to our aircraft. We do not indiscriminately slaughter Iraqi civilians. Saddam Hussein, as many citizens are aware, is the brutal dictator who has gassed the Kurds, invaded Kuwait, and committed the worst environmental crime in history--and who continues to starve his citizens, sponsor terrorism, and develop nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. Our leaders are hardly “bent on convincing us that everything is OK”; rather, they tell us to prepare for a lengthy and difficult war against terrorism. And yes, a large part of our leadership’s job is indeed “confidence building”; no one remembers FDR for his brilliant battlefield strategizing (he had Eisenhower for that); they remember the unshakable confidence his voice exuded over the radio.
As Ms. Sontag so helpfully instructs us, “a lot of thinking must be done.” But what proposals does she offer? Should we give Saddam free reign? Should the Congress do something other than “stand united behind President Bush?” Just what “options available to foreign policy” and “smart program of military defense” does she have in mind? Perhaps she felt that her insights would have been wasted on the rest of us dolts, too busy being stupid together.


Susan Sontag
Re: TNY200103
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 03:07:58 GMT
From: John Waters
How much longer are you going to let Sontag write her leftist drivel in this magazine?
She is anti-American, and should be residing in Bagdad and praising Hussein and his ilk.
We are surprised you still employ her, after what you have been through. Maybe now, you will reconsider!


1.
repost: Better Left Unsaid by Brett Wilder, 9/22/01

repost: Better Left Unsaid
Re:
Susan Sontag (John Waters)
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 13:28:15 GMT
From: Brett Wilder
There has been much comment focusing on Susan Sontag’s column - my own included – and what I find troubling is readers’ categorization of Sontag as “left,” leftist,” “fringe left,” “anti-American,” etc.
What Sontag has spelled out is not a definable political position, but, rather, her high degree of insensitivity, self-centered mindset, and seeming inability to think clearly on her feet.
In this case, Ms. Sontag goes quite a way to reveal that she is not truly wise, but merely clever. Clever. Like a toddler, or a kitchen gadget.
So be wise - avoid those anti-American Agnewisms lest they become ammunition against you “fascist pigs.”


sanjeevi@brunet.bn
Re: TNY200103
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 06:46:55 GMT
From: sanjeevi
I am not an American..and i dont need to be one to understand the enormity of human tragedy caused by few insane men and when an American like Susan Sontag applauds this as an act of bravery there is no forgiveness...From many many miles across the oceans our hearts are being torn by the cries of those innocent victims...and U Susan sitting in the very heart of New York shelling your su - superior wisdom on this paper is downright traitrous....perhaps you should champion the cause of the enemies of America sitting in one of those rat holes of Afghanistan
and not enjoying the celebrity status of New Yorker columnist. ofcourse you can write English ..well...but u write it without a heart...without values...without truth..

Susan...Thats not nice....
Re: TNY200103
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 06:52:23 GMT
From: sanjeevi
I am not an American..and i dont need to be one to understand the enormity of human tragedy caused by few insane men and when an American like Susan Sontag applauds this as an act of bravery there is no forgiveness...From many many miles across the oceans our hearts are being torn by the cries of those innocent victims...and U Susan sitting in the very heart of New York shelling your su - superior wisdom on this paper is downright traitrous....perhaps you should champion the cause of the enemies of America sitting in one of those rat holes of Afghanistan
and not enjoying the celebrity status of New Yorker columnist. ofcourse you can write English ..well...but u write it without a heart...without values...without truth..

1.
Can't argue facts by Duder, 9/22/01
1.
More "facts" by Peter Bernhardt, 9/22/01
2.
her facts are fiction by tim sullivan, 9/24/01

Can't argue facts
Re:
Susan...Thats not nice.... (sanjeevi)
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 14:30:43 GMT
From: Duder
True True true - it's 100% horrible what happened - though facts are facts - the US is *still* bombing Iraq, and over 200.000 civilians have died due to broken infrastructure, hospitals, no drinking water, etc since the beginning of the Gulf War.
I know CNN does not like to bring that on the news, but it's a fact. The fellow muslims of Iraq don't have to be reminded of this...
This whole attack is a reaction on what the US did in the past, come on just face that.


1.
More "facts" by Peter Bernhardt, 9/22/01
2.
her facts are fiction by tim sullivan, 9/24/01

More "facts"
Re:
Can't argue facts (Duder)
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 17:26:06 GMT
From: Peter Bernhardt
See the following article:
www.thenewrepublic.com/100101/trb100101.html
"... Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq--which is subject to exactly the same sanctions as the rest of the country--suffers virtually no malnutrition. In fact, infant mortality rates in the North are lower than they were before the Gulf war. That's because, under revised UN sanctions, Iraq is now the world's second largest exporter of oil, and those exports provide Kurdish authorities plenty of revenue to buy medicines and food. The reason children elsewhere in the country go hungry is that Saddam resells needed supplies in order to fund his military. In recent years the United States has actually intercepted several Iraqi ships exporting food."

her facts are fiction
Re:
Can't argue facts (Duder)
Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 04:37:07 GMT
From: tim sullivan
end of message

Susan Sontag
Re: TNY200103
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 14:40:20 GMT
From: Ann Campbell
Disappointing, cynical, inappropriate, untimely, out of order, jerk!!!

Thank you
Re: TNY200103
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 17:57:07 GMT
From: Marc
I am extremely thankful for the many who have written in to voice their disagreement with Ms. Sontag. Her comments were (and are) inappropriate, hurtful, and insensitive. She may be right in that we were attacked for our alliances, but that does in no way justify the attacks themselves. We have channels for settling our disagreements, and acts of terror and mass-murder are not part of them.

Susan Sontag
Re: TNY200103
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 21:46:41 GMT
From: Ed
I think you might find living in a Moslum country more to your liking. Why don't you move?
ED

1.
What happened to Freedom of Speech? by Mary D. Jacob, 9/24/01
->
Not just a Freedom of Speech issue by Judson Knight, 9/24/01

What happened to Freedom of Speech?
Re:
Susan Sontag (Ed)
Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 17:04:33 GMT
From: Mary D. Jacob
Susan Sontag has a right to disagree with the majority. Perhaps readers should think a bit more deeply about what she's said. After all, we created Bin Laden to wage war against the Soviets in Afghanistan; when the Soviets departed, we departed, leaving behind a band of trained Terrorists with nothing to do but continue on a path of destruction that has ultimately led to our shores.
I'm sorry but it cannot be denied that our government has reaped what it sowed, and we hapless civilians are left to pay the cost with our lives. This is indeed a tragedy -- it grew out of our hubris.
To suggest Susan Sontag might prefer to live in Afghaniston is ridiculous -- talk about using old cliches (eg, "our country right or wrong," "love it or leave it"). A strong and healthy democracy must allow more than one opinion to be expressed.
I'm sure Susan Sontag treasures our freedom as much as the rest of us. Good grief, the Afghans themselves don't want to live in Afghanistan. Like us, they want peace and safety. Unlike us, they have no government to give it to them.

1.
Not just a Freedom of Speech issue by Judson Knight, 9/24/01

Not just a Freedom of Speech issue
Re:
What happened to Freedom of Speech? (Mary D. Jacob)
Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 18:17:48 GMT
From: Judson Knight
Of course Susan Sontag has the freedom to write any sort of nonsense she wishes--and others have the freedom to disagree with it. Unfortunately, she did not really make the valid point you noted, that the U.S. fostered the Taliban, which is absolutely true. Her point, unstated but clear in the subtext, is that America deserved what it got, not b/c it exhibited characteristic poor judgment in foreign affairs, but for such crimes as supporting the existence of Israel, advocating democracy instead of dictatorship in the Middle East, opposing 9th-century fundamentalism and terrorism, and of course for prospering while much of the world lives in poverty (the implication being that our prosperity was somehow won through their poverty.)
Sontag did not show herself to be a critic in good faith; rather, her tone was one of glee at the tragedy, and of admiration for those who created it. Yes, she has the freedom to spew her bile, just as Nazis or Klansmen have the freedom to march--but if she lived under one of the systems for which she has professed admiration over the years (e.g., Castro's Cuba), she would not. In fact she is an example of the worst that the West produces: the spoiled, querulous, dependant, self-loathing "intellectual"--an unfortunate by-product of our wealth, freedom, and (up to now) safety.


SUSAN SONTAG: JUST AN OLD "60'S" HIPPIE
Re: TNY200103
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 23:53:02 GMT
From: WILLIAM SPROUL
THE NEW YORKER SHOULD BE ASHAMED FOR ALLOWING ITSELF TO BE THE PRESENTATION VEHICLE FOR THIS TIRED, TIME WORN LEFTWING "BULLSHIT." WE HAVE ALL HEARD IT A THOUSAND TIMES BEFORE. SONTAG'S GOD, THE USSR, IS NO MORE. SONTAG IS AN OLD, SOURFACED IRRELEVENT HIPPIE STUCK IN THE COLD WAR/VIETNAM ERA. AMERICA HAS MOVED ON. SO HAS RUSSIA. WHY HAVEN'T YOU? SONTAG'S BRAND OF ANTI-AMERICAN PRO-LEFT/SOVIET INVECTIVE WOULD BE TOTALLY LAUGHABLE IN AND OF ITSELF IF THE NEW YORER DIDN'T GIVE IT A FIVE MINUTE PSEUDO LEGITIMACY. THE WORLD IS CHANGING FAST. SONTAG HAS BEEN LEFT PLAYING IN THE DUST OF THE PAST. IT WOULD APPEAR THE NEW YORKER IS HELLBENT ON GOING THE SAME WAY.

1.
I'm just an old hippie... and proud of it! (Jean-François Carporzen (Paris, France)), 9/23/01
->
Don't Forget To Write . . . by Mike, 9/23/01
->
I love Afghan people! by JFC, 9/25/01
->
That's Great! by Mike, 9/25/01

I'm just an old hippie... and proud of it!
Re:
SUSAN SONTAG: JUST AN OLD "60'S" HIPPIE (WILLIAM SPROUL)
Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 08:10:12 GMT
From: Jean-François Carporzen (Paris, France)
Let me guess... Are you a young supporter for the next GW Bush's campaign?
Are you completely childized by the political blindness Susan Sontags describes?
As an european, I need the USA to be adult, able to face their responsibilities, instead of that tremendous regression to the Old Wild West, or worst, to the Crusades!
Thank you Susan!
William, please read again her paper, trying to imagine it was written by a swedish little girl or a mexican peasant, if you can't read normally something written by an old hippie...

1.
Don't Forget To Write . . . by Mike, 9/23/01
->
I love Afghan people! by JFC, 9/25/01
->
That's Great! by Mike, 9/25/01

Don't Forget To Write . . .
Re:
I'm just an old hippie... and proud of it! (Jean-François Carporzen (Paris, France))
Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 20:06:15 GMT
From: Mike
Drop us a line from Kabul. I am sure you will meet some really nice adults there.
M.
P.S. Don't forget to take your burqa - and lose the nail polish too.

1.
I love Afghan people! by JFC, 9/25/01
->
That's Great! by Mike, 9/25/01

I love Afghan people!
Re:
Don't Forget To Write . . . (Mike)
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 14:46:58 GMT
From: JFC
I love Afghan people! It is exactly the only reason why I think Talibans must be thrown out of Kabul. I don't know who helped them to be there? Some people says it is the CIA. I'm not sure of it.
I don't know any more who did these awful assaults. I'm not sure it is Bin Laden, nor the CIA who supported him...
Anything else: I didn't know racism was back in the US mood...

1.
That's Great! by Mike, 9/25/01

That's Great!
Re:
I love Afghan people! (JFC)
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 18:37:04 GMT
From: Mike
I am pleased to hear you love Afghan people (or at least those who are not associated with the Taliban). I suspect you have no clue how they are to be "thrown out" - but are content to leave that to someone else to handle. What is the basis for your concern for racism and what does that have to do with this thread?


A Monstrous Dose of Reality?
Re: TNY200103
Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 00:18:08 GMT
From: Nick Demos
I find it absolutely appalling that you would try and oversimplify what happened on Tuesday the 11th by inappropriately labeling the loss of thousands of American lives a “monstrous dose of reality”. I challenge you Mz. Sontag to go to New York, find one of the many people who are still there hoping beyond hope that their husband, wife, son or daughter, is in a hospital somewhere instead of being dead and gone without even a chance to say goodbye. Then you push your absurdity to new limits when you have the audacity to place the blame on the United States instead of where the blame truly is. I ask you, if it were a loved one of yours that had died, would you have told all of your close friends and relatives that you were hit with a monstrous dose of reality as the tears stream down your face? I wonder.
In the article you mention as a possible reason, our actions in Iraq. You ask how many Americans are aware that we conduct bombing missions as if Iraq has been an innocent and peace-minded country until the U.S. entered the region. It makes one wonder if you are aware of that country’s “activities” (I would call them atrocities). Do you consider Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons against its own people a monstrous dose of reality as well? I suppose getting gassed by your own government would be quite the wake-up call wouldn’t it? Perhaps the United States should just allow tyrants such as Saddam Hussein should be allowed to do as they please. We should just ignore them and the region so as to hopefully avoid further monstrous doses of reality in this country. Only a fool could believe that this is a viable solution. Someone by the name of Neville Chamberlain once felt the same way. As a result Hitler gave Czechoslovakia regular monstrous doses of reality. It is people like you Ms. Sontag that give these people a sense that what they are doing is brave, courageous, noble and justified.


Thinking and Writing Clearly.
Re:
A Monstrous Dose of Reality? (Nick Demos)
Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 17:45:05 GMT
From: LG Shelnutt
Well said, Nick!

Tons of bombing reality
Re:
A Monstrous Dose of Reality? (Nick Demos)
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 15:00:38 GMT
From: Marianne
Of course, this is not the first monstrous dose of reality!
My mother hardly survived the US bombings over France in 1944. She told: "the first time US people will be bombed, I'll make a big fiesta, with Champagne and so on!.."
I DID NOT drink any Champagne the 11th, beacause I like the US people, and because my mother was wrong, after all. But S. Sontag is right...

1.
French hatred of America by Judson Knight, 9/25/01
->
Nazi France by Nick Demos, 9/25/01

French hatred of America
Re:
Tons of bombing reality (Marianne)
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 18:36:42 GMT
From: Judson Knight
For years, I've always argued against those many Americans who despise the French, but from the postings on this board, I'm starting to become more sympathetic. Our bombs in 1944? Those were directed at the Germans--the occupiers of your country, remember? But I see your point. Since France was certainly aligned w/ Nazi Germany--since great numbers of the French gleefully aided in the rounding up of Jews--you must have just wished America would just leave you all alone.

1.
Nazi France by Nick Demos, 9/25/01

Nazi France
Re:
French hatred of America (Judson Knight)
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 19:33:55 GMT
From: Nick Demos
You are also forgetting that even when the Nazi army was getting their tails kicked in Europe the French were still siding with the Nazis.


Sontag is Right
Re: TNY200103
Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 05:55:07 GMT
From: Rod
I know our emotions are raw right now, but if we simply dismiss the attackers as irrational religious fanatics and ignore the underlying causes of the anger against us, we'll risk further escalation of the conflict and more attacks.
Why shouldn't we change our policies in the Middle East if such policies are unjust and anger the majority of the local population? Simply to spite bin Laden? Remember that there are more than just one bin Laden out there. We can't kill them all, even if it were possible and moral to do so. Bring those responsible for the horrors of September 11 to justice, but we need to be just ourselves. It's not about being Left or Right, if they even mean anything in this context.

1.
Which policies should we change? by Nick Demos, 9/23/01
1.
Re: Israel by Rod, 9/23/01
->
Regarding Israel and the Middle East by Nick Demos, 9/23/01
3.
Thank You! by drew, 9/27/01

Which policies should we change?
Re:
Sontag is Right (Rod)
Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 16:40:36 GMT
From: Nick Demos
Which policies do you propose we change? Our support for Israel? The reason that problem exists in the Middle East is because of the intolerance the Muslim countries in the region had for a state of Israel. If my history serves me correctly, it was when Syria and Egypt attacked Israel at the same time did the Israelis occupy the majority of the Palestinian territory that they possess. Yes times have changed and Egypt no longer poses a threat to Israel and Syria does not seem very willing to engage in an all out war with them however, their sentiments and those of Iran, Iraq, Libya etc still remain the same. So I suppose that if by handing over a staunch ally to the wolves we could avoid further terrorist attacks then by all means we should do it. I don’t think so.
I suppose you would have us change our policy of no-fly zones in Iraq. The no fly zones were implemented to monitor Iraq and it’s military, and to keep Iraq from completely decimating the opposition in it’s country. You know, the people who like to speak out against their government. Something everyone is guaranteed the right to do here, is punishable by death there, but hey, right to free speech sounds good for us but other countries don’t deserve it I guess so we should just let Saddam wipe out his annoying dissidents. Of course you probably know gas is Saddam’s preferable method for eradicating his nuisances. Someone might argue “yes but people in other countries are oppressed but we aren’t bombing them like we are in Iraq”. This maybe true but, none of those other countries are located in such an unstable, volatile yet strategically important region as the Middle East and none of those other countries poses such a threat of plunging the region into chaos as Iraq is. Which of course is why our policy of keeping a large military presence in Saudi Arabia should not change any time soon either. Do we really know what could happen if we pulled out? Is any sane person willing to take the chance to find out? I’m not. So please enlighten us on what evil foreign policy of ours must change to keep us safe from the oh so “noble” religious warriors that many of you seem to admire for the “monstrous dose of reality” they served us on 09/11.


1.
Re: Israel by Rod, 9/23/01
->
Regarding Israel and the Middle East by Nick Demos, 9/23/01

Re: Israel
Re:
Which policies should we change? (Nick Demos)
Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 18:41:31 GMT
From: Rod
I don't have a good answer to the Iraq question, but certainly continuous bombing of the country is no long-term solution, or even short-term solution. What did we do with Iraq in all those years when it was our ally against Iran? Is it any more of a threat to stability in the region now than it was then?
On the question of Arab antagonism towards Israel, I believe you have your chronology wrong. The attack against Israel by Egypt and Syria you referred to occurred during the Yom Kippur war of October 1973. In this war, Israel gained control of the Golan Heights, among other territories.
Most of what's called the occupied territories Israel seized during the Six Day War of 1967. That war wasn't a direct retaliation against Arab aggression, but was considered by Israel to be a preemptive strike against its Arab neighbors. Most of the world thought the Israeli actions had destabilizing effects for the region. The UN Security Council resolution passed after 1967 War asked Israel to withdraw completely from the occupied territories, but Israel has not complied.
Israel has also made other first strikes against its neighbors. If we go another decade back to 1956, you'll note that Israel joined Britain and France in attacking Egypt when Egypt under the Socialist Nasir tried to nationalize the Suez Canal.
The real source of Arab anger against Israel has always been the desire of the modern Zionist for the return of all the world's Jews to the land of Palestine (just like in the Bible), regardless of how the Arabs who already live there feel about that.
In the early 19th century before modern Zionism, there were only about 10,000 Jews living in the area. By the 1947-49 War of Independence for Israel, there were 600,000. The number of Arabs (or Palestinians) forced out of their homes during this war was also coincidentally around 600,000. Today about 5 million Jews live in Israel, and Isreal's Law of Return will continue to permit Jewish immigration into the area, limited only by the total number of Jews in the world. I'm sure you can tell the strain this level of immigration puts on a small area like Palestine, just looking at the numbers.
Just because Israel is our ally doesn't mean that we cannot criticize it when it acts unjustly. If we support Israel no matter what it does, then it shouldn't be surprising when we're lumped together with it. Take the example of the Jewish settlements in the occupied territories. Although the US's official policy is against the settlements, we haven't done anything substantive to prevent Israel from continuing to move its people into the occupied territories. As we've seen in recent days, these settlements are the biggest immediate source of friction between the Palestinians and Israel.

1.
Regarding Israel and the Middle East by Nick Demos, 9/23/01


Regarding Israel and the Middle East
Re:
Re: Israel (Rod)
Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 20:36:39 GMT
From: Nick Demos
In response to your question regarding Iraq and whether it is more of a threat to stability then it was when it was fighting Iran the answer is yes. Back then you had one muslim country fighting another muslim country. There were no religious implications during that war, no “banner” so to speak around which to rally the countries of the region together, so the majority of them were content to just let Iran and Iraq duke it out so long as it didn’t spill over into their countries. The current situation in Iraq is different. Their cries for war against Israel is reminiscent of the Six Day War that you mentioned. During that time approximately 250,000 soldiers and 2000 tanks from the vast majority of Arab nations surrounded Israel ready to strike at any moment. If Israel had waited for these nations to fully get organized, Israel would have been wiped out. Even though today Egypt and Jordan are not bent on destroying Israel, Iraq Syria and Libya still yearn for the good old days and would do whatever they can to bring together a coalition of the likes they had back in 1967 which included Iraq, Syria, Libya, Egypt, Algeria, Sudan, Jordan, along with logistical support from Kuwait, Algeria, and Saudi Arabia. So I ask, given the predicament Israel was in, were the strikes in any way unjustified? I don’t see how anyone could believe they were.
As for the raids on Egypt, the raids were conducted not because Nasser tried to nationalize the Suez but because he decided to keep Israel and Western nations from using the canal, making trade difficult and putting a strain on their economies. Again, it was a radical Muslim who took unilateral action against the rest of the world that brought about military strikes.


Thank You!
Re:
Sontag is Right (Rod)
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 21:53:51 GMT
From: drew
Finally.. Somebody that also agrees with Ms. Sontag. Although, judging from all the negative responses, I think we're all in serious trouble... God Bless the planet...


Sontag
Re: TNY200103
Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 16:00:45 GMT
From: Randy
The article submitted by Susan Sontag was at first insulting to thinking people. The situation is complex and to think that we are not aware of this is insulting. Then I read some comments by readers who obviously did not care to think about what Susan said but react. Some people argued the points. I agree that her definition of coward and air force execution of war are not mine but then the article was short.
General Andrew Jackson fought the Indian tribes in the south. The settlers were mighty angry at all the atrocious attacks on them.Andrew Jackson rightly fought back. But why was he in the situation fighting Indians to begin with and why were Indians committing atrocious acts?
Thats bloody water under the bridge. Point is, as we defend ourselves against this attack, how will we fight terrorism? Just guns or facing the many complex situations around the world.
For example believe we should defend Israel. While I understand Middle East countries have suffered, do I really think we should let them wipe out Israel. Either way we have trouble over this.
Susan, what did you expect our leaders to do. Do you think that they should start making speeches explaining what mistakes we have made in the Middle East and say how we will not recover from this situation? Most people I meet talk about all the complexity, difficulty etc...

Susan Sontag
Re: TNY200103
Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 00:01:03 GMT
From: Walt from Cleveland <75032.2660@compuserve.com>
The most courageous people in New York must be the editorial board at your magazine. Or they are the dumbest. Sontag's commentary is as offensively un-American as anything I have read in the last several days. It insults all Americans equally, especially the thousands of dead ones buried in the rubble of the WTC. She blames America for what happened. Unbelievable. You would think that she would be respectful enough to wait a few weeks for the dead to be identified before she started delivering her "blame America first" tripe. Reading her comments nearly caused me to vomit on your magazine. Nice job New Yorker Magazine. You sure got me thinking.


Sontag and the new Nazism
Re: TNY200103
Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 00:33:40 GMT
From: Judson Knight
Once upon a time, Susan Sontag issued similar praises to the Communist guardians of human rights in North Vietnam and Cuba. Now she has thrown her lot in with the new Nazism.
So often "Nazi" is used as a pejorative, simply a way to designate something w/ which we disagree, that we forget it was/is a set of specific principles. The Muslim extremism of Bin Laden has of course been compared to the Nazi system, but this is more than mere name-calling. At a superficial level, of course, there are differences between the atheist Hitler and the allegedly devout Bin Laden, but this is only surface froth: raised under different conditions, Bin Laden would have been just as comfortable in the SS.
At heart, both Bin Laden's and Hitler's ideologies allow no view of human beings except as part of a group. There are no individuals; only those of the favored race or religion--and those who are not. Bin Laden's vision of the Muslim "nation" as both superior to, and victims of, their enemies comports well w/ Hitler's depictions of a Master Race enslaved by its inferiors. Then of course there is the part about wanting to exterminate the Jews....
But the most basic similarity lies in the attitude toward human life exhibited by both ideologies. Both systems sanction the belief that some people are actually less than human--and not just "less than human" in the way that slaves were viewed in the American South, but so far below human that their status is actually less than that of an animal--more like that of a cockroach. To a Bin Laden or a Hitler, a human body is just a body. If the being occupying it does not fall on the right side of religious or racial divide, he or she is a candidate for extermination. It does not matter if the person is happens to be a baby or a young girl, an old man or a person w/ disabilities; it does not matter, even, if they happen to be of the "right" race and religion--if they are found among the candidates for extermination, they will meet a similar fate.
And *this* is what Sontag finds heroic.


Sontag The Hypocrite
Re: TNY200103
Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 01:10:13 GMT
From: Peter Anastos
Susan Sontag would probably have had NO career in any other country but America, given her talent and naive political beliefs. In several countries I can name, she would already have been stoned or hanged. Why do we still have these dinosaurs living amoung us from the 1960s? When does a writer's usefulness come to an end? When should we just send these old hippies out to pasture? Miss Sontag's writing in your issue will stand as a testament to old thinking in a new world.


Sontag: Same Old Tired Thing
Re: TNY200103
Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 02:32:07 GMT
From: Robert Lombardo
Sontag speculates about the lack of proper information gathered by the Government and calls our President robotic. She never once mentions the influence of the Clinton government and its sustainers in the Congress (New Jersey's Torricelli, for example) in the dismantling and hampering of those agencies ability to gather information by local FBI offices and for the Congress' total lack of a proper control and overview of the INS and its methods. It appears to be the same old and very tired Sontag diatribe from years back. She never has anything new to say and in this case fails to sustain her observations and conclusions.
Sincerely,
Robert Lombardo
Lavallette, New Jersey

Susan, We are not Worthy
Re: TNY200103
Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 05:06:35 GMT
From: TP Sullie
What would the rest of us 'infantilized' Americans do if you weren't here to shine the light on the evil of our leaders and the stupidity of the masses?
Susan Sontag, no stranger to plagiarism (remember Helena Modjeska, Suzie?) must be overjoyed that Bill Maher stole her thoughts (or was it vice versa?) and is taking most of the heat for her hateful remarks, at least in the mass media.
The undertone of Miss Sontag's essay was: "they got what they deserved". Interesting that Jerry Falwell's remarks had a similar tone and were equally condemned-- apparently the political spectrum is more of a circle than a line, with those on either extreme sharing a similar contempt for their society, although for different reasons.
Her criticisms of the military and our president are not unexpected. At time of this writing, our president has shown both strength and level-headedness, and he has the support of most of us simple folk. Perhaps he will meet this crisis effectively and the world will end up being a better place for his efforts. Wouldn't that be a bitter pill to swallow, Susan?
I'm sure Miss Sontag will look at all the hostility generated by her remarks and think "those idiots, they just don't know and understand the things that I do!"; Consider this, Miss Sontag: maybe you're just a bitter old woman.

Sontag: Paid by the word?
Re: TNY200103
Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 14:19:01 GMT
From: the Editor
460 words = "I told you so."

Inconsistency is the Hobgoblin of Great Minds
Re: TNY200103
Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 20:23:54 GMT
From: Little Mind
It seems that historical fact may be ignored or glossed over - depending on the perpetrator, of course -
Here's Susan Sontag's comment regarding her depiction of late actress Helena Modjeska, the main character of her historical novel, "In America":
"I made her into a marvelous person. The real Modjeska was a horrible racist."
Does this mean that Ms. Sontag has a double standard regarding historical veracity - demanding it when the circumstances suit her and dispensing with it for the sake of "marvelousness?"

suicidality
Re: TNY200103
Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 21:38:46 GMT
From: chip elliott
The New Yorker has committed suicide just as surely as the Islamic fundamentalists have done with the publication of Susan Sontag's remarks. I'm 56 and have been reading the NYer since age 8...but I've never seen anything like this. Like the actions of al qaeda, it was the "stupidest thing anyone has ever done" to publish these remaks. No domestic periodical can withstand abandonment by the American people.--Chip Elliott


Even if Suzan is wrong, are-you right?
Re:
suicidality (chip elliott)
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 14:12:14 GMT
From: Jean-François CARPORZEN
S. Sontag leads your attention to the facts, and their possible meaninings. Hard to understand, of course. But why could you replace your own ability to think by yourself with the last statement from some FBI's authorized voice, or from the White House?
I'm an european, and as far as this tragedy is concerned, I'm not sure the best help for thinking about fundamentalism is another fundamentalism...


jean francois
Re:
Even if Suzan is wrong, are-you right? (Jean-François CARPORZEN)
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 14:50:49 GMT
From: michiel van der voort
You are indeed a European that doesn't (want to)understand. Fundamentalism promoted by the terrorists and their guiders is fundamentaly differnt from the fundamentalism of the United States of America. The USA has a clear record that it fundamentaly supports the freedom of an individual with as limited oppresion by anyone and within a framework of law which is debated among democratically elected people. I promise you in france that the USA fundamentalism makes people of any background a lot happier.

The worst indictment
Re:
Even if Suzan is wrong, are-you right? (Jean-François CARPORZEN)
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 16:41:59 GMT
From: Judson Knight
After all these comments about Sontag, my own included, I still think the worst indictment of her is the fact than an America-hating Frenchman finds her "ideas" perfectly reasonable. And no, I'm not one of those Americans who hates France; quite the contrary. However, since about 1920 the French have had one of the world's worst records of standing up against evil.

The French
Re:
The worst indictment (Judson Knight)
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 18:43:07 GMT
From: michiel van der voort
Yep, the french have consistently undermined a sensible anglo-saxon policy of isolating regimes that oppress their citizens, engage in hatemongering against the western world, and harbor and fund terrosists. What for? 1) to be against the US and Britain at all costs and 2) not surprisingly to give their large conglomerates a crack at the business with these tyrans. IE capitalist reasons to undermine the rest of the capitalist world. When it was time to free Kuwait they reluctantly agreed to fight but the pilots had no idea how the planes worked.
This is the time for the french to stand up and be counted, hopefully they will support us. Us positive americans should give them the benefit of the doubt that they will.

Who says the FBI thinks for me?
Re:
Even if Suzan is wrong, are-you right? (Jean-François CARPORZEN)
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 19:30:01 GMT
From: Nick Demos
Let me ask you a question, when Hitler invaded France did you consider it a monstrous dose of reality? Did anyone there try and tell you that you were being invaded for some crime your country commited against Germany? If they had, what would have been your reaction? Similar to Ms. Sontag's? Would it be the same as your opinion of the attack on the U.S. on September 11th? I seriously doubt it. Please take a good hard look inside of you Frenchie, go deep and down and tell me what would your emotions be if the same happened in Paris today?
I do not need the Attorney General, the FBI or even the President of the United States to tell me how I should feel. I know how and what I feel. I feel sorrow, anger, hatred and above all else the desire for revenge. People say this is another Pearl Harbor but it's not. It's worse. Worse because at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese launched a military strike against a military target and military personnel died. That is the risk you run when you are in the military. Loosing your life in battle. What happened on September 11th however, was an attack on innocent civilians. Men and women who were either at work or visiting one of the modern wonders of the world. Their friends and relatives do not need some government spokesman to tell them how they feel either. To deny that this was an unjustified act of war against the people of the United States (that's who was targeted) is clearly ludicrous. To say that we do not know how and what to feel in a time like this is even more ridiculous. I understand it is difficult for you as a Frenchman to understand the concept of looking at a problem and taking action. The French would rather debate something into the ground while the world burns down around them rather than grab a firehose and go to work. However it will not be long before every freedom loving country on this planet will have to make a stand against terrorism or get burned in the terrorists wake.

The facts?
Re:
Even if Suzan is wrong, are-you right? (Jean-François CARPORZEN)
Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 00:42:37 GMT
From: TPSullie
That's a quantum leap of supposition to call anything in her piece "facts".

Sontag: Did Americans Deserve This?
Re: TNY200103
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 00:44:30 GMT
From: Roy Montibon
Four points re:Sontag's essay that need addressing:
1) Her words "self-proclaimed superpower" imply self-delusion and disconnection from reality. We are, IN FACT, the dominant world superpower, economically, militarily and culturally. To think otherwise is extremely naive. She is the one disconnected from reality. The fact that we are the world's superpower means that we must act with more deliberation and wisdom than other nations. For better, or for worse, other nations DEMAND that we provide leadership - even fundamentalist regimes, whose telling complaint about U.S. foreign policy is that we "ignore" their needs and issues. Like needy children, the nations of the world demand the attention and support of the U.S. and are resentful when we pay attention to some, but not others. Psychologically, this is understandable - but in reality, can anyone expect one nation to bear blanket responsibility for the health, education and welfare of 200+ other nations and their more than 6 billion inhabitants? Politically, as the world grows ever smaller, it appears that we have may have no other choice.
2) Her assertion that the attack was a "consequence of specific American alliances and actions" coupled with the sentence beginning, "How many citizens are aware of..." imply that Americans are ignorant and therefore deserve somehow to be the targets of mass murder, mayhem and destruction. While some of our (literally) self-proclaimed enemies may or may not have legitimate grievances with American foreign policy, electing to utilize violence and mass murder is an illegitimate and criminal course of action. This is equivalent to justifying disgruntled office workers who massacre their coworkers because of bad management decisions - business managers, like political leaders, should not have to make decisions based upon the fear that a sociopath (or a gang of them) will wreak havoc upon them. It is demeaning, dehumanizing and counterproductive to placate bullies. Bullying behavior should never be tolerated - and terrorism is simply an extreme form of bullying.
If other nations contend that America itself is behaving like a bully, those specific actions and policies should be debated openly and addressed - but only after the perpetrators of Tuesday's events and their support network are tracked down and brought to justice. America, after all, is not a monolithic entity. Decisions are made - and often reversed - over time by different administrations, different bodies of elected officials and different professionals acting on our behalf. Ideally, decisions should be made with wisdom and compassion, but in practice, the best we can reasonably expect is decisions based upon informed and enlightened self-interest. Unlike the self-proclaimed infallibility of Islamic fundamentalists, U.S. decision-makers are all too human, and often make questionable decisions. However, our society, more than any other nation, allows individual American citizens to speak out, question, and participate in making changes. Fundamentalists can't comprehend this, and therefore resort to violence before public debate and public relations.
3) Her careless assertion that the murderers of innocent mothers, fathers and children last Tuesday "were not cowards" is outrageous and insulting to all free people. I remember, as a child in elementary school, I knew of a student who had "issues" with another, older student in class. But rather than confront the older student directly, he put sugar in the gas tank of the car belonging to the parents of the older student and "papered" their front yard. Even at that age, I knew the student who perpetrated these acts was a coward. The terrorists who hijacked four planes were cowards of the same type, but on a vastly more monstrous scale.
Sontag's attempt to connect the concept of courage to the statement "...were willing to die themselves" belies her simplistic preconception that deep down, all people want to live. In the case of Islamic fundamentalists, that supposition is false because they are only living for the "next life". In the mind of true believer, the only choice is between paradise and victory - death is not an issue.
4) For Sontag to assert that courage is a morally neutral virtue indicates her deep confusion between morality and values. As in learning vs. education, values are organic and internal, while morality, is imposed from external sources (religion, politics). The inherent values of a society arise from the individuals that compose that society. Some of those values may be incorporated into a set of rules - morals. But since politics and organized religion are essentially exercises in power and control, morals are actually the top-down codification of power structures into rules. Morals exist to control behavior - in order to maintain the "proper" power relationships. Breaking the rules threatens the power structure, therefore, nothing can be "morally neutral".
Courage, on the other hand, means doing what's right in the face of fear. Knowing what's truly right or wrong (regardless of religious or political context) is an internal process. Mass murder, in any context, is wrong. Therefore, Sontag's implication that these mass murderers were courageous is not only highly offensive to all thinking human beings, it is insulting to all of the truly courageous policemen, firefighters, rescue workers and ordinary office workers who stopped to help others - those who gave their lives to do the right thing. They are the courageous ones.
The hijackers, on the other hand, were murderous assholes - let's not bend over to shine the light of dignity where it doesn't exist.
I am a little surprised that Susan Sontag is so emtionally and intellectually naive and disconnected from reality*. But then, ivory tower intellectuals, like fundamentalists, purposefully set themselves apart in a rarified world of their own, thus are often very provincial in their outlook. Her thinking is much closer to the likes of Jerry Fallwell than she would probably care to admit.
Her best lines are in her last paragraph: "Let's by all means grieve together. But let's not be stupid together". I couldn't agree more.

Some US brains are out of order since the WTC blitz
Re:
Sontag: Did Americans Deserve This? (Roy Montibon)
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 14:30:12 GMT
From: Jean-François
I'm sincerely angry against the (unknown) authors of this crime. However, as a foreigner (I'm french), I am NOT in "demand", of any kind, for US leadership. I worked with a lot of people from several countries, and I never heard them "demanding" anything but PEACE, and PEACE doesn't mean PAX AMERICANA, nor "american way of life" for everyone.

Don't worry
Re:
Some US brains are out of order since the WTC blitz (Jean-François)
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 16:35:23 GMT
From: Judson Knight
So we shouldn't force all the indignities of American life--freedom, pluralism, prosperity, and (relative) security--on the world. That was also the position of isolationist American legislators in the 1930s. If they'd had their way, we would have listened to Charles Lindbergh and not tried to impose our Pax Americana on Europe, and wouldn't you French be much happier now if that mentality had prevailed?
After all, the provinces that once were France would be among the most highly favored *Gaue* of the Nazi Empire. And if you lived in a particularly attractive part of Nazi Gaul, you could have the pleasure of German military and political leaders vacationing there, drinking your wine and sleeping w/ your daughters and sisters. But instead, we brutal, thoughtless Americans had to take all that away from you!

If You Aren't Looking For American Leadership
Re:
Some US brains are out of order since the WTC blitz (Jean-François)
Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 16:52:50 GMT
From: David Buzzell
I'd recommend brushing up on your German. Bon Chance, or should I say, "Viel Gluck!"

Susan Sontag is a coward
Re: TNY200103
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 10:16:05 GMT
From: Joel S. Clarkson
Susan Sontag gives us liberals a bad name. Who in their right mind can look at the September 11 attacks on innocent people as anything other than cowardly, desperate and arrogant.
When I personally witnessed the towers burn, I realized that the only response to this type of hatred must be swift and strong. People pushed to such limits know no reason, just as animals trained to kill know no restraint. The fanatics who spawn this type of destruction have been brainwashed to believe their actions are heroic and justified. So too has Sontag been misguided.
If only her ivory tower of academic pretentiousness and self-loathing were the structure struck by these criminals, perhaps she would see that no entity is to blame for senseless terrorist acts except for the terrorists themselves. I disagree with Sontag's views, but that does not give me license to physically attack her, no matter how tempting that may be. Even though the US is feeling repercussions of past mistakes and even terrible injustice, we do not deserve to be punished with senseless violence. The cliché “two wrongs don’t make a right” is devoid of wit and multisyllabic phrasing, but it rings truer than anything Sontag has to say. Yes Susan, even “infantile” slogans can make sense.
Sontag's assertion that “those willing to die themselves in order to kill others” are not cowards is ludicrous beyond expression. The suicide terrorists were too spineless to face the consequences of the horror they caused. Is not suicide a desperate act of cowardice, a way of retreating from one’s own accountability in a world of raw reality? A terrorist commits all of his acts under the shadow of anonymity, running from the scene of the crime, hiding in a bunker and claiming to have no involvement. Is that not a coward?
I fear Sontag is as fanatical about her insipid views as the terrorists who attacked us. She herself is a coward who passes judgment from the safety of her plush armchair while many of our uniformed citizens heroically plow ahead in the face of horror and carnage. I find it obvious that Sontag’s essay is nothing but the desperate ramblings of a has-been trying to incite shock in a last-ditch attempt at the notoriety she once enjoyed.


Susan Sontag's article on US Leaders Response to Terrorism
Re:
Susan Sontag is a coward (Joel S. Clarkson)
Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 00:35:31 GMT
From: Andrew Branigan
Regarding Susan Sontag's recent article concerning our elected leaders:
Let's not forget what publication is recieving credit for publishing this article. Their reputation is long and distinguished along these lines. The publishers' leanings have never been clear and border on unbiased. And let us not forget that many thousands of veterans worked, fought, and died to protect Ms. Sontag's right to her public opinion, regardless of its content, relavance, or basis in reality.
I do not agree with her; I find her position abhorant, anathama; I have always been on the opposite side of the political opinion polls from her. I spent twenty-two years in the uniform of our great country's military defending the rights of fools along with my own. I will continue to defend her right to speak her mind right up to the point where it becomes seditious, subversive, or otherwise detrimental to the morale and welfare of my American Brothers and Sisters. At that time I will expend at least an equal ammount of effort in bringing her rantings to a legal end.

Sontag: Arrogant and Ignorant
Re: TNY200103
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 14:25:36 GMT
From: Michiel van der Voort
Ms Sontag's "contribution" to you "black issue" is so disgusting that an eloquent use of words is impossible. Ms Sontag shows that she is an arrogant, ignorant, thankless self proclaimed intellectual. Does she realize how she got to grow up and have the freedom to write such crap? Does she realize that the real cowards are the monsters that brain wash the executors of these horrible acts? Does she realize that these same cowards do not subject themselves to the democratic will of the people they supposedly represent? I hope that she doesn't vote because she clearly doesn't comprehend the value of this right.
She is entitled to her opinion in this great country but if she this is her answer to the question "who's side are you on?" then get out of town and get a Baghdad address.
Ms Sontag's piece is ungrateful and dispicable. If it is meant to provoke the New Yorker made its case but it is utterly unnecessary to allow writers to spew such blatant garbage.
I hope my wife cancels her subscription
Michiel van der Voort
New York, NY

I write gooder than Sontag
Re:
Sontag: Arrogant and Ignorant (Michiel van der Voort)
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 20:19:17 GMT
From: Jamie Beu
I'm seriously considering a job as a writer for the New Yorker, now that I see that the "intellectual" drivel that spews out of Ms. Sontag's word processor actually produces cash in a bank account.
I can pump out as much garbage on my own. All I need to do is create a random word generator, seeded with socialist and anti-American psychobabble, and I too can have a career in journalism. Of course, this would also require selling my soul and kicking my country while it's down... the very same country that gives me the liberty to do so!
Maybe I'll just stick to an honest living, working for the country that keeps us all free to criticize whomever we wish and even lets us get paid to do so.
True, America's got faults, but now is NOT the time to pick scabs on a broken body.
God heal and bless America.

Don't Blame The New Yorker!
Re: TNY200103
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 15:20:02 GMT
From: Brett Wilder
All who appreciate The New Yorker now owe the magazine a debt of gratitude for its courage in publishing Susan Sontag's comments.
Let the overwhelming revulsion shared by millions of thinking Liberals and Conservatives nationwide serve as illustration to all Americans and friends of Americans that this is indeed a time to abandon political bias in favor of a new vision aimed toward security, tolerance, and common decency.
As for Sontag – well, just let her dry up and float away.


God Bless America
Re: TNY200103
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 21:52:04 GMT
From: Nuno Jordão
America is great because it makes possible the courageous and crystal clear statement of Susan Sontag.
Thank you New Yorker for publishing it.
America will be greater, only, when the majority of Americans will start to think with their own head, like Susan Sontag is doing now, instead of just repeating the media.
Only then will they be truly free.
What I’ve been reading in this forum, shows me that there’s still a long way to go.


Political Correction:
Re:
God Bless America (Nuno Jordão)
Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 14:18:48 GMT
From: Brett Wilder
What you see in this forum are intelligent citizens of the world freely expressing their right to publicly disagree with Susan Sontag.

look before you leap Mr Nuno
Re:
God Bless America (Nuno Jordão)
Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 17:09:58 GMT
From: michiel van der voort
Mr Nuno is probably one of the many Europeans that subscribes to the ridiculous and ingnorant "theory" that the US has asked for this outrageous behavior of a bunch of brainwashed cowards (that donot want to face the beauty and challenges of being alive). Mr Nuno stay were you are, we donot need your tourist dollars in the US.
yes it is great that you can publish the "sontag crap" but that doesn't make it less crap and that is the point.

I don't know, maybe it's me...
Re: TNY200103
Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 00:12:33 GMT
From: Nick Demos
Sometimes I just don't get it.
Just like everyone else in this country I was born to parents of one ethnic background or another but I was born and bred in the United States. I spent five whole years in Europe, and returned again to the country I hold so dear. Through out my lifetime up to this point, I have always held my head up high and have been proud to be an American. However from alot of actions I have seen over the years it saddens me to see that not all Americans are proud to be, and some even look for ways to demean, blemish and outright destroy all that we have accomplished as a nation. America is a great and powerful nation. To some, our status is to be rejected and reviled, however when I say we are a great and powerful nation, I say it with pride and honor, without the slightest hint of remorse. I take pride in America's financial might. I take extreme pride in the power of our armed forces. Why people are ashamed of this will always be beyond my grasp. Sure there are the "excuses" but the reasons are not clear. I seriously doubt that the reasons are clear even to the individuals who hate this Country with the same zeal as the terrorists that attacked us, all they know is that they need to bring this country down, to bring it level or even below that of other countries. I for one am against mediocrity. To believe I should give something up, something I have worked hard to achieve just so I can be equal to someone else is a thought so repugnant it makes my skin crawl. If other nations feel they should be our equal, then they should strive to achieve the position, not to have us brought down to their position.
There is one thing though that disgusts me even more than the people who wish to bring down this country for whatever personal excuses they might have. It is the people who buy into the anti-American rhetoric without knowing why they should, and there are many of those out there. One case in point is one poster on this very forum who asks; "So Clinton's policy of bombing from on high, to keep US military from "harm's way" while sacrificing accuracy and civilian lives was ok?" Not even he is familiar with who (if anyone got bombed), what weapons were used, what the reason was, was that reason justified (and yes as much as we hate to admit it there comes a time when military action is necessary)and what the civilian casualties were. These are the most dangerous of them all because they follow that which they have no knowledge of, only an opinion based on someone else's opinion that sounded pretty nice so he might as well follow. I am proud of my nation's history, my nation's strength and my nation's greatness. Why everyone would not feel proud to be a part of this great nation is beyond me.
Like I said, I don't know, maybe it's me

if it's you, it's me too...
Re:
I don't know, maybe it's me... (Nick Demos)
Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 00:54:38 GMT
From: tina
I agree with you totally. And I am sick and tired of people blaming any part of this on Bill Clinton. Those Clinton-haters would probably blame the daily weather on him too, though, and there's no point arguing with them. Exactly what he bombed on high I would have no idea.

Sontag and Hertzberg are shameless
Re: TNY200103
Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 14:36:25 GMT
From: Phil Sexton
In an otherwise sane and humane issue of your magazine, devoted to the horror that New Yorkers have been experiencing since September 11, Susan Sontag and Hendrik Hertzberg used the stump of the World Trade Center as a platform from which to spew their usual venom about a Republican federal administration, whom they hate regardless of circumstances. No doubt if it were a Democratic administration following a Republican administration in which this dreadful event happened, Sontag and Hertzberg would find reason to shamelessly skewer the previous rather than the present one.

Shameless, indeed
Re:
Sontag and Hertzberg are shameless (Phil Sexton)
Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 19:38:33 GMT
From: Jody Williams
You are correct. I've had to "pass go" (i.e., the first item in "Talk of the Town" with each edition of "The New Yorker" if it looks like I'll run into more Hertzberg hatred of Republicans. As someone who votes for the person rather than the party, I cannot understand his one-sided point-of view, which seems far more a personal campaign than a reasoned and reasonable analysis.

Editorial policy
Re:
Shameless, indeed (Jody Williams)
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 11:36:12 GMT
From: Phil Sexton
Jody, it concerns me that the editors have never chosen to print a letter that is critical of Hertzberg's rants, distortions, and occasional misrepresentations of the truth. I can only assume that his point of view is the editorial point of view. Which then prompts a larger question: are the articles that appear in the New Yorker selected in accordance with the same paradigm? And: is the content of any particular article screened to avoid conflict with a Hertzberg-type of world-view? In short: how factual are the facts that appear in the New Yorker?

regarding Sontag
Re: TNY200103
Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 17:46:21 GMT
From: Bill Thompson
For everyone who attacked Sontag's piece as pretentious drivel:
Uh, its the New Yorker, the world's preeminent publication for pretentious psuedo-intellectuals everywhere.
Sorry, I thought you all new that. Don't you remember that Seinfeld episode?

Exactly
Re:
regarding Sontag (Bill Thompson)
Date: Mon, 01 Oct 2001 14:53:23 GMT
From: Andrew Branigan
You've hit right on the nail head.

Untitled
Re: TNY200103
Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 18:56:23 GMT
From: Edward Oh
Susan Sontag was always one of the prime caricatures of the Sixty's radical - which is in no way meant as a compliment to the typical Sixty's radical. After a lifetime of heaping her half-baked theories of politics and pornography on the world, she has exploited the atrocity of September 11 to vent her vapid anti-Americanism on a shell-shocked nation. What should give decent people comfort is the banal predictability with which Sontag spins our national catastrophe.
Leftist-revolutionary intellectuals (an oxymoron that redefines the term) have always betrayed a peculiar form of narcissism - preening in its expressions of self-loathing - that is obvious to anyone who cares to peek behind the outward posturing. With her screed, Sontag proves the point in this regard. Sontag's politics stems from, and is characterized by, an inexplicable hatred of the West - the United States, in particular. This uniquely American pathology provides the subtext to her life, work, and thought, such as it is. Leftists of her ilk fancy themselves to be enlightened, but they are not. They are self-conscious malcontents who are, at the same time, oblivious to the smallness of their thought. In their attempt to foist a sense of collective guilt on Americans, they merely engage in tired ideological sloganeering dressed up as reasoned criticism. They surround themselves with fellow practitioners of their distasteful (and discredited) orthodoxy, so are never challenged . It is no wonder that Sontag appears to be so disengaged from the unmitigated evil that befell New York and Washington. Unwittingly or not, she sanctions terrorism against innocents as an acceptable tool of political opposition. In doing so, she legitimizes the fanaticism of these barbarous perverters of Islam.
Consider her assertion that the root cause of the greatest instance of mass murder on U.S. soil is to be found in America's foreign policy and alliances? Sontag apparently mistakes conclusion for argument, as nary a word of evidence is offered as to what specific policies she regards as the ultimate flash points for the vile terrorism that was perpetrated on us. Does she think that U.S. support for Israel, the lone democracy buffeted by an ocean of anti-democratic and anti-Semitic hatred, is somehow wrong? Does she think the millions in aid dollars showered on terrorist safe harbors such as Afganistan for humanitarian relief of its starving people should be cut off? Was our defensive war against a U.N. member state that invaded another member state in wholesale violation of international law immoral? Should the U.S. retract its air patrol over Iraq and leave the Kurdish minority at the mercy of Saddam's helicopter gunships and chemical attacks? I doubt she has given these questions much thought.
In criticizing what she views as America's mindless patriotism and jingoism, engineered by a government- and media-contrived conspiracy, she makes the obligatory indictment-comparison to the Soviet propoganda machine of old. But you can almost see Sontag patting away the dust left in the wake of history's progress as she vainly tries to catch up to it. No amount of revisionist amnesia on her part can make the rest of us forget her traitorous journey behind the communist frontlines of the Viet Cong during the Vietnam conflict. There was little question as to where her political sympathies were at the time, and the same anti-Americanism that spawned her treachery then informs her worldview now.

Brave Terrorist? ....NOT
Re: TNY200103
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 13:25:10 GMT
From: Tommy Z
When Rev. Jim Jones' followers zombie-like committed mass suicide, were they brave? NO
When one sheep jumps off a cliff to it's death, and the rest of the flock also leaps to their death, are they being brave? No.
The various countries of the world haven't always responded perfectly to terrorist actions. However, an incorrect response by the any person or country, cannot turn terrorist action (also incorrect), into something 'brave & courageous'.

This IS your war, Susan...
Re: TNY200103
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 14:49:34 GMT
From: Michael Sturges
This war (yes, that's what it is now...and has been for awhile) concerns the global women's movement towards freedom as much as it concerns anything. A simple look at the Taliban and its 9th century policies confirms that. You back down now and billions-with-a-B of women suffer accordingly. To assume that all things can be done without violence, especially concerning ultra-violent people, is not intellectual -- it is stupid and irresponsible. Take another visit to Canal Street if you truly think you can reason with this opponent.

Ms Sontag
Re:
This IS your war, Susan... (Michael Sturges)
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 16:27:49 GMT
From: Morgan
Finally read her "contribution" today.
What a bitch!
May her next life be lived as a Taliban woman!

Ignore Susan S./ she's looking for attention
Re:
This IS your war, Susan... (Michael Sturges)
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 17:32:31 GMT
From: Paige
Don't help her sell more books.

Thoughts on Susan
Re: TNY200103
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 15:59:07 GMT
From: dave scott
How heartless to suggest there is anything heroic about these murderers. Their monstrous, sneaky slaughter of thousands of innocent people, babies included, is the definition of cowardince. To try to turn the blame for this on the victims is a defamation of the first order. Ms. Sontag is one sorry bitch.

Let's all ignore Susan S.
Re: TNY200103
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 17:42:38 GMT
From: Paige
Don't give her the attention she is so obviously begging for. Some people will adopt any stance in order to get a response from others. So, don't read her critiques, her messages or articles (I don't know how anyone could get through them anyway - such twisted, long winded prose...) or, at least, don't bring them to others' attention and help her sell more books.


How can the New Yorker publish Susan Sontag???
Re: TNY200103
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 17:56:36 GMT
From: Mike Sullivan
Just because a person can sit armed with a thesaurus and turn out drivel does not make that person a writer.
She has no grasp on what makes a person a coward and what is a hero. In Centuries past warriors stood shoulder to shoulder on a field of battle and faced other warriors while their generals stood back barking orders and laying out their strategy. The battles were battles of attrition, which in most cases could not be the type of battle that could be won today. As time went on, weapons and warfare strategy became more of a stand off type with missiles and “smart” weapons.
Imagine the gulf war, if we did not have smart weapons and stand off weapons, we would have had to do blanket bombing like in WWII. The number of civilian casualties would have been in the thousands and the enemy would have been in a much better position to meet our ground forces. Think twice before you mock our military and suggest they are cowardly, unless you are willing to pick up a gun and join the fray yourself.
On September 11 many of your neighbors got up to start their normal day, they kissed their loved ones goodbye and said they will see them tonight. Some people went to the airport to visit family, go on business trips or just take a break from their work for a much-needed vacation. At the same time a number of lunatics which you refer to as brave setout to end those innocent lives. Then introduced the people on the planes to terror and presumably slaughtered the flight crews and proceeded to end the lives of the passengers and thousands more on the ground. Innocent people died who had no reason to die. Then a nobody like you would suggest these murders are somehow heroic.
THIS IS NOT AN ACT OF BRAVERY. This is a COWARDLY act to the highest degree. If you can’t tell the difference then pedal this rag of a magazine to the lunatics that you support because I know of nobody that would be willing to support you and your views in this country.
Our leadership has done an admirable job in this crisis and will continue to do so even in the face of irrelevant people like you.
I suggest you change the name of your magazine to honor those that your writer seems to admire and maybe call it "The al Qaedan" because if I was a New Yorker I wouldn't appreciate being dishonored by you.

Susan Sontag?
Re: TNY200103
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 17:57:19 GMT
From: Don Davison
Cowardice from high in the sky? What planet are you living on?
How much bravery does it take to steal an airplane and fly it into a building knowing that you are killing inncocent women, children and non military personel. If you feel that these are acts of bravery then you need to change your therapsist.
Bravery in my book are the ones on the PA flight who took the airplane back and saved a few thousand innocent lives.
It is a good thing that I do not subscribe to your magazine because I would cancel immediately soley on your behalf.

A Nation of Cowards and Bullies
Re: TNY200103
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 19:28:59 GMT
From: Wesley Blixt
The best way for the United States to end terrorism is simply to stop practicing terrorism.
The U.S. has systematically exploited the world's natural resources, created and exploited instability, and caused many thousands of civilian deaths both through our own military intervention and through our arming and training of brutal proxies (including members of the Taliban) -- all to support a bloated standard of the living that the rest of the world is increasingly unwilling to tolerate.
Susan Sontag is quite right. We have become a nation of cowards and bullies, oblivious to the destruction wrought by our bombs, our bombers, our pilots, ourselves. We have forfeited our right to outrage...and we are left only with the right to grieve, for our own dead, and for the death we have inflicted. I wish only that we had the courage to simply sit with that grief, and to experience it as fully as it must finally be experienced.

Brilliant
Re:
A Nation of Cowards and Bullies (Wesley Blixt)
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 19:52:23 GMT
From: Judson Knight
You did a brilliant imitation of a Western pseudo-intellectual--spoiled, emotional to the point of irrationality, racked with guilt at even being alive, and boiling over with a querulous bile of slogans, superstitions, and bankrupt ideology. That was a fabulous show of talent--one worthy of the great Phil Hendrie himself!

Braindead?
Re:
A Nation of Cowards and Bullies (Wesley Blixt)
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 21:27:19 GMT
From: michiel van der voort
Mr. Wesley. How did you get into university or are they making you so shortsighted there? Universities are supposed to teach students to analyse topics which inherently means testing viewpoints against facts. Your ignorance is astounding and offensive and you need to invest some time reading some other viewpoints. I am not saying that the US hasn't made any serious mistakes in let's say the past 50 years but the intention has never been to oppress and exploit people but instead protect the innocent and promote freedom. Why don't you go to Cuba, Baghdad or China and help them overtrhrow the evil americans. You probably also have been roaming the streets of Seattle and Genoa to demolish property under the disguise of protesting world trade.
You can come back when you have done your homework.

Right to outrage
Re:
A Nation of Cowards and Bullies (Wesley Blixt)
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 22:43:27 GMT
From: Nick Demos
Who the hell are you to dictate what we are allowed to feel? We have every right to go after these cowards and we must use all the resources necessary, even if that means sending in troops to smoke out the roaches from the holes and exterminating them just as they saw fit to snuff out the lives of thousands of individuals who actually made a contribution to society instead of being a leech sucking the lifeblood out of people, nations and civilizations. Go live in Afghanistan for a year or so, you might be praying for the U.S. to bomb that country by the end of that time.

Wesley, You Are Truly Pathetic
Re:
A Nation of Cowards and Bullies (Wesley Blixt)
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 01:25:38 GMT
From: Edward Oh
Your argument gushes with a wretched self-loathing that is nauseating. To contort the word "terrorism" to the point where it loses all meaning is intellectually dishonest, yet all too typical of those who harbor an inexplicable need to engage in arguments of moral relativism or equivalence. I dare say you go farther than some in your portrayal of America as the source of ultimate evil in the world. That is sad.
If American civilization is so despicable to you, what is your suggestion as to how we should conduct ourselves in the world? What society provides the moral example to which you feel we should aspire? What other country has championed the cause of democracy and human rights to the degree we have? Since America is so unworthy, who do you feel should assume the mantle in our stead? Perhaps you can point to an instance where America did good, so that we can compare and contrast that against the behavior you find so deplorable.
You apparently like to think yourself sophisticated, but your inability to make any distinction between our conduct and theirs betrays a smallness in your thinking, if not thoughtlessness.
You also don't know your history. The U.S. never supported the Taliban, per se, but rather the rebel movement against the Soviet invasion of which the Taliban was a mere part. We cannot always choose the allies we want in pursuit of our goals. We allied with the Soviets during WWII to counter the immediate threat of Hitler. Did that diminish our moral standing to later criticize Stalin's oppression? Does your apparent naivete allow for even a smidgeon of nuance in your thinking?
How is our lifestyle bloated? Do you live a bloated lifestyle? Do you really need that car? That stereo? Those clothes? Perhaps we should all adopt the ascetic ways of the Taliban.
Instead of spewing mindless idiocies, take advantage of the liberty granted you by the sacrifice of others, reflect on your own hypocrisy and ignorance, get an education, and gain some wisdom.

Since you're at UMass, I hope you're young.
Re:
A Nation of Cowards and Bullies (Wesley Blixt)
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 23:54:05 GMT
From: TinaJ
Otherwise there is really no good excuse for your idiocy. The name of this magazine and forum is The New Yorker. Here is a clue! Many people reading and posting here may have lost friends and family members on september 11. Your know-it-all cavalier attitude is most disrespectful.
You are certainly entitled to your opinion, even though I don't agree with you one bit, and I hope you are a student at UMass so they can hopefully knock some sense into your head.
Following your convoluted logic, do you think that, if the USA is a terrorist too, this makes it okay for these heathens to bomb our buildings and kill our citizens? I don't think anyone is going to agree with that. Those people who were killed weren't terrorists. They were sons and daughters and mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters. Just people doing their jobs.
I think in the meantime it would be nice if you apologized to anyone you may have offended. I have a son in college, thank the good Lord he has more sense than you seem to have. I would be mortified if he posted such idiocy. Then I'd whack him upside the head with a cast-iron skillet or something. Too bad I'm several states away from you, dear.

Son in College
Re:
Since you're at UMass, I hope you're young. (TinaJ)
Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 00:02:18 GMT
From: Nick Demos
I hope your son isn't going to a Massachusetts college. This is the type of stuff they teach and encourage here.

nope - in the south.
Re:
Son in College (Nick Demos)
Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 00:33:11 GMT
From: TinaJ
I was going to be fair and entertain the hope that Wesley was really young and maybe they could do something with him at UMass -- but no, we live in the south. You don't find much of that hogwash here.
Maybe Wesley just made up that address, though; we shouldn't condemn the whole UMass system based on one cretin.


No, I'm a teacher and father...and I'm very, very angry
Re:
Since you're at UMass, I hope you're young. (TinaJ)
Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 17:30:01 GMT
From: Wesley Blixt
No, I'm a teacher, administrator and father. I'm also nearly 50 years old, which means that I remember (and was intimately impacted by) the Gulf War, the invasions of Panama and Grenada, the war in Central America, and - of course - the war in Vietnam. I am old enough to remember the Gulf of Tonkin resolution and the invasion of Cambodia and Laos and every other duplicitous pretext for aggression and incursion that the U.S. has seized upon in the last four decades. I am old enough to remember the assassinations of Lamumba and Sukarno and Allende and Guevara, and every other revolutionary, populist or democratic leader the U.S. considered a threat to its economic interests. I am old enough to remember U.S. military, economic, and logistical support for self-avowed fascist butchers in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, South African, Angola, Mozambique, Argentina, Chile, Iran, Iraq, Panama, Uruguay, Paraguay …god, this list on … and so many other places where thousands have been tortured, murdered and dumped into mass graves. And I am old enough to have cried for those souls as I have for the victims of September 11.
I am, most importantly (and please understand this), old enough to be able vow that the U.S. cannot and will not be allowed to continue this role in the world. It is a message that I carry relentlessly and effectively to my students and my children. (In incidentally, I don't need a cast iron skillet to do it, or to make it stick.)
I don't, and we don't, need to buy into your idea of what it means to an American in order to grieve as we must grieve. Never did, and never well. And we will sabotage all your best efforts to impose that vision in the coming months of war, eroding civil liberties, and the commercialization of national mourning.


Once again
Re:
No, I'm a teacher and father...and I'm very, very angry (Wesley Blixt)
Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 22:16:41 GMT
From: Judson Knight
I must reiterate what I said earlier, Wesley: the things you say sound like a parody. All that stuff is so old, so *tired*!
Those characters you talk about w/ such reverence--Lumumba, Allende, Guevara, et al.--were at best f***-ups, at worst (like Che) sociopaths, monsters who wanted freedom for themselves and enslavement for the gray masses.
Judging from your comments, I assume you would say that the closest thing to an ideal society in the world today would be Cuba, and I ask you, who are you really kidding? In your heart of hearts, you *know* you've got it pretty good, that you can mouth off your nonsense and the worst thing anybody will do is give you a hard time on a *New Yorker* message board. That you sleep in a comfortable bed at night, are able to provide for your children, etc., and can basically do what you want.
And, I believe, deep down you know that all your complaints are just the product of being spoiled and bored. Maybe that's the worst thing about the peace, prosperity, and safety that characterized American life from 9/2/45 to 9/11/01: it produced a bunch of noisy, petulant brats who, because they were not forced to spend their lives looking over their shoulders or scrounging for food, have had nothing better to do than to complain.

Sorry to interrupt your trip down memory lane...
Re:
No, I'm a teacher and father...and I'm very, very angry (Wesley Blixt)
Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 22:37:12 GMT
From: Nick Demos
but unfortunately, what you are remembering and feeling really should have nothing to do with the attacks on September 11th and what our response should be to them. We were attacke on our soil by a foreign foe and thousands of innocent civillians died. It is ridiculous that you feel we do not have a right, no, a responsibility to retailate against those who commited this atrocity. I don't need you to buy into "my brand" of patriotism nor do I care what you think of it. Just do not tell me that the only thing we are entitled to is to sit and grieve for the loss without answering. Your arguments are a poor disguise for your cowardice, and your anger for the demise of the left-wing movement in this country. You lament the loss of Sukarno, Alliente, che Guevarra, all communist puppets just as fanatical about their cause as bin Laden's zealots. If you feel the need to hop on an airplane and go and apologise to every country you feel we have unjustifiably acted against, then by all means be my guest, however don't tell me that bin Laden and his band of "merry men" should be allowed to live their lives as they wish when thousands, count'em, thousands of innocent people have lost the ability to do the same.
My brand of patriotism is "America First" and as long as there are people such as bin Laden who would kill innocent Americans I will advocate till my last dying breath their eradication. Even if you sir were to ever become one of thier victims.

well, then we can't use youth to excuse you.
Re:
No, I'm a teacher and father...and I'm very, very angry (Wesley Blixt)
Date: Mon, 01 Oct 2001 13:23:33 GMT
From: Tina
You should have quit while you weren't so far behind and let us think you were an ignorant college kid.
I remember all those things too, and I share your opinions of Vietnam especially. However, I was just 12 or 14 then, so maybe I'd feel differently if I'd been an adult? Just a thought.
This is different, dear, as Justin and Nick have pointed out, but you're probably not going to listen to anybody else. That cast-iron skillet thing was a joke, but in your case I feel skillet therapy (upside the head as we say down here in the ignorant & uneducated south) would do you a world of good. You're in your ivory tower pontificating, but the rest of us are living in the real world.

Sorry Susan Sontag
Re: TNY200103
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 20:09:34 GMT
From: Edward Oh
Susan Sontag was always one of the prime caricatures of the Sixty's radical - which is in no way meant as a compliment to the typical Sixty's radical. After a lifetime of heaping her half-baked theories of politics and pornography on the world, she has exploited the atrocity of September 11 to vent her vapid anti-Americanism on a shell-shocked nation. What should give decent people comfort is the banal predictability with which Sontag spins our national catastrophe.
Leftist-revolutionary intellectuals (an oxymoron that redefines the term) have always betrayed a peculiar form of narcissism - preening in its expressions of self-loathing - that is obvious to anyone who cares to peek behind the outward posturing. With her screed, Sontag proves the point in this regard. Sontag's politics stems from, and is characterized by, an inexplicable hatred of the West - the United States, in particular. This uniquely American pathology provides the subtext to her life, work, and thought, such as it is.
Leftists of her ilk fancy themselves to be enlightened, but they are not. They are self-conscious malcontents who are, at the same time, oblivious to the smallness of their thought. In their attempt to foist a sense of collective guilt on Americans, they merely engage in tired ideological sloganeering dressed up as reasoned criticism. They surround themselves with fellow practitioners of their distasteful (and discredited) orthodoxy, so are never challenged . It is no wonder that Sontag appears to be so disengaged from the unmitigated evil that befell New York and Washington.
Unwittingly or not, she sanctions terrorism against innocents as an acceptable tool of political opposition. In doing so, she legitimizes the fanaticism of these barbarous perverters of Islam.
Consider her assertion that the root cause of the greatest instance of mass murder on U.S. soil is to be found in America's foreign policy and alliances? Sontag apparently mistakes conclusion for argument, as nary a word of evidence is offered as to what specific policies she regards as the ultimate flash points for the vile terrorism that was perpetrated on us. Does she think that U.S. support for Israel, the lone democracy buffeted by an ocean of anti-democratic and anti-Semitic hatred, is somehow wrong? Does she think the millions in aid dollars showered on terrorist safe harbors such as Afganistan for humanitarian relief of its starving people should be cut off? Was our defensive war against a U.N. member state that invaded another member state in wholesale violation of international law immoral? Should the U.S. retract its air patrol over Iraq and leave the Kurdish minority at the mercy of Saddam's helicopter gunships and chemical attacks? I doubt she has given these questions much thought.
In criticizing what she views as America's mindless patriotism and jingoism, engineered by a government- and media-contrived conspiracy, she makes the obligatory indictment-comparison to the Soviet propoganda machine of old. But you can almost see Sontag patting away the dust left in the wake of history's progress as she vainly tries to catch up to it. No amount of revisionist amnesia on her part can make the rest of us forget her traitorous journey behind the communist frontlines of the Viet Cong during the Vietnam conflict. There was little question as to where her political sympathies were at the time, and the same anti-Americanism that spawned her treachery then informs her worldview now.

Kudos to the NYer for publishing Sontag
Re: TNY200103
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 21:30:59 GMT
From: Sarah Ostendorf
One of the most frustrating and ironic consequences of the September 11th attacks is the sudden tendency of many media outlets to embrace their onetime enemy, censorship. America's new war on terrorism is meant to protect our freedoms, but in little over two weeks it has caused some to reject one of our foremost liberties, freedom of speech, to preserve the image of a country united behind its leader.
Susan Sontag in The New Yorker, Dan Guthrie in the Grant Pass, Oregon, Daily Courier, the former city editor of the Texas City Sun and a late-night talk show host have all been criticized or fired for making remarks that were seen as anti-Bush or anti-American. Even White House spokesman Ari Fleischer warned that Americans "need to watch what they say."
Life has changed as a result of the September 11th attacks. The world will change. But some things should not, such as the right of every American to say what he wants, even - no, especially - if it is a criticism of our country and its leader. It is more important now than ever before that we be able to criticize America and the president, to thoroughly analyze Bush's every decision, and to make sure he leads responsibly in the wake of the attacks and in the shadow of a frightening future.
Voluntarily censoring our fellow Americans is a step away from what we are fighting to keep - our free world. By doing so, we are letting the terrorists win.


Free speech
Re:
Kudos to the NYer for publishing Sontag (Sarah Ostendorf)
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 22:31:39 GMT
From: Nick Demos
Just as the dolts you mentioned in your post have th right to free speech, we have the right to criticise what they write or say, especially if it is idiotic mindless drivel with absoultely no basis in the reality we live in today. The reason the vast majority of the American population approve with our President is because we feel he is acting responsibly and in our best ineteres. It is the small minority of pseudo intellectuals who want to disagree just for the purpose of disagreeing that contribute to the notion that what happened on Spetember the 11th was in any way justified. On top of this these pseuado-intellectuals try to persuade the public opinion into believing that this matter can be resolved by not doing a damned thing other than sit and wait for some divine being to drop bin Laden and his ringleaders into the lap of John Ashcroft to prosecute. For those who think that just by isolating the Taliban from the rest of the world will eventually make them change their mind, just open your eyes for once and take a look around. There were only 3 nations that recognized them as a legitimate government and they didn't give a damned, what do they care if the world thinks ill of them just because they harbor terrorists or their policieshave no basis in respect for the individual or their rights? Why should that make them change their minds now? Beacuse it would be the right thing to do? WAKE UP! Freedom of speech does not guarantee a captive audience. The majority here do not like what Sontag said, disagree with Sontag said and will continue to criticise what Sontag said because we feel it was outright wrong. IS it so hard for these pseudo-intellectuals to believe that this patriotism is genuine? Why is it if you hate the government and do what you can to weaken this nation you are a true american? If you don't feel or act or do in this fashion you are nothing but a dolt being led by the government. Is it really that hard to believe people actually love this country and support our governemnt?

Absolutly correct
Re:
Free speech (Nick Demos)
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 16:00:52 GMT
From: Mike
I could not have answered the free speech question better.
But I would like to add. When those with the media vehicle of television, print or radio want to use it to take a unpopular critical view, expecially in these times, the must expect others to make their freedoms known. By not reading the publications which they appear in - not watching the tv station that employs them, not dealing with their sponsors etc.
I might also add, Sontag went beyond freedom of speech. Her remarks smack of anti american government, anti american military, a Pro terrorist stance. Her comments show loyalties only to the enemy of this country. Now what does that make her?

Ari's remarks taken out of context
Re:
Kudos to the NYer for publishing Sontag (Sarah Ostendorf)
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 12:11:15 GMT
From: Michael Sturges
His watch-what-you-say comments were said during a press oconference intended to deflate hate rhetoric and Islam bashing, not dispel free speech. But by the way, you seem to object to my airing of objections to your ideas. Isn't that free speech? [Can't have it both ways, Sarah.]

Right on Susan!
Re: TNY200103
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 21:33:39 GMT
From: drew
Rest assured Ms. Sontag, some of us actually READ what you wrote, and whole heartedly AGREE. I hope the New Yorker and yourself disregard all these moronic responses which have flooded the forum.

Stop name-calling
Re:
Right on Susan! (drew )
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 12:02:46 GMT
From: Michael Sturges
Just because I don't agree with you doesn't mean I'm a moron. Try to show some tolerance of other ideas yourself, Drew.

SUSAN SONTAG & BILL MAHER
Re: TNY200103
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 23:31:20 GMT
From: nicholoas klein
Thank you Ms. Sontag!
Just a brief note to say as much as I feared a worsening state of sensorship approaching at the speed of an F-16, I am stupified as well as appalled by the reaction to Ms. Sontag (And Mr. Mahers) comments about the definition of 'courage'. No doubt one could argue over essential and manifest variations of the characteristic of courage, but there is no doubt that the opinions of Ms. Sontag and Mr. Maher are intelligent, and objectively speaking clearly correct. The fact that they were maligned by reactionairy zealots is not a surprise but that their very right to express even this minimal level of 'observation', without either of them even daring to question the origin of the attack or our own attacks and manipultaions of Muslim nations over the past fifty years etc. just further underscores the dangers of a supposedly 'unified' nation of earstwhile freedom fightfighters, who are evidently only free as long as they do not even question the status quo, let alone oppose it in the most civil manner. If we can not maintain our most basic values when we are being challenged to defend them - we have already lost.

So now I'm a reactionary...
Re:
SUSAN SONTAG & BILL MAHER (nicholoas klein)
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 12:00:15 GMT
From: Michael Sturges
...for not wanting to be killed. So much for tolerance. What Sontag and Maher have not specifically proposed is how exactly they intend to stop the killing from the hard-line Islamic side. They assume that the opposition cares what they think or say, other than to dispirit the U.S., while, in fact, they are and have been plotting our deaths. There may be a good arguement for the idea that we have made many mistakes in the past (although I do not go anywhere near the idea of whether it warrants 9/11/01) -- but clearly Klein, Sontag, Maher et al do not have any real game plan for dealing with death brought here in the future, except to say we deserve it. Time to move on, folks. It is not being a reactionary or a zealot to propose that 7000 more people in this country should not die. Mr. Klein does not suggest HOW to prevent that. To quote Susan Sontag herself --enough drivel, Nick, and get specific. How are you going to keep my 2 year-old son from getting killed day after tomorrow in a shopping center. Be specific for once, please.


Susan Sontag, Plagiarist?
Re: TNY200103
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 05:06:27 GMT
From: Tim Sullivan
Here's the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/library/books/052700sontag-america.html
Is dishonesty a "morally neutral virtue", Susan?

WH Auden for Susan Sontag
Re: TNY200103
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 07:11:32 GMT
From: Jeanne Geraghty
September 1, 1939
___
I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-Second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.
___
Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
___
Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.
___
Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international's wrong.
___
Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.
___
The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love,
But to be loved alone.
___
From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
repeating their morning vow,
"I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,"
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?
___
All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizens or the police;
We must love one another or die.
___
Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
(Auden)

Obscene use of Auden
Re:
WH Auden for Susan Sontag (Jeanne Geraghty)
Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 05:11:36 GMT
From: Richard Shur
"I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return."
J.G.
You tell us that the incinerated, crushed, and terror-stricken dead constitute a judgement of American evil and of the embedded evil of our civilization, starting with Luther. The grandiosity and moral cretinism of your message should disgust and enrage any decent person.
Yes to Susan and The New Yorker
Re: TNY200103
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 08:45:19 GMT
From: Terry Weaver
Even in your world of extremely thoughtful people, Susan was the rare, guttsy, one to challenge the simplistic, jingoistic hyperbole spewing from our leaders and the media.
Those that die defending our democratic causes, we call brave. Susan, and Bill Maher, are painfully correct in proclaiming that
America needs far more than military brawn to wipe out terrorism. The muscle approach will ultimately only compromise the very liberties we tout so mightly.

wrong assumptions
Re:
Yes to Susan and The New Yorker (Terry Weaver)
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 13:13:12 GMT
From: michiel van der voort
1) you were probably not criticising the "media" when they shout "the supreme court stole the election" or "our president is stupid". take the "good" with bad please.
2) i haven't heard any of our leaders say that we are going to resolve this with military might only. you, like many naive thinkers, just make the assumption that all they are thinking off is military might and nothing else. i believe that is stupid and ignorant. in addition it is stupid and ignorant to assume we can talk these animals into better behavior.
Maybe you should ask all the iraqi, sudanese, afghani tourists in this country what the solution is. (oops there aren't any because they were not allowed to leave their country at free will).

no susan sontag books, but others...
Re: TNY200103
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 11:27:31 GMT
From: mark
I've been trying to find some background reading on the web, but the only website I came across ( http://www.ministry-of-information.org ) lists more strategy/politics titles, with the notable exception of Reich and Laqueurs classic study on the Origins of Terrorism. Can anybody recommend a title on the cultural background (I guess the "Short History of Islam" listed on the website above is a good start, but perhaps rather unspecific as to what makes terrorists think what they do is justified). Luckily, there are no Susan Sontag book on the site... She's having a hard time in this forum, isn't she?

Susan Sontag is an anti-Semite
Re: TNY200103
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 13:58:06 GMT
From: Bill S.
Sontag says the events of Sep. 11 were "a consequence of specific American alliances", an obvious reference to U.S. support of Israel. In doing so she sides with the terrorists, who themselves have listed this first among their grievances, and echoes their anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.
I'm surprised the New Yorker, apart from its being out of touch with the national mood in publishing such a generally inflammatory piece, would be so insensitive to this particular issue, especially considering its readers may be in large percentage Jewish.

My Response to Ms. Sontag
Re: TNY200103
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 15:34:03 GMT
From: Bill K.
I was fascinated and saddened to read the experiences of the horrrible terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center (Talk of the Town, 17-Sep). That is, until I read Ms. Susan Sontag's outrageous diatribe. It seems radical, if not extremist to consider the perpetrators of such a dastardly and cowardly act heroes. That in itself is preposterous and is probably a boring attempt at iconoclasm. But what's truly ironic is that this revered (feminist) author, a citizen of the world's most progressive society would praise zealots who have "hijacked" Islam and practice the murder of innocents in its name. She wrongly insinuates it's our fault because of a corrupt foreign policy. There is no justification for cold-blooded murder. None. Even drivel such as this, peddled as high-brow, intellectual opinion is protected as free speech and I will always respect that. But Freedom is precisely what was under attack on that black Tuesday. Freedom of speech, Freedom of religion, Freedom of choice. Freedom. Our way of life and government is being boldly challenged in a most severe way. I believe we will persevere because Freedom is what advances civilizations and an evolution to a higher being. I challenge Ms. Sontag to rationalize how she would enjoy those same freedoms and opportunities as a woman under Taliban rule.


Taliban?
Re:
My Response to Ms. Sontag (Bill K.)
Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 21:27:31 GMT
From: Rico Cottrell
Didn't the US government back them against the Soviets? Didn't the CIA train Bin Laden? Hey there are no excuses, only reasons. peace

Backstreet Boy
Re: TNY200103
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 15:44:59 GMT
From: Judson Knight
BTW, don't forget the Backstreet Boy (I don't remember which one) who made a comment similar to Sontag's and Maher's. He was later forced to apologize for it, b/c obviously it was going to hurt their CD sales, but the fact that Sontag and Maher have a Backstreet Boy in their camp says something about the intellectual candlepower of their ilk.

"Understanding" the terrorists
Re: TNY200103
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 15:55:42 GMT
From: Judson Knight
One thing we are hearing a lot of from critics in this country, as well as abroad, is that we need to "understand" why the terrorists did what they did. The idea here is that, perhaps their tactics may have been just a bit heavy-handed, but for them to do what they did, they must have had some genuine grievances. Yeah, and Jeffrey Dahmer was just hungry.
As for giving them what they want, yes, there is a way we could purchase "peace": by allowing them to exterminate the Jews. Well, I'm not even Jewish, but I still say I'd rather be at war into my children's children's generation before I would sacrifice Israel to these monsters. As for anyone who, from sheer cowardice or perhaps even genuine anti-Semitic hatred, would allow the sacrifice of that country--a tiny island of democracy in an ocean of dictatorship--all I can say is: May God have mercy on your soul.

Can they explain Hitler?
Re:
"Understanding" the terrorists (Judson Knight)
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 17:27:41 GMT
From: H
Judson hits it right on the head. The 7,000 dead from Sept. 11 would represent about a half day's "processing" at Auschwitz when it was in full swing. If someone can find a rational explanation for Auschwitz, then they can probably find one for Bin Laden's horde as well.
Of course, Susan Sontag would probably explain away the Holocaust with "They brought it on themselves."


Re: Explaining Hitler
Re:
Can they explain Hitler? (H)
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 19:01:05 GMT
From: Nick Demos
Don't forget, it wasn't gas or bullets they were being murdered with, they were being served monstrous doses of reality. By the same logic bombing Nazi Germany was another fine example of our evil foreign policies and London got what they deserved when the Germans incessantly bombed it and its many civilians on a daily and nightly basis. Susan's arguments begin to sound silly don't they?

Just silly wouldn't be bad
Re:
Re: Explaining Hitler (Nick Demos)
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 19:21:42 GMT
From: H
It's not just the silly logic in her piece that
gets to me. It's her cruel, thoughtless,
hard-hearted tone that I can't forgive. When other people are grieving, decent people
don't rub their faces in it to make them feel
even worse. It's like going to the funeral of
a child killed in a traffic accident and reminding
the parents that they should have put the child
in the back seat. It's almost inhuman.
The fact that her explanation is a standard
recitation of self-hating American liberalism
is irrelevant. Cruel is cruel, regardless of
political persuasion.

My Point Exactly
Re:
Just silly wouldn't be bad (H)
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 21:06:13 GMT
From:
Judging from the onset of relevant feedback on this site, I believe that the issue containing SS's widely discussed column hit the stands on 9/18-19. I'll guess that her contribution was submitted a few days earlier to allow for editing and printing - say 9/15-16.
As the argument turns political, some lose the perspective of WHEN Sontag wrote her column, notice:
1) Three short days after over 6,000 lives were lost Sontag was ready to completely write off any sorrow that resulted – and to insist that all non-stupids should have as well. As H implies, that’s like finger wagging at a funeral – but in this case, she’s desecrating 6,000+ funerals.
2) As hundreds (thousands?) of public servants searched for survivors - removing debris bucket-by bucketful - Sontag was ready to dismiss their good works as the mere by-product of our nation's "cowardly" policies.
3) Sontag conveniently misses the fact that the “courageous” mass-murders have (still) not stepped up to bravely claim responsibility. This implies objectively that there is no real agenda here, just murderous insanity. But she dresses the terrorists up in when she perceives or projects the agenda to be anyway. That’s just bad journalism, advocate, op-ed, historical fiction, or otherwise.
4) There is no excuse in this world to foist the hard-heartedness resulting from one’s rotten childhood onto the public at large.
We’re sure you’ve suffered, Susan – we’ve read all about it. So why would such a great and objective mind now so subjectively and mindlessly repeat the sins of her own parents? Yours is the supreme exercise in selfishness to make the world suffer for your lack of an emotionally supportive upbringing.

Susan Sontag is not a very good essay writer
Re: TNY200103
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 18:13:00 GMT
From: Bob Sperduti
Many of the New Yorker's contributors are equally adept at fiction and nonfiction. Susan Sontag is not. She is a fiction writer dabbling in nonfiction.
In her short essay for "Talk of the Town", Ms. Sontag misstates many facts. In fact, the essay is a loosely strung together batch of misstatements and opinions based on a misunderstanding of the facts. She seems so completely unaware of the knowledgeability and resolve of the American public as to be completely separated from reality.
It is disappointing that she had such a valuable forum to disguise her inaccurate, unpopular opinions as facts. Perhaps her disregard for the tragedy is based on contempt for the American public. I, for one, find that to be a cowardly act.

Western self-abuse
Re:
Susan Sontag is not a very good essay writer (Bob Sperduti)
Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 05:03:11 GMT
From: Elizabeth Feizkhah
Postures ranging from self-questioning to self-flagellation seem to be characteristic to the point of chicness among comfortably off, educated people in the free, affluent West.
While this reflexive West-kicking (the West is bad, capitalism is evil, the U.S. is an imperialistic warmonger, whiteness itself is a crime, etc etc.) has in recent weeks seemed heartless as well as witless, it has its virtues.
How often do we hear Islamic zealots question the virtues of their own societies, suggest ways of improving them (other than by the imposition of religious tyranny), criticize the actions of their own leaders and governments, or even produce books or films that attempt to see the world in unorthodox ways? Like the Marxists whose dilapidated theories still furnish the minds of so many Western intellectuals, radical Islamists hate and fear the West precisely because it permits, indeed encourages, ceaseless and free-ranging self-criticism.
While the tendency of Westerners to flail at the very way of life that gives them freedom from fear and want can be odious, it is also a necessary part of what makes the West civilized, and worth defending.

A good point
Re:
Western self-abuse (Elizabeth Feizkhah)
Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 16:28:26 GMT
From:
Your thoughts about freedom of speech are right on target. I'll take some solace in those facts.

Thanks, Susan
Re: TNY200103
Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 16:45:44 GMT
From: Brad Bellows
Susan Sonntag's recent New Yorker piece was a welcome breath of fresh air in a political discourse that too often consists of equal parts jingoism and sycophancy. If we're going to effectively confront the crisis we face, we'll need straightforward, honest thinking about who we are and why 100 million people, while mourning the human toll, do consider us the neighborhood bully.
In asking these questions, Susan Sonntag is far more patriotic than public officials who tell us only that we're "the greatest nation on earth"(so much for everyone else) and are "hated because we're free" (and now we need to "give up our liberties to preserve our freedom"). We've been patronized for so long that we can't understand what's happened to us. But anyone who says that is "unpatriotic".
Should we appease the Taliban? No.
Should we look in the mirror? Yes.

100 million out of 6 billion
Re:
Thanks, Susan (Brad Bellows)
Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 19:00:15 GMT
From:
Hey, if one in sixty think we are wrong, odds are we are right..

Go, NEW YORKER
Re: TNY200103
Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 20:29:02 GMT
From: Maria Haas (Mrs. Alvin H. Haas)
Congratulations and thanks for getting your issues out here to San Rafael, both 9/24 & 10/1.
Sweet voice of reason. I thank you now for the last 60 years of reading your magazine: it has been my education and light on the world. Best to Susan Sontag, may she keep on.

"Sweet reason"?
Re:
Go, NEW YORKER (Maria Haas (Mrs. Alvin H. Haas))
Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 21:59:15 GMT
From: Judson Knight
What is it about that phrase? Every single time I hear it from someone, they're always advocating the most irrational, mindless, emotional drivel. In this case, I'm assuming Sontag, along w/ anyone else at the magazine who takes the blame-America-first position, is the "sweet voice of reason." I guess the idea is not unlike that of calling a sugar-loaded nugget of non-nutritious carbohydrates "fat-free," or proclaiming a dictatorship a "people's democratic republic": as long as it you give it the right name, it doesn't matter what kind of crap you're passing off.

Excellent
Re:
"Sweet reason"? (Judson Knight)
Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 01:48:52 GMT
From: Rico Cottrell
Very good. You just made her point.

?
Re:
Excellent (Rico Cottrell)
Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 03:14:43 GMT
From: Judson Knight
Because I suggested that intellectual bankruptcy is not "morally neutral"? Because I indicated that the emptiness of an empty phrase will always eventually become apparent?

Nice try, are you Susan's Mommy?
Re:
Go, NEW YORKER (Maria Haas (Mrs. Alvin H. Haas))
Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 00:31:55 GMT
From: tipper
Susan didn't tell us to look in the mirror. She said we got what we deserved.

Reasons to be Grateful
Re: TNY200103
Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 02:37:59 GMT
From: Elizabeth Feizkhah
Susan Sontag says the Sept. 11 attacks were prompted by specific American actions and alliances. Does she have a hotline to the terrorists? I don't recall those responsible having owned up to the attacks, let alone published a manifesto.
The instruction document apparently used by the hijackers indicates that they saw themselves primarily as agents of God, striking a righteous blow against Mammon (i.e. Westernness) and all its wanton sinfulness (also known as creativity and freedom). The document's phrasing--combining the argot of the germophobe control freak, the Kaczynski-ish casuist and the Kool-Aid-drinking cult follower--bespeaks the mindset of that age-old tribe of ascetics who, confused by the chaos of an irredeemably imperfect world, retreat into blind absolutism, ceding to others (the commander, the high priest, "God") their most precious freedoms: to think for themselves, to be kind to strangers, to live.
As an Australian, I have hundreds of reasons to be grateful for America and what it represents--and therefore to oppose the terrorists and what they represent. Here are 10 specific ones: The New Yorker; Cintra Wilson; the automobile; Steve Earle; amazon.com; Camille Paglia; The Onion; Conan O'Brien; Roger Kimball; Thorlo socks

Thanks
Re:
Reasons to be Grateful (Elizabeth Feizkhah)
Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 03:11:20 GMT
From: Judson Knight
It's nice to hear something positive on this board from a non-American. Funny--it so happened I was in the middle of re-watching "Proof of Life," and I can say we Americans are thankful to Australia for Russell Crowe. (My wife would definitely second that opinion! :-)

Another reason to be grateful
Re:
Reasons to be Grateful (Elizabeth Feizkhah)
Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 04:18:34 GMT
From: Paul Gardiner
Peter Hessler's recently published book on teaching English for the Peace Corps in a river town called Fuling on the corner of the Wu and Yangtze rivers.
It's intelligent, compassionate, forthright, sometimes critical and always curiously tolerant even when Hessler as a waiguoren (foreigner) is confronted by low and upper class bullies. He doesn't turn the other cheek; he tells a couple of confronters to "blow away" in the local dialect - to their astonishment. He stands up for himself.
But he's also capable of self-criticism; he struggles to be fair and interrogates himself about these confrontations. And most of his book is about the people in China who became enduring friends.
In the context of September 11 these strike me as fundamentally American qualities.
Yes, they are distorted by Governments and no, America is by no means always like that.
But it is often like that; you get Bush standing up to the bully and Sontag mercilessly engaging in self-interrogation about the bully's motives and from whence they came.
I'm grateful for a book that enunciates some of these things about America that I'm grateful for.
Incidentally - I'm from Australia too.

Thorlo socks?
Re:
Reasons to be Grateful (Elizabeth Feizkhah)
Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 07:37:59 GMT
From: andy
On behalf of America, you're welcome.
But what are Thorlo socks?

Thorlo Socks
Re:
Thorlo socks? (andy)
Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 09:33:55 GMT
From: Elizabeth Feizkhah
Made and patented in the U.S. The best socks in the world. When you put them on you can feel your feet smile