Tuesday, September 11, 2007
BASTARDS
The day after 9/11 a friend went to dinner with some Australian publishing types. He still works with these muppets, so I won’t identify him, but I will record his description of their mood that night.
They were happy. Not dance-about-the-room Hamas happy, but satisfied happy. America had been taught a lesson. These folk would imagine themselves to be educated, sensitive, intellectual, creative ... yet their response to the murder of nearly 3,000 innocent people by fascist maniacs was to voice a smug contentment; at last, the US got what was coming to it.
Contrast their post-9/11 views to those of Formula One drivers preparing to compete in the 2001 Italian Grand Prix, as reported by Matt Bishop in the May 2007 edition of F1 Racing (no link available):
It’s barely 100 hours since we all watched what would be known simply as ‘9/11’ play out, live, on our TV screens. Like you, like me, like everyone, F1’s biggest stars are still shell-shocked ...
They’re shrugging, grimacing, and muttering words like “bastards” or “bâtards” or “bastardos” or “bastardi” or, in Kimi Raikkonen’s case, and I overhear him utter the word in exactly the context I’m describing, to a Finnish journalist, “äpärä”.
These guys drive cars for a living. Most have no university education. Which might explain why they’re so morally advanced compared to Australian bookniks.
UPDATE. An Evangelical Polymathic Cassandra asks:
So, what do we learn from Blair here?
1. Since Blair is a member of New Limited, the “Pubilshing types” he speaks of are essentially non-Murdoch. Thus non-Murdoch media hate America and like it when people die.
I first wrote about this dinner in a column for The Bulletin - which is not a Murdoch publication. By the way, the company is News Limited.
2. That intellectuals like people dying.
It isn’t difficult to find intellectuals who will defend 9/11 as a legitimate response to American “tyranny”. It’s also easy to find intellectual defenders of deadly communism. The internet is a good place to start.
3. It’s okay to make broad insults against people you don’t like without providing any evidence whatsoever.
I’ve a feeling the people involved are well aware of what I’ve written, and are quietly hoping I don’t know exactly who they are. Let’s leave them hoping.
What can I say except that it is typical of this guy’s lack of intellect that he would come up with such tripe. If this is the guy who edits the Letters to the Daily Telegraph - a publication that seeks to dumb down ordinary Australians - then there is no wonder that people are so confused about important issues like the Iraq War and Global Warming.
I’m not the guy who edits the letters. I wish I was; that guy gets his own phone.
To me, Blair has no credibility. Moreover, those who admire him lose credibility of their own.
Sir, you’ve just called into question the credibility of four or possibly five heavily-armed borderline psychotics. Run for your life!