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Ear to the Ground

Lessing’s Lessons on 9/11

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Posted on Oct 23, 2007
Doris Lessig
copiszczy.pl

Allowing that some Americans might find her “crazy,” Nobel Prize-winning writer Doris Lessing told Spain’s El Pais newspaper that the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, were “neither as terrible or as extraordinary as they think,” pointing to the IRA bombings in Britain as other examples of calamities.


BBC:

The author conceded that “many people died and two prominent buildings fell” in the attacks on New York’s World Trade Center in 2001.

“They’re a very naive people, or they pretend to be,” she added of Americans.

Lessing, whose novels include The Golden Notebook and Memoirs of a Survivor, also branded President George W Bush “a world calamity”.

“Everyone is tired of this man. Either he is stupid or he is very clever, although you have to remember he is a member of a social class which has profited from wars.”

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By nohick, October 25, 2007 at 6:54 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Lessing is absolutely correct, 9/11 has been used by the right wing to divide the country and the world since that day. Do you remember the absurdity of the bumper stickers beginning the day after all across the country, they clerarly marked the naive right wingers for everyone to notice. They still have their bumper stickers supporting all the neo-con causes today.

Bush is no fox, he is an average C student being manipulated by Dr. Evil and his self-proclaimed saviors of freedom.

All Americans are not naive, only the ones in the news, many of us saw 9/11 for what it was, a desperate act of a few psychos to get our attention and get out of the middle east where we didn’t belong. We should have listened, maybe gas would still be $1.50 and 4,000 more Americans would still be alive.

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By sophrosyne, October 24, 2007 at 11:29 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Lessing is right.  The 9-11 events were puffed up to justify the disasterous war on iraq, the failed war in Afghanistan and the attack on America’S civil liberties. Bush has long faught revealing the complete record of what happened before and after 9-11. And with good reason.  He was warned about the event long before the absurd attack rolled out.

Bush’s war on America is not over so do not let down your guard!

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By Bill Blackolive, October 24, 2007 at 9:52 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Cyrena, yes, we head over some kind of cliff.  I keep wondering could the US public be shocked into fearing our government’s response to 9/11 is their cover-up, though it would question all US history, well, maybe there could come sufficient howling.

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By Dr. Knowitall, PhD, PhD, October 24, 2007 at 3:53 am Link to this comment

She’s a Nobel prize winner; I’m nobody, but isn’t it kind of inane to draw comparisons between separate acts of barbarism?  But then, Spaniards, JBulls and Americans are all well-versed and highly experienced in uncivilized behavior and are probably as good at such comparisons as any other people, ever.
 
  She maybe should have left it with calling Bush stupid.  That’s more productive.  Unfortunately, “everyone is (not) tired of this man or he’d be gone.”

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By mark, October 23, 2007 at 9:14 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

I think the comparison is absurd. Not so bad. I suspect Lessing might have a different view from the 100th floor of the world trade center that morning. A naive people might follow Europe’s lead and hope the terrorists will decide to stop on their own.

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By Douglas Chalmers, October 23, 2007 at 8:11 pm Link to this comment

She is right and the point is the absurd “sacredness” which Americans have been led into endowing the incident with - in order to gloss over the truth of what really happened! Its a kind of mental paralysis, really…...

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By cyrena, October 23, 2007 at 7:27 pm Link to this comment

#109100 by Jbart

Jbart,

I ditto everything you’ve said. I should also admit that I’ve always believed that George Bush might just be “crazy like a fox”.

It’s fair to say that he is ‘intellectually’ compromised, but that doesn’t carry that he is actually stupid. Only dangerous, and the facts of the past decade speak for themselves on that.

I too am grateful that there may still be hope for “outsiders” to save us from ourselves.

It may be the ONLY hope.

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By QuyTran, October 23, 2007 at 6:36 pm Link to this comment

Right price for a right ! Take off my hat !

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By Michael Healy, October 23, 2007 at 5:38 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

She’s absolutely right, the danger in Bush isn’t in the damage he inflicts upon the world it’s in the people who stand behind him while he does it. If someone would just stand up to him..well he would threaten to sanction, torture or bomb them.

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By Jbart, October 23, 2007 at 5:04 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

To paraphrase: \
“Everyone is tired of this man/idiot/disgrace of thinking Americans. Either he is stupid or he is very clever, although you have to remember he is a member of a social class which has profited from wars.”

Not bad from an “outsider” to “hit the mark”.  Maybe the “thinking/caring world community (which she kinda represents)can save us from ourselves. ‘Cause we all know, in our souls, that we can use all the outside influence, re: the direction(s) we’ve embarked on, that is offered.  Not the parts of their own societies (also dominated by this neocon virus), but regarding “caring” about the “future & fortunes” of the good ole US of A !! I, not only applaud the effort(s), but want to thank those that (truly) care about the American people, and the society which has been created.

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