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This is part of an excerpt from Obama's autobiography. It appears to me that he blames 9/11 on the US. It also appears that he thinks Saudi Arabia is poor, so I could be wrong on both counts. Here's the link.



What I do know is that history returned that day with a vengeance; that, in fact, as Faulkner reminds us, the past is never dead and buried -- it isn't even past. This collective history, this past, directly touches my own. Not merely because the bombs of Al Qaeda have marked, with an eerie precision, some of the landscapes of my life -- the buildings and roads and faces of Nairobi, Bali, Manhattan; not merely because, as a consequence of 9/11, my name is an irresistible target of mocking websites from overzealous Republican operatives. But also because the underlying struggle -- between worlds of plenty and worlds of want; between the modern and the ancient; between those who embrace our teeming, colliding, irksome diversity, while still insisting on a set of values that binds us together, and those who would seek, under whatever flag or slogan or sacred text, a certainty and simplification that justifies cruelty toward those not like us -- is the struggle set forth, on a miniature scale, in this book.

I know, I have seen, the desperation and disorder of the powerless: how it twists the lives of children on the streets of Jakarta or Nairobi in much the same way as it does the lives of children on Chicago's South Side, how narrow the path is for them between humiliation and untrammeled fury, how easily they slip into violence and despair. I know that the response of the powerful to this disorder -- alternating as it does between a dull complacency and, when the disorder spills out of its proscribed confines, a steady, unthinking application of force, of longer prison sentences and more sophisticated military hardware -- is inadequate to the task. I know that the hardening of lines, the embrace of fundamentalism and tribe, dooms us all.

Do me a favor? Read the whole thing to make sure I'm not taking this out of context.

I certainly do not get the same reading from the text.

He is not linking collective history to 9/11, he is linking 9/11 to flak he is getting from Republicans. He is not saying that Saudi is poor, he is saying that parts (unspecified but possibly linked to Nairobi, Jakarta and the west side of Chicago) of the world are poor and that this causes conflict with those parts (also unspecified) of the world that have plenty.



I can see where you are getting your reading from but mentioning collective history and 9/11 in the same paragraph does not mean that he is saying 9/11 is a direct result of collective history and mentioning poverty in the same section does not mean that he is citing it as the direct cause - certainly not any suggestion that Saudi is poor or even that those Saudi nationals within Al Quaeda who were responsible for 9/11 are poor which is demonstrably untrue.

Stretching it as far as I can, the closest I can get is the suggestion that Al Quaeda are getting support because of collective history and third world poverty.

Me neither. Where does he mention Saudi Arabia at all? Nairobi is the capital of Kenya and Jakarta of Indonesia.

Says 9/11 is a modern manifestation of the struggle between "Haves" and "Have Nots", Modern and Ancient and the open minded and the bigots (and I see an implication that not all the bigots are in the ranks of the Have Nots and Ancients).

Second paragraph says endemic poverty leads to despair and violence and that the standard response of the powerful to this violence - more and bigger violence - is not a response that will solve the problem, in fact, all it does is encourage yet more violence, more fundamentalism, more tribalism.

Out of curiosity, what did you see as him expressing support for Al Qaeda?

I read the whole article, its a educated, empathic, and intellectually serious attempt to understand what happened to America on that day, and what is driving much of the despair and alienation in the world today. He comes across to me as someone who seriously thinks about what the large world picture is in the world, and what can be done to improve America, its position in the world, and do what is possible to make the world a less conflictual and hate filled place.

I don't pick up that he feels America deserved it, he is just trying to understand part of what it is that allows people to adopt such nihilistic hate-filled violence against people they don't know.

Do you know what I really think? I think America needs this man, more than he needs this job, its really does, in fact I think we all need this man to be President, because the current policy and philosophy of unilateral reactionary confrontation with everyone that doesn't fit into what they define as American enough (or doesn't toady up to the Whitehouse quick enough) thats been adopted in Washington over the past decade is going to lead to a complete diaster for everyone if it continues, and ultimately it will destroy American democracy itself, I am sure of that.

Galbally;825064 wrote: I read the whole article, its a educated, empathic, and intellectually serious attempt to understand what happened to America on that day, and what is driving much of the despair and alienation in the world today. He comes across to me as someone who seriously thinks about what the large world picture is in the world, and what can be done to improve America, its position in the world, and do what is possible to make the world a less conflictual and hate filled place.

I don't pick up that he feels America deserved it, he is just trying to understand part of what it is that allows people to adopt such nihilistic hate-filled violence against people they don't know.

Do you know what I really think? I think America needs this man, more than he needs this job, its really does, in fact I think we all need this man to be President, because the current policy and philosophy of unilateral reactionary confrontation with everyone that doesn't fit into what they define as American enough (or doesn't toady up to the Whitehouse quick enough) thats been adopted in Washington over the past decade is going to lead to a complete diaster for everyone if it continues, and ultimately it will destroy American democracy itself, I am sure of that.




You always have a way of cutting to the heart of the problem and summing it up precisely. Magnificent :-6

Bryn Mawr;825076 wrote: You always have a way of cutting to the heart of the problem and summing it up precisely. Magnificent :-6


Good lord steady on, but thanks as well, I must get them to put that on my gravestone "magnificent!" :wah:

Galbally: Well, Bryn Mawr has a point. Don't worry though, if you lose it, we'll let you know,:p