American Fear

Posted on September 27, 2002 in IRC/Chat

I asked a progressive friend why she wouldn’t sign the Not in Our Name statement. She said:

I don’t want to spend my last years in a camp….People are just disapearing. A cube worker where I used to work just disappeared. She was Iranian, but naturalized citizen. She went to Iran Aug 2001, came back right before the attack in Sept, then just disappered in Oct.

I asked her, only half-jokingly, to contact Amnesty International if I should ever disappear. “I may not be much of a threat, though,” I bantered. “I’m one of those harmless pansies who preaches freedom.”

“thats what they fear most,” said the friend.

“No,” I said, paraphrasing a remark by Archibald McLeish. “They fear drunken poets who make a crack that sticks.”

“they fear Americans”, said the friend.

And for a moment, I felt like Clevinger sitting on the latrine next to his friend Yossarian:

“You haven’t got a chance, kid,” [said Yossarian] “They hate Jews.” “But I’m not Jewish!” protested Clevinger. “It doesn’t matter. They’re after everyone.”