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Phil Roth, twit
by Steve S., California


(View original Telegraph article here)

"What we are witnessing since September 11 is an orgy of national narcissism
and a gratuitous victim mentality which is repugnant," he said in an
interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro.

I am confused as to why being the victim of a massive terrorist campaign makes our national mentality gratuitous. The fact that we have moved on to punish those responsible for the attacks has changed our status to that of avenger.

"And that's not the end of it. Even now, it's impossible to see a baseball
match which isn't preceded by singing God Bless America and invocations to
the memory of 'our heroes'. You want to say: stop. That's enough."

Unless you are un-religious or hate the song, GBA is a fine thing to have at our national sporting events. I personally have both reasons, but that does not mean others can't enjoy the song.

As for the loss of our citizens and police and fireman, Roth can shut his piehole. I cordially invite him to go an talk to the families who lost two generations of firefighters in one morning. He will be the one begging them that their tears are enough and that he can't stand anymore.

He said: "Other towns have suffered worse catastrophes, and the Americans
themselves have inflicted them in their history, even if it was for good
reasons - I am not a pacifist. You have to keep a sense of proportion."

Other towns suffered catastrophes that may have been "acts of God", so I fail to see how that equates to an enemy attack. No one to punish there and no way to prevent a tornado from flattening your house.

If we are talking about the Civil War then we should never forget those lives either. Or the reasons that both sides had for sacrifice.

If we are talking the dead in the World Wars, then Roth might want to put his proportions to the test. Are the attacks of 9/11 not equivalent to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor? The number of lives lost is close enough. Our response to that attack was thousands of times greater than our current military deployment in Afganistatan. I am sure that the proportions are correct in both cases.

"To the much-repeated suggestion that America "lost her innocence" after
September 11, Mr. Roth said: "What innocence? From 1668 to 1865 this country
had slavery; and from 1865 to 1955 was a society existing under a brutal
segregation. I don't really know what these people are talking about."

I am pretty sure that each generation has it's own innocence and can have that innocence brutally ripped away from them. I am sure that Roth was not blasé about the assassination of JFK and Martin Luther King Jr. Or Vietnam, or Watergate. The attacks took this generation's.

Roth was in New York on September 11 last year. He had arrived in town the
previous day, he said, intending to stay a few days to "recharge his
batteries" after the completion of his last novel, The Dying Animal.

On the morning of September 11, he went to a sports club for a swim, where
he learned what had happened.

"I went ahead and had a swim anyway," he said. "Evidently I had absorbed the
shock like everyone, without really realizing it.

Roth is either a liar, a heartless toad or was emotionally numb to the disaster. I am confused as to why he thinks everyone else absorbed the shock without realizing it. I guess clear expression is not a hallmark of his speaking style.

"I finally stayed several months in New York, where I kept a studio. For me
New York had become interesting again because it was a town in crisis,
particularly in the weeks that followed when everyone was expecting another
attack. It was a strange time and the first time for years that New York
interested me."

You parasitic shit heel. Trading on the misery of others for your own gratification.

Roth said President George W Bush's pronouncements on the attacks had
"revolted" him, and that it was up to writers to go against the untruths of
public language.

What untruths Phil? Perhaps you want to cite some?

He said: "Language is always a lie; above all, public language. McCarthy
used a certain language to hunt communists. That which was used against
Clinton is a bit more sophisticated. As for Bush, it's ventriloquists who
make him speak."

Guess that makes you a liar Phil.

Don't bring McCarthy's ghost out to scare us Phil. The climate at that time and this are not analogous, nor is the govt, as a whole, trying to bash down all civil liberties.