Unremembering Peshtigo
Had it not come so soon after the atrocities of 11 September 2001, the crash of American Airlines Flight 587 on 12 November 2001 would today be more widely regarded as the tremendous disaster it was. Two hundred and sixty-five people died over Queens, New York in what we have been told was a massive mechanical failure of the plane's tailfin. But it is a disaster that, for many Americans, has strangely vanished in the shadow of the first horror ---not unlike the way in which the Great Chicago Fire of 8 October 1871 has obscured the national memory of another horrible disaster that occurred that very same night at Peshtigo, Wisconsin. More than 1,100 people died in a conflagration of that town ---far more than the number that died in Chicago. Were both towns destroyed by a comet or asteroid of some kind? It is a question that has interested me for some time now.

And, so, we turn to the case of American Airlines Flight 587. There may be some reason to believe that it, too, was brought down by a terrorist. See Daniel Pipe's latest essay on the disturbing possibility.

I don't know whether we are having our collective chain yanked on this or not, but if it is true, it must only serve to remind us that we cannot retreat to our towers and crank up the drawbridge behind us: we must, instead, actively seek out these bastards who would do us harm and kill them ---not negotiate or wait for some mythical alliance to form, but proactively and aggressively go to where these murderers breed and crush them under our heel.

Why? Because our system is better than theirs ---and the whole world knows it. So do bandana-faced pussies with their camcorders and "No Blood for Oil" placards. Fuck these chumps. They've all gone French in the head.

(Thanks to Dr. Keith C. Heidorn for the picture from Frank Leslie's Illustrated.)