Shut Up And ... Well, Just Shut Up! Proving once again that Hollywood has nothing useful to add to the national dialogue on any issue of importance, Woody Allen, has put in his 2 cents worth (actually I wouldn't give you 2 cents for it.) Allen told Germany's Der Spiegel that 9/11 is "too small, history overwhelms it."

First, let's look at Der Spiegel. "The Mirror" is Germany's biggest, most influential and most controversial weekly magazine.
In 1957 Hans Magnus Enzensberger published an essay in which he criticized "pretended objectivity." Outspoken conservative Franz Josef Strauss contended that Der Spiegel was "the Gestapo of our time," and Socialist Willy Brandt called it "Scheissblatt", or a "crappy paper." It has also been criticized for it's dealings with former Nazis, even SS officers. It is alleged that the Spiegel, which at other times had no qualms about exposing the Nazi past of public figures, may have distorted history and protected perpetrators when it hired these insiders.

Allen continued, "The history of the world is like: He kills me, I kill him, only with different cosmetics and different castings. So in 2001, some fanatics killed some Americans, and now some Americans are killing some Iraqis." The director told the New York Post, "In my childhood, some Nazis killed Jews. And now, some Jewish people and some Palestinians are killing each other. Political questions, if you go back thousands of years, are ephemeral, not important. History is the same thing over and over again."

Wow, I don't know which is more stunning, his arrogance or his ignorance. Yes, the details of significant or catastrophic events in history and the events that precipitated them fade as time passes. American's don't typically spend a lot of time contemplating that raw material and resource concerns were one factor that motivated Japan to attack Pearl Harbor without provocation. But we certainly remember the act of war that occurred that December morning nearly 64 years ago. Jews may not ponder over the socio-economic and political factors that preceded Hitler's ghastly genocide of more than 6 million innocent people. But they remember the Holocaust and they have enough fortitude to say "Never Again!"

The Holocaust was not "some Nazis killed Jews." It was an attempt by an evil and deranged monster to exterminate an entire ethnic and religious group of people. The conflict between Israel & "Palestine" is not "some Jewish people and some Palestinians are killing each other." It is an attempt by terrorists to use religious extremism and hatred to destroy a sovereign nation by murder.

Likewise, 9/11 was not "some fanatics killed some Americans." It was an attack and a declaration of all out war by Islamo-fascist religious zealots against the greatest and most benevolent nation the world has ever known. It was a battle, though not the first, in an ongoing war who's outcome is so dire that the fate of all civilization literally hangs in the balance. Will this world continue on a path toward democracy, freedom and self-determination for all or will it stagger back into another Dark Age of tyranny and torture of the weak and innocent by the evil and ruthless?

In Texas, we still say "Remember the Alamo!" to honor the sacrifice for freedom that was made more than 180 years ago. Time may fog the public perception of the events surrounding 9/11 and this war on terrorism. That does not lessen the historical significance of that day or the importance of the sacrifices being made by our brave military members and their families. This is not just "some fanatics killed some Americans" and any idiot who says that doesn't have enough sense to be given a public pulpit from which to speak.

It is no surprise that such a selfish, self-absorbed and self-important little excuse for a man as Woody Allen fails to see the eternal and historic consequence that 9/11 will always be for our posterity. More proof that entertainers should shut up and entertain. On second thought, in Allen's case he should just shut up.  ¶ Tuesday, June 28, 2005