Not celebrating
I could care less about the rich guy’s kid. Sure, he’s an egomaniac and self-promoter, but the way he gets his jollies by firing people on tv, or by ruining businesses, in either case, not entertaining, not funny. Were he to leave this place today, it would not be diminished, but I probably would not cheer.
It’s not so different about how I felt about another rich guy’s kid. Egomaniac and self-promoter. But instead of tv he found religion, and killed a lot of people. Osama did far more harm than Trump, but I will not / would not shed a tear. They disgust me.
Bin Laden was an excuse for war, torture, curtailing our own freedom. Now that he’s dead, will those evils be undone? No, they won’t.
Nor, however, will I celebrate.
I feel some sadness. Not for bin Laden, but for us.
The US Government used Osama bin Laden as an excuse. To launch two wars, leading to thousands of American deaths, and perhaps two hundred thousands Iraqis and Afghans, soldiers and civilians. To foment hatred. To make super-profits for Halliburton. To demean Iraqi prisoners, and to demean their jailers, by tolerating and encouraging acts of humiliation, degradation, and torture.
The US government used him as an excuse to suspend the constitution, as if “but only for bad people” meant something. Rendition? As an excuse to make us uncomfortable and ridiculous at airports, and as an excuse to have screeeners’ hands probing our luggage, and then our selves and our families.
Wisconsin is an extension. Stealing our right to strike, our right to organize, is another. Stealing our pensions is more up Trump’s alley, but it’s all part of one ugly, growing assault.
I will not celebrate bin Laden’s death. I am saddened by our loss of freedom’s… but the culprit was not killed in Pakistan. The culprit is our own government.
JD2718 
Willful ignorance, intolerance, fabrication and intimidation have always been our enemies, wherever they flourish and find those who can promote them — be they, as in recent experience, an Osama, a Cheney-Bush duo, a Trump, a Giuliani, a Walker or even, sadly, to a greater extent than we expected, as regards accommodation to all these enemies of verity and peace — an Obama.
In Obama’s case, it is particularly painful, because he knows better, or, when he does not appear to (as in the case of the schools) has the ability to know better. But his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, was right when he said, “He is a politician.” No more than that, unfortunately.
If the economy does not crash further, he may get elected in 2012. And the truth (and peace) will be even further out of reach, as will sanity — as we see reflected in our schools.
Unfortunately, the alternatives to him seem to be the Republicans — who are either in a state of total delusion or are incredibly wicked or both. So Obama seems, again, by far, the lesser evil. But how did we come to this?
We have our own battles. This was, quite frankly, not one of them.