Sacred steel

All worship is self worship at heart. When steel workers and shipwrights building amphibious transport ships in New Orleans talk about the sacredness of bits of the World trade center that apparently have been mixed in to the steel they’re using to build the USS New York, USS Arlington and USS Somerset, they’re indulging in part of that process wherein reality becomes a passion play and dreams of vengeance elevate the cast to roles of Biblical proportion. Rage is only noble if one thinks highly of one’s self and one’s role -- and nobility is one of the dreams of the insignificant heart.

If the loss of life really makes building materials sacred, why then not the scrap metal from the wreckage of New Orleans? I think the answer is that dreams of battle and victory are more of a balm to the humiliated American psyche than the drudgery of rebuilding a shabby landscape of substandard housing, although thousands died in Katrina.

But the humiliated soul of America hardly cares about assigning blame or shame to the Government that allowed Osama to slap us in the face, by vigorously ignoring his declaration of war, the information that he was about to attack and indeed never held one meeting to discuss avoiding a terrorist attack or dealing with its results until it was all over. Bush had no plan and little ability to capture Osama, yet to face that is to face further evidence of our weakness and incompetence, so we don't want to hear about it.

In our weakness, we were simply not able to endure the further humiliation of facing our blunders or the ugly passions of America that allowed the Republicans to take us over. Better to blather about the French and the Liberals while dreaming about bloody revenge. Revenge lets us worship ourselves, building warships makes us feel like heroes. Building houses for the poor is the pursuit of a different kind of hero.