{"id":24403,"date":"2022-09-12T09:41:52","date_gmt":"2022-09-12T13:41:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/?p=24403"},"modified":"2022-09-15T16:36:52","modified_gmt":"2022-09-15T20:36:52","slug":"warnings-from-a-9-11-commemoration-speaker-the-secret-apparatus-author-cynthia-farahat-and-a-late-kgb-defector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2022\/09\/warnings-from-a-9-11-commemoration-speaker-the-secret-apparatus-author-cynthia-farahat-and-a-late-kgb-defector.html","title":{"rendered":"Warnings from a 9\/11 commemoration speaker, “The Secret Apparatus” author Cynthia Farahat and a late KGB defector"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s the latest from the crossroads of faith, media & culture: 09\/12\/22<\/strong><\/h3>\n

9\/12 + 21.<\/b> Our hearts go out to all those who lost loved ones on 9\/11\/01, including all those who spoke at yesterday’s World Trade Center commemoration shown below. It’s been said that America was never more united than on 9\/12\/01 and, perhaps, never less united than today. I think the speaker at the 12:51 mark spoke for a lot of Americas when he addressed the politicians in attendance and said \u201cIt took a tragedy to unite our country. Back then nobody cared if you were a Republican, Democrat, age, gender, race or ethnicity. We were united. It took a tragedy to unite us\u00a0 and I want to remind all of you there that it should not take another tragedy to unite our nation because if I have to stand at this podium again or another podium for another event because of lives lost because of dereliction of duty it\u2019s gonna hurt just like it hurts me.”<\/em><\/p>\n

IMHO:<\/strong> Part of the “dereliction of duty” the speaker I cited is talking about is the way our supposed leaders certainly appear to be dividing us for political gain. The hard fact is that we do have actual enemies out there in the world who are no doubt counting their lucky stars that we’ve allowed ourselves to become so manipulated that we don’t seem to realize that we don’t need a “reckoning” to learn from the wrongs of the past and that we can respect each other’s differences without\u00a0 engaging in pointless word wars over pronouns or whatever. The all-too-real enemies of freedom like nothing more than to see us going beyond debating our internal issues with the intent of resolving them to actually hating one another. To paraphrase the classic line from the Pogo<\/em><\/strong> comic strip<\/a>, “We have met the enemy and he is NOT us.”<\/em><\/p>\n

For a reminder of that, check out my conversation with Egyptian-American author Cynthia Farahat (The Secret Apparatus: The Muslim Brotherhood’s Industry of Death,<\/em> Simon & Schuster<\/a><\/b>)<\/strong> below the video, followed by a video clip of a 1984 interview with a KGB defector that seems to speak to the current age.<\/p>\n