Joel Bleifuss

About the author: Joel Bleifuss is editor of In These Times, a newsmagazine that promotes political and economic democracy.

While the killing of thousands of innocents understandably gives rise to feelings of anger and hate, defining the subsequent struggle as a "monumental struggle of good versus evil," as President George W. Bush has done, oversimplifies the tragedy and brings Americans down to the level of the terrorists. Too often in history, mass atrocities have been committed against people and groups demonized as the evil enemy. Americans should resist such thinking.

The slaughter of thousands of innocent people in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon gives rise to sharp emotions— numbness, sorrow, horror, despair, fear, anger, revenge and hate. All these feelings...