Subject: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: catspaw49 Date: 21 Sep 01 - 05:15 PM Continuing on I guess.........I added the future part since we are getting past totally talking of the attack, although the rescue and cleanup will go on for 6 months. Still talking about that and now we are going into unknown territory........the world is and will be forever changed. I'd like to change the name of these threads but don't want to lose the continuity......As you post, if you have an idea for a different name, add that to your post too. Spaw |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: catspaw49 Date: 21 Sep 01 - 05:27 PM LINK BACK TO PART NINE Spaw |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Troll Date: 21 Sep 01 - 05:41 PM Saudi Arabia is also the country that expelled bin Laden for perverting the teachings of Islam AND revoked his citizenship. They are a very strict sect (Wahabi Sunni I think) but not like bin Laden. troll |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Kim C Date: 21 Sep 01 - 05:43 PM Personally I am hoping not to think about it for awhile. It's like, I get all edgy when I watch the news; but I can't NOT watch the news if I want to be informed. Therein lies my quandary. Anyway I am fixin to go home in a little while. Maybe I will have something better to say on Monday. |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Don Firth Date: 21 Sep 01 - 06:08 PM There is no doubt that Osama bin Laden is an international criminal. He is responsible for the deaths of many people, and especially considering the fatwa, he is condemned out of his own mouth. The world would be better off without him and his ilk. But is he guilty of the September 11th attacks? I have never been quite comfortable with the statement "confirmed suspect." To me, that says "we're pretty sure he did it, but we don't really know for sure." I won't go into my opinion of the Taliban here, but I see nothing out of line with their asking "What's your proof?" Okay. What is our proof? I ran across this yesterday, lost it, then managed to chase it down again today. ---------------------------------------------------------------
Who did it? Foreign Report presents an alternative view --------------------------------------------------------------- I think it might be a good idea to know the hell we're doing before we start doing it. Don Firth |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: The Shambles Date: 21 Sep 01 - 06:12 PM The future is very uncertain.
If this is a war, look at how careful one side must be in just choosing their targets, let alone actually hitting them.
Possibly hitting these targets will be both victory and defeat? The other side have endless number of soft targets.
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Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 21 Sep 01 - 06:34 PM My point about the Saudi roots of Bin Ladin's movements isn't that the Saudi regime is somehow behind this, but rather that in focussing all our attention on Afghanistan and Pakistan etc we ignore the real possibity that there must be a lot of potential popular support for Bin Laden in Saudi Arabia.
If this thing were to be seen as a conflict between America with its friends and Islam, a "Crusade", it is not hard to envisage an upheaval in Saudi Arabia which ended with a regime in power that was sympathetic to Bin Ladin, and hostile to America. Remember how the Shah's regime in Iran was seen as strong and a reliable ally - and how quickly it collapsed.
Envisage a situation where Bin Ladin was in Mecca, under the protection of a new regime in Saudi Arabia...
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Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Amos Date: 21 Sep 01 - 07:15 PM Don -- this was posted here in a thread of the same name.
It is an interesting analysis and will probably be our second framework of focus for our greast adventure ino war, assuming we can escape the first one, which looks very much like Afgganistan to me (since they are rejecting Bush' ultimatums). his can get ugly. The ex-Soviets have made it real clear they think we'd be crazy to try an Afghanistan war, the Taliban insists it will start an Islam-wide jihad, etc.
What to do? Option 4 ain't gonna happen. Option 2 might. Option 3 will probably will be continued in parallel but with too little work, too late, and will be blunted by the counter-PR of the Taliban and other militant Muslims. The scary part of today is the possibility that Muslims internationally will listen to the over-torqued rhetoric of the militant radical clerics who are the philosopical mouthpieces of the terror net. The NS will get hot and heavy -- rationalizations, justidfications, illogical dialog, data distortion. We need to be ready to launch a major PR burst, not just one good speech. We're up against entrenched fixed ideas and authoritarians, who use Big Lie techniques and any rhetoric they can find to postyion themselves as wronged instead of doing wrong, innocent victims instead of complicit accomplices to murder of noncombatants, and religionists instead of power-hungry control freaks. We need to be able to SHOW in every way that for each of these positions they try to assert, the facts disprove the claim, and the other half is closer to the truth. A |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: katlaughing Date: 21 Sep 01 - 07:42 PM Spaw, do you maintain thsi kind of staying power in bed, too?**BG** I don't know how you do it. I am on overlaod, so take this for what it is worth: name change, "The End of the World As We Know It." luvya'llkat |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: CarolC Date: 21 Sep 01 - 07:44 PM I don't think I could bear to see that in the list of thread titles every day. (sorry) |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: GUEST Date: 21 Sep 01 - 07:50 PM Don't be so over-dramatic, Kat. This isn't the end of the world as anyone knows it - maybe Americans have got a bit of a wake up call, and minor security checks might change. For the rest of us, we'll just get on with life. You will too in a relatively short time. Peace to you
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Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Don Firth Date: 21 Sep 01 - 08:25 PM Yeah, Amos, I just found it. The problem is that there are so darned many threads on this general subject that it's practically impossible to keep track of them. I downloaded your other long post on that thread to read at my leisure. Don Firth |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 21 Sep 01 - 09:08 PM We need to be ready to launch a major PR burst, not just one good speech.
Better delegate that, and not have the people who have been making the goofs ("Infinite Justice" "Crusade") be in charge of it.
What goes down well in America may not be what goes down well elsewhere. For example "just one good speech" - that's Bush to Congress, I take it. In American eyes he clearly came across well, and he was speaking to America. But I doubt if that verdict would be shared by all that many people outside the States, including people who are predisposed to be pro-American.
An invasion of Afghanistan by Americans, or by people seen as acting directly as America's agents, is likely to be disastrous. If Bin Ladin gets killed in the course of it, it won't make things better but worse.
The only people who could attack the Taliban with a hope of it being seen as liberation, would be the anti-Taliban Afghanis, and possibly the Iranians. The job of the American in such a conflict would be keeping the Pakistanis and the Iraqis off the back of Iran while it was happening, and providing backup for the rebels and invaders, and more especially help for the refugees.
And the main focus of effective action against terrorists has to be where the terrorists actually are - in Europe and America, and probably in countries in Arabia and the Gulf. Because it is hardly likely that they are waiting on instructions from Bin Ladin (or whoever) before attempting further attacks. |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: katlaughing Date: 21 Sep 01 - 09:15 PM Carol, I couldn't either, I was just feeling low. Guest, I am not being overly-dramatic. That was one of the first things most everyone said in the immediate aftermath.
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Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Donuel Date: 21 Sep 01 - 09:33 PM My next door neighbor's first words out of his mouth after the attack was "Its the liberals who done this letting in all them furners , bringin this country down from within". All I could do was think of the inscription on the Staue of Liberty and leave him to grieve as all us must do in their own way.
This man is a Viet Nam Vet divorced tow truck driver with two trained Rotwielers (Harley and Lady) in his back yard ,as he says ,to guard his ammunition shed and Harley motorcycle shed. He legally sells guns on the side but I don't see him brandish them.
Last Christmas I got one of those Hilshire Farms salami logs I knew I would never eat so I tossed it over the fence for his dogs. Awhile later he was complaining about other dogs and perhaps a neighbor that were inciting his dogs to howl and bark every night well past 3 AM. I told him as a musician I know exactly which dogs are doing the barking and that I have to sleep downstairs with the TV on to get some sleep. This evidently invited him to accuse me of trying to poison his dogs with a sausage and possibly poison the rabbits that he finds dead near his dog pen.
Should I escalate tensions and tell him that I do not discriminate between his dogs behavior and him? Should I deliver an ultimatum that he is either for me or against me?
As it turned out I found out what his favorite car was and I just happened to have a replica in the basement that I gave him for hiw birthday. Surley this man has legally killed fellow human beings. He has no relish for war and is not a meglomaniac to my knowledge.
You can finish the story any way you like by imagining the turn of events had I taken a tough stand or decided upon retalliation of some sort over something as simple as barking dogs and no sleep. Today I had to smirk to myself when I saw 3 industrious roofers remove his old roof and re-shingle his house in one day. They were non english speaking immigrants. |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Amos Date: 21 Sep 01 - 10:50 PM Last week I saw 19 industrious workers steal four airplanes and destroy the hopes and lives and bodies of over six thousand peoeple in two hours. They were English speaking immigrants. The morale, obviously, is don't let them learn English! Donuel you are talking about a realm of human interaction still above the line called "civilized conduct", a spectrum of exchanges which basically work on improving communication. I believe that there is a time when communication cannot occur, and when pursued it actually worsens the situation, until a lower level of order, a basic control, is established. That sort of control is voluntary among mature humans, no matter their culture, but it is lost in the circumstances of rampant psychosis, extremely criminal mindsets, or people who themselves are so far out of control that they cannot receive a simple communication with any understanding. In cases like these, if you want to get some communication going, you have to establish a basic level of control as the first kind of communication tyhat will make any difference. Otherwise you are just rying to teach a pig to sing. In affairs between large groups, an act such as that of last week is comparable to a psychotic outbreak. The kind of approach you used on your neighbor, who for all his wrinkles was still in communication, and had not started shooting at you or coming after you with a club, is already defaulted on and out of the list of possible responses. You don't discuss flagrant destructive impulses while they are being acted out against you! A.
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Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: katlaughing Date: 21 Sep 01 - 10:57 PM I'd like to hear from some of you Canadians about whether you felt slighted by Bush's speech or not. Here is what CBC is saying.
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Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: heric Date: 21 Sep 01 - 11:08 PM No. There are small minded Canadians who seek pathetic issues like this even when the subject matter is as huge as the deaths of over 6,000 people, and many of them seem to make it into journalism. But there are small minded people everywhere. "If it is anything, it is an indication that our support goes without saying." |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: RichM Date: 21 Sep 01 - 11:35 PM No, as a Canadian, I don't feel slighted at all. Americans are grieving for their fellow citizens who were victims of a monstrous act. It's silly for anyone to feel slighted. I've been dealing with my own feelings of anger, fear, despair and horror. I'm sure it's worse for Americans. Rich McCarthy
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Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: The Shambles Date: 22 Sep 01 - 04:36 AM There does seem to be quite a difference between Mr Bush's line and what Colin Powell (in a UK interview last night) is saying. The latter is speaking pretty good common sense. He is talking about years and a not very clearly defined victory.
It would appear that Mr Bush's line of America as the 'Lone Ranger, is mainly for home consumption and would seem to me to be creating unreal expectations there and 'painting himself into a corner'. I would hope and suggest that this can be 'toned down' as I think it would be fair to say that this line worries the friends and allies of the USA, a lot more than it worries its enemies. I'm sure would worry Tonto............... |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: CarolC Date: 22 Sep 01 - 04:52 AM I've posted this to three other threads. I might as well post it here too. This is more or less in keeping with Colin Powell's preferred approach. And it's not just Bush who favors the 'Lone Ranger' approach. It appears that a sizable portion of the population of the US also favors it. So maybe those of us who prefer Powell's approach have some work to do to spread the word. If anyone wants to, they can make their wishes known at this site...
http://www.congress.org/
What we can do...
We do everything we possibly can to promote, protect, and preserve a coalition with as many countries in the world as we possibly can.
We work together with all of the countries in the coalition to come up with a plan to use diplomatic, law enforcement, and finanial avenues to isolate and starve the organizations who are responsible for the terrorist attacks. This includes holding banks accountable for any help they give to terrorist organizations by sheltering money for them.
We make absolute sure that we do not do anything to destabilize any countries that have governments who are friendly to us or who are willing to help us.
We learn to work with other countries as equals instead of acting like a father figure to them and treating them like children.
If there is anything that is going to save the US, it will be for us to learn that we need the rest of the world, and we need their help as much as they need ours. If we fail to learn this lesson, I fear that we are in very big trouble.
The first and most important thing, in my opinion, is that at this moment in history, perhaps more than any other moment in history, we not only have the compassion and sympathy of much of the rest of the world, we also have their empathy. By that, I mean that they can, probably for the first time ever, see themselves in our shoes. This is very critical, and should not be wasted.
Because of this, they will very probably be willing to work with us and help us, as long as what we propose to do helps all of us. Most other countries probably won't have the burning desire or need for retribution that we have here. Most of them will probably be interested in solving the problem of terrorism, and no more. If we use our military might in a way that destabilizes countries that are crucial to this effort, at least one of which has nuclear weapons (Pakistan), the other countries in the coalition will probably recognize that they will not be helped in the long run by these military actions, that they may, in fact be hurt, and may remove themselves from the coalition.
I did a research paper about a year ago to find out what is the most powerful motivator for people. This was not research that originated with me. I was researching work that was done by others. What I found was that the most powerful motivator is what I would call "enlightened self-interest". By that I mean, people are motivated the most powerfully, and in the most lasting way when they understand how it is in their best interest to behave in a certain way. But what makes it enlightened self interest is the understanding of how what is in their best interest is also in the best interest of others. So, obviously I'm not talking about extortion. I mean people are motivated most powerfully by what is genuinely in their best interest.
If the US says, "You must do what we want or you will suffer in some way", that would be extortion. If we say, "We must work together to find a way to solve this problem in such a way that we all benefit", that would be motivating people through the use of enlightened self-interest.
Once we have built a coalition of willing participants that is based on the idea of enlightened self-interest, we determine what the benefits will be for all of the members of the coalition. The most obvious would be to protect all of us from terrorism. Even the banks will probably suffer in the long run if terrorism is allowed to destroy the economies of many of the richest nations on earth. So, even for the banks, there is an element of enlightened self-interest in helping to eliminate terrorism. In fact, it seems to me that there are probably very few groups, nations, or other interests who would benefit in the long run from allowing terrorism to continue or to flourish in the world.
If we put together such a coalition, we will need to identify what sort of actions would be detrimental to any of the members in the long run. One example of this would be if we caused, through military action in Afghanistan, destabilization in Pakistan resulting in an overthrow of the government now in place which is friendly to us at this time, by Muslim fundamentalists who are friendly with the Taliban. This, of course would be contrary to Pakistan's self-interest (as defined by the majority of people there at this time, which would likely change if we killed a lot of Afghanis), and it would also be contrary to our self-interest, because we would then have two enemies in the place of one, and one of them with nuclear weapons.
You see where I'm going with this. So we form a solid coalition. We work with the coalition as equals, rather than as an authority figure who says, "you're either for us or against us". Then, we put together the best minds that each of the countries in the coalition have at their disposal, and formulate plans to use the tools at our disposal to find out who the terrorists are, and how leverage might be applied to dry up whatever resources they have to help them to accomplish what they are trying to do. And whenever it is possible to, try to take into custody important figures within the terrorist organizations only if doing so does not put any member/countries of the coalition in jeopardy in any significant way. It seems to me that the most important thing we can do to the terrorists is to remove their sting. Even if they are still walking the streets, if they are perceived as ineffectual and weak by the starry eyed youths whom they would want to recruit, would anyone want to join them, much less give up their life for them? Take away the glory and there is no point in any of it. We don't take away the glory by killing them or making them glorified prisoners. We take away the glory by making them ineffectual. |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: The Shambles Date: 22 Sep 01 - 05:38 AM Thank you Carol. I had not seen this one but I have noted and appreciated many of your other contributions. Please keep it up, I think it is going to be a long haul. In all truth, not many people in the world are 'for the terrorists'. Let us all do what we can to keep it that way. |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 22 Sep 01 - 07:32 AM "Osama bin Laden has made his escape from Afghanistan and is now hiding somewhere in China, it was claimed last night." - from today's Guardian (London).
Ironically, if that turned out to be true, it could be the best news this week. It'd take the heat off the plans for an invasion of Afghanistan which would be likely to have disatrous results in Pakistan and, in a knock-on effect, other places too. The people who'd be going after Bin Ladin would be the Chinese government instead. Bin Ladin would be even more out of touch with any outside cells than he is already (assuming that he is in touch with them anyway).<> And the rest of the world could turn its attention to averting terrorist atrocities, and doing whatever it could to clean up the messes that make it easy for people to be recruited to suicidal terrorist groups. |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Donuel Date: 22 Sep 01 - 09:09 AM Is Bush dumb enough to let Bin Laden pit the US against China? Using our own planes against us as well as our own stupidity and tenuous enemy/friend sounds like something he would think of. here is my eamil of the day: 9/22/01 Dear Friends, The drive across New Jersey has been the longest portion of this trip across America. It is only 60 miles to New York City and I am having trouble keeping my eyes open. I had just pulled off the road in Allentown, PA, to throw some cold water in my face. Kathleen and I have grown very silent. It is the dread of what is ahead. As we cross the George Washington Bridge into Manhattan, the plume of smoke from the lower part of the island hovers, bright blasting searchlights attempting to crash through it. The college radio station from Fordham is playing Dylan's "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall." Instead of making the turn south to go home down the West Side Highway, I go north and head toward the town where our daughter goes to college. It is one in the morning, and when we arrive on campus we note that every single light in the dorms is on (when do these kids sleep?). We call Natalie and tell her we have made it home. She directs us to the nearest gate where she is with some other young women who are working on the school paper. We pull up, she comes out... and this is, as it always has been, the happiest moment of our lives. We hug her, and hug her again. She is happy to see us, and she generously, good-naturedly, tolerates our weepy parental doting. She is, after all, the only reason we have made this drive. Nothing else matters at this point. We eventually leave her to her own life and head toward New York City. It is now deep in the middle of the night and the radio plays "O Superman" by Laurie Anderson ("Here come the planes - - they're American planes!... hold me in your arms... your military arms...") and then the DJ says that he is going to play a song that they have never let him play before on the station. What an odd thing to announce, I think, considering we live in a free country where you can play whatever music you damn well please. I recall the email I received the night before from a radio station manager in Michigan. He passed on to me a confidential memo from the radio conglomerate that owns his station: Clear Channel, the company that has bought up 1,200 stations altogether -- 247 of them in the nation's 250 largest radio markets -- and that not only dominates the Top 40 format, but controls 60% of all rock-radio listening. The company has ordered its stations not to play a list of 150 songs during this "national emergency." The list, incredibly, includes "Bridge Over Troubled Water," "Peace Train," and John Lennon's "Imagine." Rah-rah war songs, though, are OK. And then there was this troubling instruction: "No songs by Rage Against the Machine should be aired." The entire works of a band are banned? Is this the freedom we fight for? Or does this sound like one of those repressive dictatorships we are told is our new enemy? The song the college DJ goes ahead and plays is, "Hey, War Pig," by Katrina and the Waves, and he dedicates it to the "all the war mongers out there." Yes, there is hope, the kids are all right. We arrive at our apartment building and I am too tired to drop the vehicle off at the rental car place, so we unload, head upstairs, and hit the sack. I awake at noon. A horrible stench has filled the apartment. I did not notice it a few hours earlier, but the winds have shifted. It is the odor others had warned me about. It is a smell I have never smelled. I am told by someone in the building that it is a combination of chemicals, rubber, sheetrock, and... he pauses. He does not want to list the final ingredient, and I do not want him to. I thank him and go back upstairs and close all the windows. I look at the cereal box I had left half-opened before our trip to L.A. I stare at this box for a long time. Nine days of ash has descended on the city. It is everywhere, microscopic, invisible, non-discriminatory in where it has landed. No part of the city is untouched, and all are treated equally to the smoke and stench, regardless of station in life. There is no way to turn away and ignore it. I take the rental car back. As I park it, I look across the street and see our neighborhood firehouse consumed in flowers and candles. "They lost nine firemen," the rental woman tells me. "It's a pretty sad place." There's a firehouse every few blocks in New York. Back in Michigan, I grew up across the street from a fire station and I have always loved the sound of that screeching siren. The (mostly) men who work down the street from us now in New York are our neighbors in the truest sense of the word. They are quintessential New Yorkers, right to the bone, and when they are called to do their job (for which they are grossly underpaid), they never stop for a moment to think of themselves. I always enjoy shooting the breeze with these guys, and when possible, I've put them on my show, as they are natural-born comedians and wiseguys. I have never once complained about the wail of their fire trucks as they barrel down my street. I walk across the street to pay my respects. A lone fireman spots me coming and approaches me, arms outstretched. He grabs me and hugs me. He says, "Mike, thanks, thanks for everything you do for the..." I am stunned and embarrassed by this, and I cut him off. "Stop," I say, "I haven't done shit. I am here to thank you and to tell you how horribly sorry I am..." He cuts me off. "Shutupwillya! Lemme say what I need to say..." He continues to thank me, I can't take this -- I HAVE DONE NOTHING BUT RETURN A DAMN RENTAL CAR -- and I break down in tears. "Oh, don't go gettin' mushy on me, Mike -- c'mon, we're Irish!" He laughs, I laugh, I grab him and hold him and these two big Irish lugs and crybabies make for quite a sight in the middle of a Manhattan street. Kathleen and I sign their book and we take down the name of the fund for the nine families of our neighbors. "Don't forget," our fireman friend says as we leave, "We need your prayers more than we need the donations." I cannot go to work. But I have a film to finish. Our editor has been unable to make it in from New Jersey, but he is there now waiting for some word on what to do. I can't even think about this movie. I don't WANT to think about it because if I think about it I will have to face an ugly truth that has been gnawing through my head... This started out as a documentary on gun violence in America, but the largest mass murder in our history was just committed -- without the use of a single gun! Not a single bullet fired! No bomb was set off, no missile was fired, no weapon (i.e., a device that was solely and specifically manufactured to kill humans) was used. A boxcutter! -- I can't stop thinking about this. A thousand gun control laws would not have prevented this massacre. What am I doing? My wife does not want to go down to the memorial to the victims that has spontaneously taken over Union Square in the Village -- she is still in too much shock having returned to this sullen city -- but she encourages me to go, and I do. The Square is filled with hundreds of people. But, more importantly, the walls and fences around Union Square are covered in a blizzard of "MISSING" posters of loved ones. Thousands of handbills, flyers, photos, notes -- all pleading to contact them should anyone know the whereabouts of their mother, father, son, daughter, infant. Yet, all of us who stare at these faces, we know their "whereabouts." And the smoke, the ash, the odor is much thicker down here, just 20 blocks from The Site. The faces of the victims, culled from wedding photos, birthday party home videos, vacation snapshots, are striking in their diversity. Easily, the majority are African-American, Arabic, Hispanic, Asian, Jewish. Their jobs at the World Trade Center are listed. They were clerks, secretaries, janitors, security guards, assistants, dishwashers, waitresses, receptionists -- all the people who HAVE to be at work first thing in the morning, the lower wage workers. The wall is also filled with the faces of brokers, lawyers, managers, accountants, insurance agents -- it is endless, it is everyone, it is America. I am told that there may be over 500 "illegals" -- those less-than-minimum wage workers that the commerce of America depends on -- who are also among the dead, but there are no photos of them. Citizens from over 80 countries are victims of this attack and, remarkably, the country that seems to have the most people who were killed is the Muslim country of Pakistan. For two hours I walk through Union Square, listening to the debates that rage in various small circles, between hippies and Army guys, Israelis and Palestinians, those for war and those against. They are heated, passionate -- but never do I sense the threat of violence between them. No police are in sight. "We are self-policed," one kid tells me. Others are singing or rapping, many are quietly crying. I leave and go down to Canal Street. It is as far as they will allow civilians to go. The odor is now nearly unbearable. I tell the officer I would like to volunteer, to do anything that is needed -- carry buckets, lift, haul, relieve, whatever. He tells me that no more volunteers are needed. He says that, right now, they do not expect to find anyone alive. The job they are doing is one of recovery of the dead and the removal of all the steel and concrete, and they have left these jobs to the professionals. I can't help but think they could still use an extra pair of hands -- surely, at least ONE person could still be alive! I remain upset and appalled that Wall Street has ordered its employees back to work -- to trade stocks! -- next-door to a mass, open graveyard of yet unburied bodies. How cruel is this to the workers who must walk by, or to the dead who are treated to this sacrilege? And, in my mind, what IF someone was still down there alive? How can you be running around a stock market floor when you should be on your hands and knees digging out the possible survivors? I just don't get it... As I sit here in the early morning hours of Saturday, September 22, 2001, I cannot untangle much of the past 24 hours. I am exhausted from the trip, from all that has hit me upon returning to New York. I have to unpack eventually. What was it exactly I had packed all these bags for in the first place? Oh, yeah, The Emmys in L.A! Big friggin' deal now, eh? I tick off the list of everything that no longer matters. I watch Bush speak in front of Congress, but I cannot answer him right now, I am tired. The mayor has drastically upped the death toll. My phone rings off the ... whatever phones ring off of these days. Calls from the BBC, CBC, Canal+, ABC (Australia), Swedish TV, Dutch TV -- all want me to appear live on their national primetime newscasts. Not a single American network has called. Frankly, I don't want to be on anybody's TV show no matter where they are from, but I cannot help but feel this sinking feeling in my gut that the rest of the world wants to hear what I have to say, yet in my own country, I am to have no voice in the media (other than through these letters on the Web). This is MY country. I love MY country. Every channel and it's the same damn repetitive drumbeat WAR WAR WAR WAR WAR... And yet, I have just driven 2,944 miles, a drive that began on the corner of Wilshire and the Pacific Ocean in Santa Monica, California. I have heard the voices of the scores of fellow Americans I met, the average Joes and Janes, who are NOT screaming WAR WAR WAR! Why can't their voices be heard? Forget about me, I can barely utter a sentence anyway; I don't wanna go on no TV. But where is Noam Chomsky, or Howard Zinn, or the editors of "The Nation" or "Tikkun" or "The Progressive" or the thousands of college kids who protested at noon on Thursday on 148 American campuses? Don't they count? Is this still the America we believe in, the one we are being asked to defend? Coming home tonight, I noticed a strange sound in the city. I did not hear a single car horn being honked! I have never heard that sound in New York City. No one was yelling, it was quiet and peaceful. I called my dad on my cell phone. He tells me of things getting even worse back home in Flint, the city now bankrupt, the state preparing to take it over. The fire department has had to lay off over 50% of its firefighters. Fires now are just allowed to burn because they have neither the trucks nor the people left to fight them. Then he said, "Mike, that guy you call 'The Boss' -- he's singing right now on TV!" The nationwide telethon for the September 11th victims has started. I could hear Bruce Springsteen singing in the background. My father (bless him and his Big Band soul at the age of 80!) knows how much I love Bruce and says, "let me hold the phone up close to the set so you can hear him," and he does, and I hear Springsteen sing these haunting words: "My city is in ruins, my city is in ruins... c'mon, rise up!" I love my dad and my mom, my sisters, my wife and my daughter, and I am grateful for this life and for the privilege I've been given to live it with all of them. I come upstairs and Kathleen and I watch the rest of the telethon. Neil Young appears at one point, alone at the piano, and he does not sing one of his own songs. Rather, he sings the banned "Imagine." The Walrus had to have loved that one from where he was watching! My wife looks over at me. The tears won't leave my eyes. I tell her what I was told today. "Woody (our assistant editor) saw a rescue truck going down the West Side Highway to help in the relief effort," I tell her. "On the side of the truck, it read 'FFD.'" The Flint Fire Department. All the way from our home. To our home. It was more than either of us could bear. Yours, Michael Moore |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: kendall Date: 22 Sep 01 - 10:13 AM Spaw, how about "And the beat goes on" |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: kendall Date: 22 Sep 01 - 10:28 AM INDEPENDENT (London) 16 September 2001 Robert Fisk: Retaliation is a trap. In a world that was supposed to have learnt that the rule of law comes above revenge, President Bush appears to be heading for the very disaster that Osama bin Laden has laid down for him. Let us have no doubts about what happened in New York and Washington last week. It was a crime against humanity. We cannot understand America's need to retaliate unless we accept this bleak, awesome fact. But this crime was perpetrated -- it becomes ever clearer -- to provoke the United States into just the blind, arrogant punch that the US military is preparing. Mr bin Laden - every day his culpability becomes more apparent - has described to me how he wishes to overthrow the pro-American regime of the Middle East, starting with Saudi Arabia and moving on to Egypt, Jordan and the other Gulf states. In an Arab world sunk in corruption and dictatorships - most of them supported by the West - the only act that might bring Muslims to strike at their own leaders would be a brutal, indiscriminate assault by the United States. Mr bin Laden is unsophisticated in foreign affairs, but a close student of the art and horror of war. He knew how to fight the Russians who stayed on in Afghanistan, a Russian monster that revenged itself upon its ill-educated, courageous antagonists until, faced with war without end, the entire Soviet Union began to fall apart. The Chechens learnt this lesson. And the man responsible for so much of the bloodbath in Chechnya Ð the career KGB man whose army is raping and murdering the insurgent Sunni Muslim population of Chechnya - is now being signed up by Mr Bush for his "war against people''. Vladimir Putin must surely have a sense of humour to appreciate the cruel ironies that have now come to pass, though I doubt if he will let Mr Bush know what happens when you start a war of retaliation; your army - like the Russian forces in Chechnya Ð becomes locked into battle with an enemy that appears ever more ruthless, ever more evil. But the Americans need look no further than Ariel Sharon's futile war with the Palestinians to understand the folly of retaliation. In Lebanon, it was always the same. A Hizbollah guerrilla would kill an Israeli occupation soldier, and the Israelis would fire back in retaliation at a village in which a civilian would die. The Hizbollah would retaliate with a Katyusha missile attack over the Israeli border, and the Israelis would retaliate again with a bombardment of southern Lebanon. In the end, the Hizbollah - the "centre of world terror" according to Mr Sharon - drove the Israelis out of Lebanon. In Israel/Palestine, it is the same story. An Israeli soldier shoots a Palestinian stone-thrower. The Palestinians retaliate by killing a settler. The Israelis then retaliate by sending a murder squad to kill a Palestinian gunman. The Palestinians retaliate by sending a suicide bomber into a pizzeria. The Israelis then retaliate by sending F-16s to bomb a Palestinian police station. Retaliation leads to retaliation and more retaliation. War without end. And while Mr Bush - and perhaps Mr Blair - prepare their forces, they explain so meretriciously that this is a war for "democracy and liberty'', that it is about men who are "attacking civilisation". "America was targeted for attack,'' Mr Bush informed us on Friday, "because we are the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world." But this is not why America was attacked. If this was an Arab-Muslim apocalypse, then it is intimately associated with events in the Middle East and with America's stewardship of the area. Arabs, it might be added, would rather like some of that democracy and liberty and freedom that Mr Bush has been telling them about. Instead, they get a president who wins 98 per cent in the elections (Washington's friend, Mr Mubarak) or a Palestinian police force, trained by the CIA, that tortures and sometimes kills its people in prison. The Syrians would also like a little of that democracy. So would the Saudis. But their effete princes are all friends of America - in many cases, educated at US universities. I will always remember how President Clinton announced that Saddam Hussein - another of our grotesque inventions - must be overthrown so that the people of Iraq could choose their own leaders. But if that happened, it would be the first time in Middle Eastern history that Arabs have been permitted to do so. No, it is "our" democracy and "our" liberty and freedom that Mr Bush and Mr Blair are talking about, our Western sanctuary that is under attack, not the vast place of terror and injustice that the Middle East has become. Let me illustrate what I mean. Nineteen years ago today, the greatest act of terrorism - using Israel's own definition of that much misused word - in modern Middle Eastern history began. Does anyone remember the anniversary in the West? How many readers of this article will remember it? I will take a tiny risk and say that no other British newspaper - certainly no American newspaper - will today recall the fact that on 16 September 1982, Israel's Phalangist militia allies started their three-day orgy of rape and knifing and murder in the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila that cost 1,800 lives. It followed an Israeli invasion of Lebanon - designed to drive the PLO out of the country and given the green light by the then US Secretary of State, Alexander Haig - which cost the lives of 17,500 Lebanese and Palestinians, almost all of them civilians. That's probably three times the death toll in the World Trade Centre. Yet I do not remember any vigils or memorial services or candle-lighting in America or the West for the innocent dead of Lebanon; I don't recall any stirring speeches about democracy or liberty. In fact, my memory is that the United States spent most of the bloody months of July and August 1982 calling for "restraint". No, Israel is not to blame for what happened last week. The culprits were Arabs, not Israelis. But America's failure to act with honour in the Middle East, its promiscuous sale of missiles to those who use them against civilians, its blithe disregard for the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi children under sanctions of which Washington is the principal supporter - all these are intimately related to the society that produced the Arabs who plunged America into an apocalypse of fire last week. America's name is literally stamped on to the missiles fired by Israel into Palestinian buildings in Gaza and the West Bank. Only four weeks ago, I identified one of them as an AGM 114-D air-to-ground rocke made by Boeing and Lockheed-Martin at their factory in - of all places - Florida, the state where some of the suiciders trained to fly. It was fired from an Apache helicopter (made in America, of course) during the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, when hundreds of cluster bombs were dropped in civilian areas of Beruit by the Israelis in contravention of undertakings given to the United States. Most of the bombs had US Naval markings and America then suspended a shipment of fighter bombers to Israel Ð for less than two months. The same type of missile - this time an AGM 114-C made in Georgia - was fired by the Israelis into the back of an ambulance near the Lebanese village of Mansori, killing two women and four children. I collected the pieces of the missile, including its computer coding plate, flew to Georgia and presented them to the manufacturers at the Boeing factory. And what did the developer of the missile say to me when I showed him photographs of the children his missile had killed? "Whatever you do," he told me, "don't quote me as saying anything critical of the policies of Israel." I'm sure the father of those children, who was driving the ambulance, will have been appalled by last week's events, but I don't suppose, given the fate of his own wife - one of the women killed - that he was in a mood to send condolences to anyone. All these facts, of course, must be forgotten now. Every effort will be made in the coming days to switch off the "why'' question and concentrate on the who, what and how. CNN and most of the world's media have already obeyed this essential new war rule. I've already seen what happens when this rule is broken. When The Independent published my article on the connection between Middle Eastern injustice and the New York holocaust, the BBC's 24-hour news channel produced an American commentator who remarked that "Robert Fisk has won the prize for bad taste''. When I raised the same point on an Irish radio talk show, the other guest, a Harvard lawyer, denounced me as a bigot, a liar, a "dangerous man'' and - of course - potentially anti-Semitic. The Irish pulled the plug on him. No wonder we have to refer to the terrorists as "mindless''. For if we did not, we would have to explain what went on in those minds. But this attempt to censor the realities of the war that has already begun must not be permitted to continue. Look at the logic. Secretary of State Colin Powell was insisting on Friday that his message to the Taliban is simple: they have to take responsibility for sheltering Mr bin Laden. "You cannot separate your activities from the activities of the perpetrators,'' he warned. But the Americans absolutely refuse to associate their own response to their predicament with their activities in the Middle East. We are supposed to hold our tongues, even when Ariel Sharon - a man whose name will always be associated with the massacre at Sabra and Shatila - announces that Israel also wishes to join the battle against "world terror''. No wonder the Palestinians are fearful. In the past four days, 23 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank and Gaza, an astonishing figure that would have been front-page news had America not been blitzed. If Israel signs up for the new conflict, then the Palestinians Ð by fighting the Israelis Ð will, by extension, become part of the "world terror'' against which Mr Bush is supposedly going to war. Not for nothing did Mr Sharon claim that Yasser Arafat had connections with Osama bin Laden. I repeat: what happened in New York was a crime against humanity. And that means policemen, arrests, justice, a whole new international court at The Hague if necessary. Not cruise missiles and "precision'' bombs and Muslim lives lost in revenge for Western lives. But the trap has been sprung. Mr Bush - perhaps we, too - is now walking into it. ====================== *** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Feel free to distribute widely but PLEASE acknowledge the original source. ***
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Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: kendall Date: 22 Sep 01 - 10:30 AM Does anyone remember Bre'r Rabbit and the Tar Baby? |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Donuel Date: 22 Sep 01 - 10:40 AM Ah so kendall you know that when bush leads with his fist he becomes so preditable as to become the biggest pawn in the world. |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: kendall Date: 22 Sep 01 - 10:50 AM It is so obvious to anyone with a teaspoon full of brains what Bin Ladan is up to. I think we should drop bread on the Afgahans, along with flyers stating our real purpose, to munish a criminal, NOT Islam. If that doesn't work, Make Jimmy Dean Secretary of Defense, and let him drop hamgrenades on them. (sorry, but humor is the only thing that keeps me sane) |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Greg F. Date: 22 Sep 01 - 11:38 AM Err, with Muslims, I think you meant LAMBgrenades, Kendall... |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: The Shambles Date: 22 Sep 01 - 01:14 PM The UK TV programmers may have our interests at heart but in truth it would be better if they left the schedules alone and left us to decide if we wished to see them.
This week the scrapping the showing of a film with Sylvester Stalone rescuing people from a flooded tunnel under New York, may have been understandable? Not showing a film about the making and history of the Empire State Building but still showing Audie Murphy's To Hell and Back, about how he became WW 2's most decorated US soldier, is less so….. |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Amos Date: 22 Sep 01 - 02:10 PM Amendment I Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Justa Picker Date: 22 Sep 01 - 02:24 PM Kat, I believe Rosie DiManno, columnist for the Toronto Star, summed it up well, in her editorial published in today's Toronto Star. [begin copy] Our Moral Ambiguity Disturbing Rosie DiManno - Toronto Star - September 22, 2001 EVERYTHING WAS SO much clearer in New York City. Despite the sulphurous cloud that still hovered over the remains of the World Trade Center, there was a clarity of purpose and public resolve that distinguishes the American character. No moral ambiguity, no collective angst over the propriety of a military response against terrorists, no cowardice. I envy Americans their simple sense of right and wrong. I am appalled that some of my fellow Canadians - and several of my fellow commentators - have such a shaky grasp of moral imperatives. I am ashamed of a Canadian government that drags its feet on political and military commitment to a global war against the purveyors of terrorism. I am enraged by the barely concealed gloating, in some quarters, that the U.S. ``got what it deserved,'' as if any errors of foreign policy could ever justify the murders of thousands and thousands of civilians. It turns my stomach that some Canadians have no stomach at all for the self-sacrifice that Americans accept without question, in their defence of righteous principles. It chills my blood, listening to the litany of grievances from America-haters who are busily rationalizing the hateful attacks of fanatics, exculpating the actions of evil-doers as if there were some logic to it, if we'd only stop to connect the geopolitical dots. This is the posturing of apologists and fifth columnists. Not, I don't believe for a minute (or as has been shown by recent opinion polls), that this attitude is a reflection of the Canadian majority. But there is a minority, whose views enjoy a disproportionate presence in the Canadian media, that insists on mitigating the horrors inflicted on our American neighbours - not to mention the nationals from some 62 other countries, including Canada, who were among the victims in New York and Washington and Pennsylvania. Why is it that, in Canada, some seem more preoccupied with a backlash against Arabs and Muslims - verbal unkindnesses, for the most part, rather than physical confrontations, but unacceptable in any form - than the fate of more than 6,000 ordinary people, of all faiths and ethnicity, who were incinerated, dismembered, crushed, or jumped to their deaths? There are those who lecture on the beautiful qualities of Islam, and how these terrorist cabals have perverted a loving faith. This isn't about Islam. And to hijack such horrific events, to misappropriate them, transform them into an intellectual debate about long-standing political and cultural grievances, is a grotesque disservice to those who died. It invests the heinous acts of murderers with a moral dimension they do not merit. Surely, it was no mere oversight that President George Bush - in his admirable Thursday night address to the nation - neglected to include Canada in the list of brother-nations that have rallied to the American initiative against terrorism, one that will undoubtedly include a combat element. In a time of crisis, you judge your friends by the robustness of their support. And while ordinary Canadians rallied commendably to Americans under siege - whether opening their homes to stranded airline passengers, sending messages of goodwill, even helping in the search and rescue efforts - the response from Ottawa has been pitifully meek. Small wonder Bush considers Great Britain its strongest ally. There was no shilly-shallying from Prime Minister Tony Blair. Of course, the Brits have a muscular military to attach to any pan-global mobilization and we've cannibalized our own army, navy, air force. But even a symbolic solidarity - pledging Canadian fighter pilots, our pathetic naval fleet, our few special ops units - would have been preferable to the indecision, the hand-wringing, the pitifully self-absorbed response of Prime Minister Jean Chretien. I'm told that Canadians should not sacrifice our sovereignty to the American agenda, that we should safeguard our own distinct values. I thought I knew what those values were, that we hold so dear. I no longer do. [end copy] |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Amos Date: 22 Sep 01 - 02:32 PM Rosie DiManno, you are a helluva girl! Thanks for the heart!! I applaud. Amos |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: katlaughing Date: 22 Sep 01 - 03:05 PM Thanks, JP! Not sure I'd agree with some of what she seems to admire, but it is an interesting perspective on Bush's omission. Donuel, I do appreciate your postings of Michael's pieces, too. kat |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Amos Date: 22 Sep 01 - 03:30 PM Scenario 1-B -- next universe over: Across the rugged mountain-laced sky, in the faint purple of dawn, a sound more terrifying than even the Russian's tanks is heard -- the gigantic lethal drone of jet bombers in formation. They come over the mountain peaks in waves, spanning hundreds of miles in even, controlled formations. They are larger and more powerful than any weapon ever seen in the country -- they seem unstoppable, irresistable. The formation widens on pre-assigned mission tracks, some flying over the capital, some diverging to span the airspace of smaller towns and villages across thousands of miles of rugged terrain. They come closer,t heir engines blotting out the songs of birds and the cries of small, malnourished children. One by one the incredible machines arrive on target and the men who serve the distant international power called America press their finely machined switches, send obscure messages on their high-tech headsets, and prepare to drop their weapon load. The bay doors under each gigantic metal belly open slowly and their payload rains down upon the countryside in numbers so thick they look lie an invasion of locusts ---- Parachutes. Millions of paper parachutes, swinging in the dawn breeze from the rugged mountains, drifitng down upon the city blockks, the town squares, the village centers of Afghanistan. They flock like a blizzard of white birds descending from the morning sky. Under each parachute is a container, a simple squared tan box marked in Persian characters, which translate intoa greeting -- not a threat, but a greeting the best sense of open human communication. In the boxes is found food, or medicine, or bandages, water, vitamins, grilled shishkabob, vegetables, and home-made cookies with chocolate chips. And in every one a brightly colored letter from the people of the United States of America to the poeple of Afghanistan, expressing friendship under the benevolent care of the Infinite, expressing concern for their rights as individuals, and expressing grief and mourning for the lives lost in both countries. Another letter explains the Bill of Rights. Another page describes the difference between process and terrorism, and the problem that terrorism has caused us, and what we need to cure it. Each is signed, "Your friends in America", and has pictures of friendly Americans. For many families who gather the packages, it will be the first square meal in months.
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Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: SharonA Date: 22 Sep 01 - 03:44 PM Nice idea, Amos, but wouldn't the Taliban just spread some propaganda about the contents of the packages being either poisoned or forbidden to touch on the grounds that the US is their enemy? |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: kendall Date: 22 Sep 01 - 06:30 PM A starving coyote will eat poisoned meat. And, I did mean HAM grenades |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: GUEST,Jenna Bush Date: 22 Sep 01 - 06:44 PM This Kendall idiot calls my dad "a moron." Well, at least we know that you press the "Submit Message" button once, not three times. If anyone's "a moron," it's that Kendall. I told my dad about him and he agreed with me. Jenna |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Gareth Date: 22 Sep 01 - 06:55 PM Ahhh ! If only it were that simple. Sorry, speaking as one who was rejected for military srevice in 1970 on medical grounds I feel I have no moral right to say what should be done regarding terrorists. It won't be me up the sharp end, and what right have I to say to another "Go and die for the "Cause". But, ( and you expected that ) something must be done and wether or not ben Laddin was the ultimate authority I do not expect Bush or Blair to sit back and do nothing. A quandery - perhaps - but I hope that whatever is done in the way of countermeasures if both accurate and effective. Gareth |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Amos Date: 22 Sep 01 - 07:29 PM The accuracy depends on intelligence. The effectiveness depends on well-thought out Special ops against correct targets. The long term effectiveness depends on managing the PR of war, always a hard trick to turn, A |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: katlaughing Date: 22 Sep 01 - 08:03 PM I like it, Amos. Some of the people would get them regardless of whatever the Taliban claimed. I think it was near the end of Robert Fulghum's first book, "Eeverything I Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarden," where he talks about the sheer joy in colouring books and crayons and suggests that we "bomb" the countries against us with those instead. It's much more eloquent and explained in more depth in his book, but it's what he meant. kat |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: kendall Date: 22 Sep 01 - 08:50 PM Your dad IS a moron sweetie, have another drink. |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: kendall Date: 22 Sep 01 - 09:04 PM Did you ever hear the old saying, "She shames her mother, she who does not resemble her father"? Well, you dont have to worry, you do resemble your father, at least in the boozing department. At least GWB and I have one thing in common, we both have the balls to use our real names. |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Donuel Date: 22 Sep 01 - 11:58 PM Perhaps if Quebec declared its official religion to be Islam it would get Sheriff Tumbleweed Bush's attention. Talk about taking your best friend for granted. |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: kendall Date: 23 Sep 01 - 06:05 AM If Bush gets us into a hit and hit back struggle, my opinion of him will be vindicated. However, if he can avoid an attack of testosterone, and use his head for a change, I will apologize right here. Doug and Troll, I will "kiss your ass on the quarterdeck, and give you a week to sell tickets" |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Scotland the brave Date: 23 Sep 01 - 06:45 AM I don't how to say this, but why don't forget about what happened in America instead of dwelling on it. I mean this if getting a bit paranoid As George Bush says just get on with your lives and just try and treat each day as normal. I thought that the mudcat cafe was all about folkmusic and looking up songs or tunes, and helping people out there who are looking for songs or tunes. I know what happened in America was terrible however that was over a week ago and you're still going on about it. Let's get back to what this site was for Please. |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: CarolC Date: 23 Sep 01 - 07:10 AM Scotland the brave, this might be a bit difficult for you to understand, but it's important. This country is on the brink of something. We don't know exactly what yet. It could be something good. Or it could be something very, very scary. And it could effect you, too. Wherever you live. So being able to talk about these things and bring greater understanding to these issues, and then doing what we can to try to help our leaders understand what we want them to do, is probably a good thing, and could potentially have an impact the lives of all of us. Even you. |
Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: The Shambles Date: 23 Sep 01 - 07:38 AM Many views about the suitability of this subject on the Mudcat forum, can be found here What has happened here>. Can we not clutter this one up with that issue?
We could think that former Presidents or current alternatives to our present one, maybe would have a better grasp of the situation? It could be however that we are in reality far safer in not trusting entirely that we are now in safe hands?
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Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Troll Date: 23 Sep 01 - 08:12 AM Forget it Kendall. You are just NOT my type. troll***BG*** |
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