9/22/2001 e-mail exchange

Jean Fallow
09/22/2001 09:11 PM

Hi Julia,

Thanks for your message. That is encouraging to hear
about your family members being more enlightened this
time around.

There was an antiwar rally here in Seattle today
attended by, I would estimate, at least 1000 people.
It was really good to see all those people out there
-- I left feeling less hopeless, as there are really a
lot of good, thoughtful people in the world, and maybe
we can make a difference. I just wish we could stop
the bombs BEFORE they start falling, but I fear that a
lot of people are going to die before the movement
here gets big enough to have an impact.

Take care, and thanks for keeping in touch!

Froggie


--- Julia@___ wrote:
>
> Great job! I'm so glad you responded to that
> editorial.
>
> The other day on NPR, I heard Juan Williams call for
> retaliation,
> saying that "unreasonable times call for
> unreasonable responses" and
> that "the time for understanding [Arab/Muslim
> grievances] will come
> later." (You might be able to find the RealAudio on
> NPR's website; I
> think it was on the 14th or 15th.) I didn't expect
> that kind of
> scary, irrational rant from someone like him.
>
> On the other hand, I had the chance to go to the
> Oprah Winfrey show on
> Monday and was pleasantly surprised by the
> thoughtful -- even dovish
> -- sentiments of the white, middle-class, well-off
> women there. My
> comment (about the U.S. support of the Taliban and
> other repressive
> regimes) didn't make it onto the air, but got quite
> a bit of applause
> and a couple people coming up to thank me afterward.
> And the audience
> was unanimous in deploring racist attacks on Arabs
> and Muslims.
>
> Oprah Winfrey herself wasn't a lot of use; she
> started out calling for
> the media to tell us less (about Bush's whereabouts
> on the 11th, for
> instance) and later was outraged that they hadn't
> told us what we
> needed to know (about a germ warfare attack in the
> Northwest awhile
> back.) But she did ask how many more times
> Americans wanted to see
> this kind of destruction and killing, here or
> elsewhere, and she
> agreed strongly with the comment that these events
> "held a mirror up
> to ourselves and should make us think about our own
> actions." That
> was as close as she got -- as she ever gets -- to
> discussing politics.
>
> But I've also been pleasantly surprised by how much
> more receptive my
> family has been to my arguments this time around
> than they were during
> the Gulf War. I'm not watching much network news so
> maybe my
> perceptions are distorted, but I'm getting the
> impression that a lot
> of people realize at least that a war like this
> could get very, very
> ugly very fast. I think maybe Americans don't need
> a lot of
> persuading that the U.S. shouldn't be in the
> business of running other
> people's countries -- especially if it means their
> sons getting
> killed. My younger sister, who is not a radical by
> any stretch of the
> imagination and who usually reacts to my arguments
> very angrily, has
> actually been making them to me!
>
> Of course, the threat is so great that I'm nowhere
> close to being
> complacent. The media won't help our side so we all
> have to keep
> speaking out the way you're doing. If only we could
> all do it so
> well! Keep up the great work, Froggie.
>
>
>
>
> ______________________________ Reply Separator
> _________________________________
> Subject: Back in the USA, and letter to editor
> Author: Jean Fallow at internet
> Date: 9/21/2001 10:47 AM
>
>
> Dear All:
>
> I made it back to the US safely the day before
> yesterday. Being on a plane was incredibly scary --
> I
> kept thinking about how awful it would be to die the
>
> way all those people did in the planes that crashed
> into the World Trade Center and Pentagon. I thought
>
> about how random it is that the people who died
> died,
> while I am safe, and how I or anyone I know could
> just
> as easily have been one of them.
>
> At the same time, I have been really disgusted by
> the
> aggressive, militaristic reaction of Bush and the
> Congress' slobbering approval, with only one
> dissenting vote in the House, of his proposal to
> react
> with even more violence.
>
> Below is an editorial that especially bothered me,
> and
> a letter I wrote in response. The writer basically
> rejects the idea of critical thinking in favor of a
> more facile conclusion: "We are right and they are
> evil. End of story." I think if Americans can't
> think more clearly than this, we're all doomed. I
> hope we can all speak up and take action to put the
> brakes on our insane government, even though it
> seems
> like what's being put in motion will be very hard to
>
> stop.
>
> Love,
> Froggie
>
>
>
-----------------------------------------------------
>
> Editorials & Opinion : Thursday, September 20, 2001
>
> Leonard Pitts Jr. / Syndicated columnist
> Don't dignify these terrorists by beating yourselves
>
> up
>
> Let's get something straight.
>
> The events of Sept. 11 did not happen because we did
>
> something wrong. Or because we somehow "deserved"
> them.
>
> In recent days, I've heard that argument or
> variations
> thereof from several friends and dozens of e-mail
> correspondents. This must be what "they" feel like
> when we bomb "them," says one. Perhaps they acted
> out
> of deep hurt, says another. Maybe this is necessary
> payback for American arrogance, says yet another.
> And
> then, of course, there's the ever-reliable Jerry
> Falwell, who said on "The 700 Club" last week that
> the
> attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon
> represent God's verdict on gay rights, feminism,
> abortion and the ACLU.
>
> In a word, no. To all of the above, to all the
> tortured reflection and moral distress: no. Hell no.
>
>
> I'm not naive. I understand that my government has
> sometimes dirtied its hands in foreign affairs. For
> that matter, it has done the same in domestic
> affairs.
> So I recognize and accept that some people might
> have
> legitimate reason for animosity toward this country.
>
>
> But guess what? For all our faults, we don't drive
> planeloads of noncombatants into buildings filled
> with
> same. We don't willfully rain carnage upon
> civilians.
> And we don't dance in the street when innocents die.
>
>
> When forced to take up arms, we attempt to limit our
>
> military actions to military targets. Yes, innocents
>
> sometimes die regardless of our best intentions. But
>
> for all our transgressions, we don't sanction the
> murder of those who have neither the capacity nor
> the
> intention to harm us.
>
> That's what our enemies did. And no matter how
> righteous your cause, when you support it by means
> of
> wanton slaughter, you forfeit any claim to the moral
>
>
=== message truncated ===


=====
"The choice today is no longer between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence."

-- Martin Luther King Jr., 1960

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