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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Sept. 15 event draft poster

What I learned this year

1. Shit happens. Try as you might to perceive it as roses--or reconceive its odor as pleasant--or realize that it is a part of the universe that is as necessary as any other part--or what have you--it's shit and it stinks and you'd rather not have to deal with it. It's normal to feel sad and angry about that.
   

   
   

2. When--not if--it happens, you have to deal with it. Ignoring it is also a way of dealing with it. Depending on the problem, ignoring it may have serious long-term consequences. But you can (and often should) ignore it, between the other steps of dealing with it. Keep living your life and enjoying whatever segments or aspects of it remain enjoyable.
   

   
   

3. Worrying is not dealing with it. Worrying is natural but should be minimized because it is only storytelling about possibilities that will later reveal themselves as realities or not. Such storytelling is exhausting and only takes energy that you will need later to deal with the realities. And of course the bad realities might not even happen, in which case the whole storytelling time has been (mis)spent on creating something terrible and false.
   

   
   

4. Worrying about shit that someone else has to deal with is the ultimate waste of time and energy that you could use to help and comfort them. It is natural to worry about people you love. Minimize it, and love them instead.
   

Elect / shun

Voting to retain three of the Iowa Supreme Court justices who ruled for equal marriage rights was the only reason I voted in this fall's election at all. It was a strategic mistake on "our" side not to campaign for them, in the name of "not politicizing the judiciary." That ship had f'in' sailed. Lots of outside money came into the state specifically to defeat gay marriage--and the voters motivated by that issue also likely voted for the return of Terror Braindead and the takeover by the Reps.

So once again the Dums refuse to fight and are to their never-ending surprise defeated in the fight. As for their idea of taking the high road--by all means. But not when the other side has already mined it with IEDs.

Life in one backward state of the Idiot Empire goes on. The election has exactly zero impact on what I consider my real political activity--what I do as an activist, not as a voter.

Poster possibility

College students were central to the divestment campaign that toppled apartheid South Africa in the 1980s and early 1990s. Now Palestinians and peace and justice activists around the world are calling for another campaign of boycotts, divestment, and sanctions to end a brutal Israeli occupation that is as old as many college students' parents.

ERIC RUDER is a writer and activist who has closely followed events in Israel/Palestine and the consequent development of the BDS movement. He will discuss why such a movement is necessary today to win justice for Palestinians and peace for Israel—and how students are once again leading the way.