email6.xml

email6.xml

born-digital

email

unknown

yes

2002-01-30

I received an email recently containing a famous quote relevant to the current tragedy. It started me thinking about a few choice quotes that I've enjoyed over the years that were also relevant. While it's all too easy for us to impulsively call for action or espouse our own personal agenda, I prefer to hear what great thinkers have to say on such important subjects. With this in mind, I began jotting down these random thoughts in this email.

After my initial shock over the tragedy subsided, I searched for some mental foothold from which to start climbing my way back to reality. Like many, my first reaction was to look for blood. Since movies seem to provide the only references even close to this situation, it's not surprising that our brains conjure up movie scenes. One New Yorker who saw the planes crash into the WTC noted how realistic the movie special effects really are. How lucky we have been in this country that that is the closest that most of us have ever been to a large explosion.

This quote from Pulp Fiction seems to sum-up my initial reaction to the madness:
I don't wanna hear about no motherfuckin' "ifs." What I wanna hear from your ass is: "you ain't got no problems, Jules. I'm on the motherfucker. Go back in there, chill them niggas out and wait for the cavalry, which should be comin' di-rectly."

Even if our military might is the metaphoric cavalry, what can they really do? Who or what can they blow-up that will eliminate this kind of terrorism? It felt good to dream of lashing out and decimating what I thought was the source of this evil. As such I wanted to go along with the calls I heard to nuke Afghanistan and turn it into a parking lot.

Once my initial anger diminished however, I instead became much more interested in finding some explanation, some wisdom, some sense of what happened and what we should do.

I've kept the following two quotes over the years because I've never been able to understand religious wars, particularly in the Middle East. I still don't; but I never thought that that fighting would extend onto American soil.

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."
-- Blaise Pascal

"You're basically killing each other to see who's got the better imaginary friend."
-- Yasir Arrafat (PLO leader) referring to the foolishness of religious wars.

Now that we are awash in a confusing cacophony of opinion -- some sound, some vitriolic -- words and metphors get stretched until their meaning is almost lost. Things like terrorism, courage, patriotism, humanity, justice and tragedy have a different meaning to me than they did a few weeks ago.

This Newsweek article helped me find some rational thought in all the noise.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/629514.asp?cp1=1

This patriotic quote >>below<< gave me some perspective -- I wish President Bush could have been this eloquent; although he has done a little better with practice.

>> "It is our obligation to our dead -- it is our sacred obligation to their children and to our children -- that we must never forget what we have learned. And what we have learned is this:

There is no such thing as security for any nation -- or any individual -- in a world ruled by the principles of gangsterism. There is no such thing as impregnable defense against powerful aggressors who sneak up in the dark and strike without warning.

We have learned that our ocean-girt hemisphere is not immune from severe attack -- that we cannot measure our safety in terms of miles on any map any more.

We may acknowledge that our enemies have performed a brilliant feat of deception, perfectly timed and executed with great skill. It was a thoroughly dishonorable deed, but we must face the fact that modern warfare as conducted in [this] manner is a dirty business. We don't like it -- we didn't want to get in it -- but we are in it and we're going to fight it with everything we've got."
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt DECEMBER 9, 1941 <<

Scarily, many are quick to call for sweeping legislation to restrict our freedoms or the freedoms of certain races/ethnicities in our country. I realize that some change is warranted and we'll have to adjust to a more limited idea of inalienable rights of independence but we need to control this to as little as possible - and I don't think that this can be done without a more careful deliberation. Remember what Benjamin Franklin said, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

This next section is from a group called In Defense of Freedom which has released a good starting point for this discussion:

>> In Defense of Freedom at a Time of Crisis

1. On September 11, 2001 thousands of people lost their lives in a brutal assault on the American
people and the American form of government. We mourn the loss of these innocent lives and insist
that those who perpetrated these acts be held accountable.

2. This tragedy requires all Americans to examine carefully the steps our country may now take to
reduce the risk of future terrorist attacks.

3. We need to consider proposals calmly and deliberately with a determination not to erode the
liberties and freedoms that are at the core of the American way of life.

4. We need to ensure that actions by our government uphold the principles of a democratic society,
accountable government and international law, and that all decisions are taken in a manner
consistent with the Constitution.

5. We can, as we have in the past, in times of war and of peace, reconcile the requirements of
security with the demands of liberty.

6. We should resist the temptation to enact proposals in the mistaken belief that anything that may
be called anti-terrorist will necessarily provide greater security.

7. We should resist efforts to target people because of their race, religion, ethnic background or
appearance, including immigrants in general, Arab Americans and Muslims.

8. We affirm the right of peaceful dissent, protected by the First Amendment, now, when it is most
at risk.

9. We should applaud our political leaders in the days ahead who have the courage to say that our
freedoms should not be limited.

10. We must have faith in our democratic system and our Constitution, and in our ability to protect
at the same time both the freedom and the security of all Americans. <<

Similarly, there is an understandable desire to greatly increase the powers of the government to surveil private citizens. This loss of privacy must be tempered with reason to ensure that we get significant value out of this stripping away of our most basic civil liberties.

"A policeman's job is only easy in a police state"
-- Orson Welles

Adversity such as this cuts to the core of what we stand for as a nation and what we stand for as human beings. Here our lives and freedoms are threatened by terrorist but the solutions being proferred involve limiting our liberty and reducing the quality of our lives. Who better to turn to than the great leaders throughout history who stood tall in the face of very similar fears and catastrophes. I'd like to learn from them to see if we can glean some of their wisdom.

"The real Art of Peace is not to sacrifice a single one of your warriors to defeat an enemy. Vanquish your foes by always keeping yourself in a safe and unassailable position; then no one will suffer any losses. The Way of a Warrior, the Art of Politics, is to stop trouble before it starts. It consists in defeating your adversaries spiritually by making them realize the folly of their actions. The Way of a Warrior is to establish harmony."
-- Morihei Ueshiba, The Art of Peace

It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness
-- Chinese Proverb

"The only response to violence is compassion."
-- Ghandi

... and even though I'm not what you'd call a "God-fearing man," the best response for me is this one...

"People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centered.
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you.
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight.
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, people may be jealous.
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough.
Give the world the best you've got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God.
It was never between you and them anyway."
-- Mother Teresa

Thanks for listening. Take good care.
Scott
"All that evil needs to succeed is for good people to do nothing."
"The key to happiness is freedom, the key to freedom is courage."

September 25

Random thoughts over the last few weeks