randomWalks

Our leaders have described the recent atrocity with the customary cliche: mindless cowardice. "Mindless" may be a suitable word for the vandalising of a telephone box. It is not helpful for understanding what hit New York on September 11. Those people were not mindless and they were certainly not cowards. On the contrary, they had sufficiently effective minds braced with an insane courage, and it would pay us mightily to understand where that courage came from.

originally posted by xowie

i am about to go buy a flag to put in front of my parent's house so that you don't think that my family is anti american. we are very american, we love being here in america, we love everything american, it's people, it's land, it's culture (s), it's freedom, it's wide variety of choices for professions, everything about it. we loved it before we came here, and learned to love it more after coming here. but i am getting the flag merely to keep people wanting to hurt my family, from questioning how american they are, because they look different. having the flag does not make me love america more, it just means that i have a flag in front of my house. -- MetaFilter post

"Does anybody think that we can send the USS New Jersey to lob Volkswagon-sized shells into Lebanese villages -- Reagan, 1983 -- or loose 'smart bombs' on civilians seeking shelter in a Baghdad bunker -- Bush, 1991 -- or fire cruise missiles on a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory -- Clinton, 1999 -- and not receive, someday, our share in kind?" History did not begin on September 11.

originally posted by xowie

The Voice is back. The “wailing wall” at the V.A. Hospital, plus flyers of missing people.

originally posted by xowie

“Responding to Terrorism”: A Compendium of Articles from the Alternative Media collected by Utne Reader Online.

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?

Powerful commentary by Robert Fisk.

originally posted by xowie

"We should be careful when we use those analogies. If I ever used war analogies, I apologize. Football is not war." - Ray Brown.

originally posted by xowie

Take a peek at photojournalist Raku Loren’s What’s Really Going On.

Statement of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)

originally posted by xowie

Our government has a bad record in its ‘wars’ against such ill-defined enemies as poverty or drugs. Terrorism in the modern world is effected across many borders and its remediation requires analogous forms of cooperation. ‘War’ may sanction actions that increase our insecurity and vulnerability. War does not easily coexist with justice despite the best efforts to elaborate just war theory. War seeks the destruction of the other rather than efforts to find the best ways in which to coexist with those who are different.

originally posted by xowie

Devastating hi-res photos by Sara K. Schwittek, Brooklyn, N.Y.

originally posted by xowie

Argentina: 2 missing Australia: 9 confirmed dead, 85 missing Bangladesh: 50 confirmed, more missing Belgium: 60 missing Brazil: 5 missing Canada: 2 confirmed, 100 missing (est) Chile: 1 missing China: 4 confirmed, 30 missing Colombia: 6 confirmed, 116 missing Denmark: 5 missing Dominican Republic: 3 missing Egypt: 1 confirmed, 3 missing El Salvador: 1 confirmed, 18 missing Finland: 7 missing France: 81 missing Germany: 4 confirmed, 700 missing India: 250 missing Indonesia: 1 confirmed, 1 missing Ireland: 4 confirmed Israel: 1 confirmed, 150 missing Italy: 8 missing Japan: 2 confirmed, 100 missing Lebanon: 1 confirmed, 2 missing Malaysia: 7 missing Mexico: 150-500 missing (est) Norway: 1 missing Pakistan: 3 confirmed, more missing Paraguay: 2 missing Peru: 5 missing Philippines: 7 missing Portugal: 3 confirmed, 20 missing Puerto Rico: 1 missing South Africa: 1 confirmed, 2 missing South Korea: 1 confirmed, 27 missing Spain: 9 missing Sweden: 1 missing Switzerland: 4 confirmed, 10 missing Taiwan: 9 missing United Kingdom: 100 confirmed, 200 missing (est) Zimbabwe: 6 missing

originally posted by xowie

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.

What would happen if instead of bombs, we instead bombed them with food and those 45 words?

originally posted by xowie

Noelle: Will this bring peace?

Admiral Carroll: We can inflict grave damage, but it will not bring peace, it will not end terrorism, it may even exacerbate it. We will lose the sympathy shown around the world. We should make Americans safe from terrorism by reducing the motives. Terrorism arises out of abject poverty and hopelessness. If I can't protect my children, if I see my family dying around me, I become a terrorist out of a feeling of sheer helplessness. Without any hope for the future, they give their lives.

originally posted by xowie

If we are to make progress as a civilization—or, more critically, survive as a species—we face the stark choice of either building a new global culture of compassion or continuing to ignore or support our current system's cultivation of inequality, militarism and the degradation of human life where economic and social decisions are guided only by market values. Without fundamental change, the forces who see violence as the only method to address legitimate grievances, symbolized in the carnage of lower Manhattan and along the Potomoc, will inevitably grow and become more destructive in this noxious environment.

originally posted by xowie

[Friday's Congressional resolution is not] based on a quest for justice. It is an open-ended invitation to attack anyone U.S. leaders decide to target. And those leaders -- Dick Cheney and Colin Powell among them -- are some of the same people who during the Gulf War unleashed attacks not only on military targets but on civilians and the entire civilian infrastructure of Iraq, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people during and after the war. This resolution, and the statements from the Bush administration about an ongoing global war, suggest that what is coming will be even more frightening.

originally posted by xowie

One target of operation "Infinite Reach" was bin Laden's paramilitary camp in Afghanistan. "The U.S. picked the highly accurate cruise missile for the strikes against the Afghan camp," reported CNN's military correspondent Jamie McIntrye, "because of their ability to fly with pinpoint accuracy." One of the missiles was so inaccurate it hit the wrong country, Pakistan, several hundred miles off-course.

originally posted by xowie

War Against the Planet by Vijay Prashad, Fearing strikes, Afghans flee Kabul by Amir Shah, Bush’s Faustian Deal With the Taliban by Robert Scheer.

originally posted by xowie

Any explanation of Middle Eastern violence that relies upon the notion that Islam is an inherently violent or inherently anti-Western religion is false and misleading. First, Islam is one of the world's largest and most diverse religions and like Christianity or Judaism there are thousands of views within Islam about the religion and also about violence and the West. Secondly, there are major differences even among explicitly Muslim militants and activists regarding these issues - some insist upon non-violent struggle and others regard violence as a legitimate tool. There is no way one can generalize about Islam or any religion for that matter.

originally posted by xowie

In response to Tuesday’s terrorist attacks, Clear Channel, the world’s largest radio network, has sent out a list of some 150 "lyrically questionable" songs by everyone from the Animals to the Zombies to its radio stations, recommending that the songs not be aired.

originally posted by xowie

Suicide bombers are supposed to be 17-year-old zealots with nothing to live for but the hope of a martyr's welcome by 72 virgins in paradise. These men, the FBI reveals, lived middle-class lives, had degrees and jobs and wives and kids and a willingness to leave them all to kill us. Among the casualties last week was our sweet certainty that anyone lucky enough to be able to live in America, share its vices and freedoms and gifts, surely would not want to destroy it.

originally posted by xowie

Felt by all the world.

originally posted by xowie

The simplistic stereotyping that goes on - equating Arabs and Muslims - must stop. Two-thirds of Arab Americans are, actually, Christian. And up to three-fourths of the U.S. Muslim population is not Arab.

Now what does this word Islam mean? Oh, wow, it comes from the word salaam, which means peace. Suddenly, it was dawning. Hey! Didn't I once write a song called Peace Train? It was fast becoming clear that I was now being confronted with something much greater than I had originally anticipated: possibly - the Truth!

Truly, our hearts bleed for the attacks that have targeted the World Trade Center (WTC) as well as other institutions in the United States despite our strong opposition to the American-biased policy towards Israel on the military, political and economic fronts. Islam, the religion of tolerance, holds the human soul in high esteem, and considers an attack against innocent human beings a grave sin. This is backed by the Qur’anic verse which reads: "Whosoever kills a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if be had killed all mankind, and whosoever saves the life of one, it shall be as if he had: saved the life of all mankind." (Al-Ma’dah:32)

originally posted by xowie

Altered city. Brief interview with Angus Kress Gillespie. How little kids are handling it. Raw thoughts. No more illusions. We need the rule of law, not the rule of war. Perseverance amid 450,000 tons of debris. Now more than ever. Fallout.

originally posted by xowie

Remember when you didn’t know?