Next message: Rick the Mouseherder: "RE: lv-ab: Anchors"
> Leonard Pitts, The Miami Herald Published
>Wednesday, September 12, 2001
> We'll go forward from this moment It's my job to have something to say.
>They pay me to provide words that help make sense
>of that which troubles the American soul. But in this moment of airless
>shock when hot tears sting disbelieving eyes, the only thing I can find
>to say, the only words that seem to fit, must be addressed to the
>unknown author of this suffering.You monster. You beast. You unspeakable
>bastard. What lesson did you hope to teach us by your
>coward's attack on our World Trade Center, our Pentagon, us? What was it
>you hoped we would learn? Whatever it was, please know that you failed.
>Did you want us to respect your cause? You just damned your cause. Did
>you want to make us fear? You just steeled our resolve.
>Did you want to tear us apart? You just brought us together.
>Let me tell you about my people. We are a vast and
>quarrelsome family, a family rent by racial, social, political and class
>division, but a family nonetheless. We're frivolous, yes, capable of
>expending tremendous emotional energy on pop cultural minutiae -- a
>singer's
>revealing dress, a ball team's misfortune, a cartoon mouse. We're
>wealthy, too, spoiled by the ready availability of trinkets and material
>goods, and maybe because of that, we walk through life with a certain
>sense of blithe entitlement. We are fundamentally decent,
>though -- peace-loving and compassionate. We struggle to know the right
>thing and to do it. And we are, the
>overwhelming majority of us,people of faith, believers in a just and
>loving God. Some people -- you, perhaps -- think that any or all of this
>makes us weak. You're mistaken. We are not weak. Indeed, we are strong
>in ways that cannot be measured by arsenals.
> IN PAIN
>Yes, we're in pain now. We are in mourning and we are in shock. We're
>still grappling with the unreality of the
>awful thing you did, still working to make ourselves understand that
>this isn't a special effect from some Hollywood blockbuster, isn't the
>plot development from a
>Tom Clancy novel. Both in terms of the awful scope
>of their ambition and the probable final death toll, your attacks are
>likely to go down as the worst acts of terrorism in the history of the
>United States and, probably, the history of the world. You've
>bloodied us as we have never been bloodied before. But there's a gulf of
>difference between making us bloody and making us fall. This is the
>lesson Japan was taught to
>its bitter sorrow the last time anyone hit us this hard, the last time
>anyone brought us such abrupt and monumental pain. When roused, we are
>righteous in our outrage, terrible in our force. When provoked by this
>level of barbarism, we will bear any suffering, pay any
>cost, go to any length,in the pursuit of justice.I tell you this without
>fear of contradiction. I know my people, as you,I think, do not. What I
>know reassures me. It also
>causes me to tremble with dread of the future.In the days to come, there
>will be recrimination and accusation,
>fingers pointing to determine whose failure allowed this to happen and
>what can be done to prevent it from happening again. There will be
>heightened security, misguided talk of revoking basic freedoms. We'll go
>forward from this moment sobered,
>chastened, sad. But determined, too. Unimaginably determined.
> THE STEEL IN US
>
>You see, the steel in us is not always readily
>apparent. That aspect of our character is seldom understood by people
>who don't know us well. On this day, the family's bickering is put on
>hold. As Americans we will weep, as Americans we will mourn, and as
>Americans, we will rise in defense of all that we cherish.
>So I ask again: What was it you hoped to teach us?
>It occurs to me that maybe you just wanted us to know the depths of your
>hatred. If that's the case, consider the message received. And take this
>message in exchange: You don't know my people. You don't know what we're
>capable of. You don't know what you just started.
>
> But you're about to learn.
>
Paul Saltzman
Field Superintendent
Engineering Department
Office (718) 430-2808, Fax (718) 430-8940
Voice Mail (718) 430-2711
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