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#11200 - 04/12/02 08:01 AM
U.S. Letter to Europeans
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Chez
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U.S. Letter to Europeans
by Many Signatories
April 10, 2002
LETTER FROM UNITED STATES CITIZENS TO FRIENDS IN EUROPE
The central fallacy of the pro-war celebrants is the equation between "American values" as understood at home and the exercise of United States economic and especially military power abroad.
* * * *
Following the 11 September 2001 suicide attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, U.S. President George W. Bush has declared an open-ended "war on terrorism". This war has no apparent limits, in place, time or the extent of destruction that may be inflicted. There is no telling which country may be suspected of hiding "terrorists" or declared to be part of an "axis of evil". The eradication of "evil" could last much longer than the world can withstand the destructive force to be employed. The Pentagon is already launching bombs described as producing the effect of earthquakes and is officially considering the use of nuclear weapons, among other horrors in its constantly improving arsenal.
The material destruction envisaged is immeasurable. So is the human damage, not only in terms of lives, but also in terms of the moral desperation and hatred that are certain to be felt by millions of people who can only watch helplessly as their world is devastated by a country, the United States, which assumes that its moral authority is as absolute and unchallengeable as its military power.
We, as United States citizens, have a special responsibility to oppose this mad rush to war. You, as Europeans, also have a special responsibility. Most of your countries are military allies of the United States within NATO. The United States claims to act in self-defense, but also to defend "the interests of its allies and friends". Your countries will inevitably be implicated in U.S. military adventures. Your future is also in jeopardy.
Many informed people both within and outside your governments are aware of the dangerous folly of the war path followed by the Bush administration. But few dare speak out honestly. They are intimidated by the various forms of retaliation that can be taken against "friends" and "allies" who fail to provide unquestioning support. They are afraid of being labeled "anti-American" -- the same label absurdly applied to Americans themselves who speak out against war policies and whose protests are easily drowned out in the chorus of chauvinism dominating the U.S. media. A sane and frank European criticism of the Bush administration's war policy can help anti-war Americans make their voices heard.
Celebrating power may be the world's oldest profession among poets and men of letters. As supreme world power, the United States naturally attracts its celebrants who urge the nation's political leaders to go ever farther in using their military might to impose virtue on a recalcitrant world. The theme is age-old and forever the same: the goodness of the powerful should be extended to the powerless by the use of force.
The central fallacy of the pro-war celebrants is the equation between "American values" as understood at home and the exercise of United States economic and especially military power abroad.
Self-celebration is a notorious feature of United States culture, perhaps as a useful means of assimilation in an immigrant society. Unfortunately, September 11 has driven this tendency to new extremes. Its effect is to reinforce a widespread illusion among U.S. citizens that the whole world is fixated, in admiration or in envy, on the United States as it sees itself: prosperous, democratic, generous, welcoming, open to all races and religions, the epitome of universal human values and the last best hope of mankind.
In this ideological context, the question raised after September 11, "Why do they hate us?" has only one answer: "Because we are so good!" Or, as is commonly claimed, they hate us because of "our values".
Most U.S. citizens are unaware that the effect of U.S. power abroad has nothing to do with the "values" celebrated at home, and indeed often serves to deprive people in other countries of the opportunity to attempt to enjoy them should they care to do so.
In Latin America, Africa and Asia, U.S. power has more often than not been used to prop up the remnants of colonial regimes and unpopular dictators, to impose devastating commercial and financial conditions, to support repressive armed forces, to overthrow or cripple by sanctions relatively independent governments, and finally to send bombers and cruise missiles to rain down death and destruction.
The "Right of Self-Defense"
(1) Whose right?
Since September 11, the United States feels under attack. As a result its government claims a "right to self-defense" enabling it to wage war on its own terms, as it chooses, against any country it designates as an enemy, without proof of guilt or legal procedure.
Obviously, such a "right of self-defense" never existed for countries such as Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Libya, Sudan or Yugoslavia when they were bombed by the United States. Nor will it be recognized for countries bombed by the United States in the future. This is simply the right of the strongest, the law of the jungle. Exercising such a "right", denied all others, cannot serve "universal values" but only undermines the very concept of a world order based on universal values with legal recourse open to all on a basis of equality.
A "right" enjoyed only by one entity -- the most powerful -- is not a right but a privilege exercised only to the detriment of the rights of others.
(2) How is the United States to "defend" itself?
Supposedly in self-defense, the United States launched a war against Afghanistan. This was not an action specially designed to respond to the unique events of September 11. On the contrary, it was exactly what the United States was already doing, and had already planned to do, as outlined in Pentagon documents: bomb other countries, send military forces onto foreign soil and topple their governments. The United States is openly planning an all-out war -- not excluding use of nuclear weapons -- against Iraq, a country it has been bombing for a decade, with the proclaimed aim of replacing its government with leaders selected by Washington.
(3) Precisely what is being "defended"?
What is being defended is related to what was attacked.
Traditionally, "defense" means defense of national territory. On September 11, an attack actually took place on and against U.S. territory. This was not a conventional attack by a major power designed to seize territory. Rather, it was an anonymous strike against particular targeted institutions. In the absence of any claim of responsibility, the symbolic nature of the targets may have been assumed to be self-explanatory. The World Trade Center clearly symbolized U.S. global economic power, while the Pentagon represented U.S. military power. Thus, it seems highly unlikely that the September 11 attacks were symbolically directed against "American values" as celebrated in the United States.
Rather, the true target seems to have been U.S.economic and military power as it is projected abroad. According to reports, 15 of the 19 identified hijackers were Saudi Arabians hostile to the presence of U.S. military bases on Saudi soil. September 11 suggests that the nation projecting its power abroad is vulnerable at home, but the real issue is U.S. intervention abroad. Indeed the Bush wars are designed precisely to defend and strengthen U.S. power abroad. It is U.S. global power projection that is being defended, not domestic freedoms and way of life.
In reality, foreign wars are more likely to undermine the domestic values cherished by civilians at home than to defend or spread them. But governments that wage aggressive wars always drum up domestic support by convincing ordinary people that war is necessary to defend or to spread noble ideas. The principal difference between the imperial wars of the past and the global thrust of the United States today is the far greater means of destruction available. The disproportion between the material power of destruction and the constructive power of human wisdom has never been more dangerously unbalanced. Intellectuals today have the choice of joining the chorus of those who celebrate brute force by rhetorically attaching it to "spiritual values", or taking up the more difficult and essential task of exposing the arrogant folly of power and working with the whole of humanity to create means of reasonable dialogue, fair economic relations and equal justice.
The right to self-defense must be a collective human right. Humanity as a whole has the right to defend its own survival against the "self-defense" of an unchecked superpower. For half a century, the United States has repeatedly demonstrated its indifference to the collateral death and destruction wrought by its self-proclaimed efforts to improve the world. Only by joining in solidarity with the victims of U.S. military power can we in the rich countries defend whatever universal values we claim to cherish.
LIST OF SIGNATURES (as of 10 April 2002)
Daphne Abeel, Journalist, Cambridge, MA.
Julie L. Abraham, Professor of English, New York City.
Michael Albert, ZNet, Boston.
Janet Kestenberg Amighi. Anthropologist, Hahneman University, Philadelphia.
Electa Arenal, Hispanic & Luso-Brazilian Literatures, City University of New York.
Anthony Arnove, Editor/Publisher, South End Press, Boston.
Stanley Aronowitz, Center for Cultural Studies, City University of New York.
Dean Baker, economist, Center for Economic and Policy Research, Washington, DC
Houston A. Baker, Jr., Duke University, Durham, NC.
David Barsamian, Director, Alternative Radio, Boulder, CO.
Rosalyn Baxandall, Chair, American Studies at SUNY-Old Westbury.
Medea Benjamin, Founding Director, Global Exchange, San Francisco.
Dick Bennett, Professor Emeritus, University of Arkansas.
Larry Bensky, KPFA/Pacifica Radio.
Norman Birnbaum, Professor Emeritus, Georgetown University Law Center
Joel Bleifuss, Editor, In These Times, Chicago
Chana Bloch, Professor of English, Mills College.
William Blum, author, Washington, DC.
Magda Bogin, Writer, Columbia University.
Patrick Bond, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.
Charles P. Boyer, Professor of Mathematics, University of New Mexico
Francis A. Boyle, Professor of International Law, University of Illinois.
Gray Brechin, Department of Geography, University of California, Berkeley.
Renate Bridenthal, Professor Emerita of History, The City University of New York.
Linda Bullard, environmentalist, USA/ Europe.
Judith Butler, University of California, Berkeley.
Bob Buzzanco, Professor of History, University of Houston.
Helen Caldicott, pediatrician, author, founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility.
John Cammett, historian, New York.
Stephanie M.H. Camp, Assistant Professor of History, University of Washington.
Ward Churchill, Author, Boulder, CO.
John P. Clark, Professor of Philosophy, Loyola University, New Orleans.
Dan Coughlin, Radio Executive Director, Washington, DC.
Sandi Cooper, historian, New York. Lawrence Davidson, Professor of Middle East history, West Chester University, PA
David Devine, Professor of English, Paris, France.
Douglas Dowd, economist, Bologna, San Francisco.
Madhu Dubey, Professor, English and Africana Studies, Brown University
Richard B. Du Boff, Bryn Mawr College, PA.
Peter Erlinder, Past President, National Lawyers Guild, Law Professor, St. Paul, MN.
Francis Feeley, Professor of American Studies, Université Stendhal, Grenoble.
Richard Flynn, of Literature and Philosophy, Georgia Southern University.
Michael S. Foley, Assistant Professor of History, City University of New York.
John Bellamy Foster, Eugene, OR.
H. Bruce Franklin, Professor of English and American Studies, Rutgers University
Jane Franklin, Author and historian, Montclair, NJ.
Oscar H. Gandy, Jr., Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania.
Jamshed Ghandhi, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Larry Gross, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania.
Beau Grosscup, Professor of International Relations, CSU Chico, CA.
Zalmay Gulzad, Professor of Asian-American Studies, Loyola University, Chicago.
Thomas J. Gumbleton, Auxiliary Bishop, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit.
Marilyn Hacker, Professor of English, The City College of New York
Robin Hahnel, Professor of Economics, American University, Washington, DC.
Edward S. Herman, economist and media analyst, Philadelphia.
Marc W. Herold, University of New Hampshire.
John L. Hess, Journalist and correspondent, New York City.
David U. Himmelstein, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
W.G . Huff, University of Glasgow.
Adrian Prentice Hull, California State University, Monterey Bay
Marsha Hurst, Director, Health Advocacy Program, Sarah Lawrence College, NY.
David Isles, Associate Prof. of Mathematics, Tufts University, Medford, MA.
Robert Jensen, School of Journalism, University of Texas. Diana Johnstone, journalist, Paris, France. John Jonik, Political Cartoonist/Activist, Philadelphia.
Louis Kampf, Professor Emeritus of Literature, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Mary Kaye, Professor of Fine Arts, Art Institute of Boston,
Lesley University. Douglas Kellner, University of California, Los Angeles.
Michael King, Senior News Editor, The Austin Chronicle, TX.
Gabriel Kolko, author, Amsterdam.
Joyce Kolko, author, Amsterdam.
Claudia Koonz, history professor, Duke University, NC.
Joel Kovel, Bard College. Marilyn Krysl, writer, University of Colorado.
Mark Lance, Philosophy, Justice and Peace, Georgetown University.
Ann J. Lane, University of Virginia.
Karen Latuchie, book editor, New Jersey.
Peggy Law. Executive Director, International Media Project, Oakland, CA.
Amy Schrager Lang, Associate Professor of American Studies, Cambridge, MA.
Helena Lewis, Historian, Harvard University Humanities Center.
Dave Lindorff, Journalist, Maple Glen, Pennsylvania.
Eric Lott, Professor of English, University of Virginia.
Angus Love, Esq., Narberth, PA.
David MacMichael, Director, Association of National Security Alumni, Washington, DC.
Harry Magdoff, co-editor, Monthly Review, New York City.
Sanjoy Mahajan, physicist, University of Cambridge, England.
Michael Marcus, Dept. of Mathematics, City College, NY.
Robert McChesney, University of Illinois.
Jo Ann McNamara, Historian Emerita, Hunter College, NY.
Arthur Mitzman, Emeritus Professor of Modern History, University of Amsterdam.
Margaret E. Montoya, Professor, Schjool of Law, University of New Mexico
Robert Naiman, Center for Economic and Policy Research, Washington, DC.
Marilyn Nelson, Poet/Professor, University of Connecticut.
Suzanne Oboler, University of Illinois, Chicago. Bertell Ollman, Department of Politics, New York University.
Alicia Ostriker, Professor of English, Rutgers University, NJ.
Christian Parenti, author, New College of California.
Michael Parenti, author, Berkeley, CA..
Mark Pavlick, Georgetown University, Washington, DC.
Michael Perelman, Professor of Economics, Chico State University, CA.
Jeff Perlstein, Executive Director, Media Alliance, San Francisco.
David Peterson, writer and researcher, Chicago.
James Petras, State University of New York, Binghamton.
Joan Pinkham, Translator, Amherst, MA.
Lawrence Pinkham, Professor Emeritus of Journalism, University of Massachusetts.
Cathie Platt, Licensed Professional Counselor, Charlottesville, VA.
Gordon Poole, Istituto Universitario Orientale, Naples, Italy.
Douglas Porpora, Professor of Sociology, Drexel University, Philadelphia.
Larry Portis, American Studies, Université
Paul Valéry, Montpellier, France.
Ellen Ray, Institute for Media Analysis, New York City.
Elton Rayack, Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Rhode Island.
Lillian S. Robinson, Simone de Beauvoir Institute, Concordia University, Montreal.
Rick Rozoff, medical social worker, Chicago.
Albert Ruben, writer.
Sten Rudstrom, Theater Artist, Berlin
William H. Schaap, Institute for Media Analysis, New York City.
Ellen Schrecker, Yeshiva University, New York City.
Gretchen Seifert, artist and photographer, Chicago
Anne Shaver, Professor Emerita of English, Denison University, OH.
Gerald E. Shenk, Social & Behavioral Sciences Center, California
State University, Seaside.
Mary Shepard, media critic, St Paul, Minnesota.
Francis Shor, professor, Wayne State University, MI.
Robert M. Smith, Brandywine Peace Community, Swarthmore, PA.
Alan Sokal, Professor of Physics, New York University.
Norman Solomon, author and syndicated columnist, San Francisco.
William S. Solomon, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ.
Sarah Standefer, nurse, Minneapolis, MN.
Abraham Sussman, Clinical Psychologist, Cambridge, MA.
Malcolm Sylvers, University of Venice, Italy.
Paul M. Sweezy, co-editor, Monthly Review, New York City.
Holly Thau, Psychotherapist, Oregon. Reetika Vazirani, Writer, New Jersey.
Gore Vidal, writer, Los Angeles Joe Volk, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Washington, DC.
Lynne Walker, Historian, London.
Karin Wilkins, University of Texas at Austin.
Howard Winant, Temple University, Philadelphia.
Steffie Woolhandler, MD, MPH, Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
George Wright, Department of Political Science, California State University, Chico.
Howard Zinn, writer, Boston, MA.
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#11202 - 04/12/02 11:08 AM
Re: U.S. Letter to Europeans
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shaggybear
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Registered: 03/27/01
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apologize for focusing on the point that interest me, butit make me wonder bout my likkle earthquake conspiracy theory that some people was a laugh after as ridiculous.
The Pentagon is already launching bombs described as producing the effect of earthquakes and is officially considering the use of nuclear weapons, among other horrors in its constantly improving arsenal.
_________________________
Obama/Biden 2008 - Because we need people who actually think running the show.
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#11203 - 04/12/02 12:21 PM
Re: U.S. Letter to Europeans
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Chez
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Then shaggy, why do you think I highlighted the word earthquake in the first post?
I know you would get back to that, bro.
Nuff people ready to laugh too quick. I don't know if it is possible but I would not rule it out at all.
I know for a fact that scientists can create rain by seeding clouds with silver iodide.
Walk good!!
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#11204 - 04/12/02 06:05 PM
Re: U.S. Letter to Europeans
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truetrini
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I hope that you took notice! There is a name missing from the list of illustrious illuminati who signed that letter.
Mine!
These jokers are little children with their idealistic views. time to grow up kiddies!
_________________________
Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
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#11206 - 04/13/02 07:55 PM
Re: U.S. Letter to Europeans
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jt
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Hurt quake...
Yu dun de place wid that report deh chez!
_________________________
They make the world so hard
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#11207 - 04/14/02 03:27 PM
Re: U.S. Letter to Europeans
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truetrini
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My "ignorance" hehehehehehe!
Chez, Bush is ah freemason!
_________________________
Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
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#11208 - 04/14/02 09:31 PM
Re: U.S. Letter to Europeans
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truetrini
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Self-celebration is a notorious feature of United States culture, perhaps as a useful means of assimilation in an immigrant society. Unfortunately, September 11 has driven this tendency to new extremes. Its effect is to reinforce a widespread illusion among U.S. citizens that the whole world is fixated, in admiration or in envy, on the United States as it sees itself: prosperous, democratic, generous, welcoming, open to all races and religions, the epitome of universal human values and the last best hope of mankind.
Unfortunately that is a true synopsis of how most view the US..not a falsehood, nor a delusion, a mere fact!
_________________________
Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
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#11211 - 04/16/02 10:51 AM
Re: U.S. Letter to Europeans
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G.
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Chez give the man a chance to work out the complex crossword puzzle..........nuh
Self-celebration is a notorious notorious notorious notorious feature of United States culture, perhaps as a useful means of assimilation in an immigrant society. Unfortunately, September 11 has driven this tendency to new extremes. Its effect is to reinforce a widespread illusion among U.S. citizens that the whole world is fixated, in admiration or in envy, on the United States as it sees itself: prosperous, democratic, generous, welcoming, open to all races and religions, the epitome of universal human values and the last best hope of mankind.
Unfortunately that is a true synopsis of how most view the US..not a falsehood, nor a delusion, a mere fact!
_________________________
In absence of the gold standard there is no way to protect savings from confiscation thru inflation
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#11212 - 04/16/02 05:59 PM
Re: U.S. Letter to Europeans
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truetrini
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Illuminati=poppycock
Bush=freemason Factual!
Now what?
_________________________
Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
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#11213 - 04/16/02 06:14 PM
Re: U.S. Letter to Europeans
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Anonymous
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I think I'm forming an opinion....or should I say re-forming! 
HL 
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#11214 - 04/16/02 09:38 PM
Re: U.S. Letter to Europeans
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truetrini
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Hey fellas, an old college buddy of mine
(he is a jew), sent me this article written by one of our professors of Judaic studies.
A World Out of Touch With Itself:
Where the Violence Comes From
by Rabbi Michael Lerner
Editor, TIKKUN Magazine
There is never any justification for acts of terror against innocent civilians — not in Israel and not in the U.S. — it is the quintessential act of dehumanization and not recognizing the sanctity of others, and a visible symbol of a world increasingly irrational and out of control.
It's understandable why many of us, after grieving and consoling the mourners, feel anger. Unfortunately, demagogues in the White House and Congress have manipulated our legitimate outrage and channeled it into a new militarism and a revival of the deepest held belief of the conservative world-view: that the world is mostly a dangerous place and our lives must be based around protecting ourselves from the threatening others.
In this case, terrorism provides a perfect base for this worldview — it can come from anywhere, we don't really know who is the enemy, and so everyone can be suspect and everyone can be a target of our fear-induced rage. With this as a foundation, the Bush team has been able to turn this terrible and outrageous attack into a justification for massive military spending, a new war and the inevitable trappings: repression of civil liberties, denigration of "evil others," and a new climate of fear and intimidation against anyone who doesn't join this misuse of patriotism toward distorted ends.
Of course, the people who did this attack are evil and they are a real threat to the human race. If they could, they would use nuclear weapons or chemical/biological weapons. The perpetrators deserve to be punished, and I personally would be happy if all the people involved in this act were to be imprisoned for the rest of their lives. But that is quite different from talk about "eliminating countries" which we heard from Colin Powell in the days after the attack. Punishing the perpetrators is different from making war against whole populations.
The narrow focus on the perpetrators allows us to avoid dealing with the underlying issues. When violence becomes so prevalent throughout the planet, it's too easy to simply talk of "deranged minds." We need to ask ourselves, "What is it in the way that we are living, organizing our societies, and treating each other that makes violence seem plausible to so many people?" And why is it that our immediate response to violence is to use violence ourselves — thus reenforcing the cycle of violence in the world?
We in the spiritual world will see the root problem here as a growing global incapacity to recognize the spirit of God in each other — what we call the sanctity of each human being. But even if you reject religious language, you can see that the willingness of people to hurt each other to advance their own interests has become a global problem, and its only the dramatic level of this particular attack which distinguishes it from the violence and insensitivity to each other that is part of our daily lives.
We may tell ourselves that the current violence has "nothing to do" with the way that we've learned to close our ears when told that one out of every three people on this planet does not have enough food, and that one billion are literally starving.
We may reassure ourselves that the hoarding of the world's resources by the richest society in world history, and our frantic attempts to accelerate globalization with its attendant inequalities of wealth, has nothing to do with the resentment that others feel toward us.
We may tell ourselves that the suffering of refugees and the oppressed have nothing to do with us — that that's a different story that is going on somewhere else.
But we live in one world, increasingly interconnected with everyone, and the forces that lead people to feel outrage, anger and desperation eventually impact on our own daily lives.
The same inability to feel the pain of others is the pathology that shapes the minds of these terrorists. Raise children in circumstances where no one is there to take care of them, or where they must live by begging or selling their bodies in prostitution, put them in refugee camps and tell them that that they have "no right of return" to their homes, treat them as though they are less valuable and deserving of respect because they are part of some despised national or ethnic group, surround them with a media that extols the rich and makes everyone who is not economically successful and physically trim and conventionally "beautiful" feel bad about themselves, offer them jobs whose sole goal is to enrich the "bottom line" of someone else, and teach them that "looking out for number one" is the only thing anyone "really" cares about and that anyone who believes in love and social justice are merely naive idealists who are destined to always remain powerless, and you will produce a world-wide population of people feeling depressed, angry, unable to care about others, and in various ways dysfunctional.
I see this in Israel, where Israelis have taken to dismissing the entire Palestinian people as "terrorists" but never ask themselves: "What have we done to make this seem to Palestinians to be a reasonable path of action today." Of course there were always some hateful people and some religious fundamentalists who want to act in hurtful ways against Israel, no matter what the circumstances. Yet, in the situation of 1993-96 when Israel under Yitzhak Rabin was pursuing a path of negotiations and peace, the fundamentalists had little following and there were few acts of violence. On the other hand, when Israel failed to withdraw from the West Bank, and instead expanded the number of its settlers, the fundamentalists and haters had a far easier time convincing many decent Palestinians that there might be no other alternative.
Similarly, if the U.S. turns its back on global agreements to preserve the environment, unilaterally cancels its treaties to not build a missile defense, accelerates the processes by which a global economy has made some people in the third world richer but many poorer, shows that it cares nothing for the fate of refugees who have been homeless for decades, and otherwise turns its back on ethical norms, it becomes far easier for the haters and the fundamentalists to recruit people who are willing to kill themselves in strikes against what they perceive to be an evil American empire represented by the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.
Most Americans will feel puzzled by any reference to this "larger picture." It seems baffling to imagine that somehow we are part of a world system which is slowly destroying the life support system of the planet, and quickly transferring the wealth of the world into our own pockets.
We don't feel personally responsible when an American corporation runs a sweat shop in the Phillipines or crushes efforts of workers to organize in Singapore. We don't see ourselves implicated when the U.S. refuses to consider the plight of Palestinian refugees or uses the excuse of fighting drugs to support repression in Colombia or other parts of Central America. We don't even see the symbolism when terrorists attack America's military center and our trade center — we talk of them as buildings, though others see them as centers of the forces that are causing the world so much pain.
We have narrowed our own attention to "getting through" or "doing well" in our own personal lives, and who has time to focus on all the rest of this? Most of us are leading perfectly reasonable lives within the options that we have available to us — so why should others be angry at us, much less strike out against us? And the truth is, our anger is also understandable: the striking out by others in acts of terror against us is just as irrational as the world-system that it seeks to confront. Yet our acts of counter-terror will also be counter-productive. We should have learned from the current phase of the Israel-Palestinian struggle , responding to terror with more violence, rather than asking ourselves what we could do to change the conditions that generated it in the first place, will only ensure more violence against us in the future.
Luckily, most people don't act out in violent ways — they tend to act out more against themselves, drowning themselves in alcohol or drugs or personal despair. Others turn toward fundamentalist religions or ultra-nationalist extremism. Still others find themselves acting out against people that they love, acting angry or hurtful toward children or relationship partners.
This is a world out of touch with itself, filled with people who have forgotten how to recognize and respond to the sacred in each other because we are so used to looking at others from the standpoint of what they can do for us, how we can use them toward our own ends. The alternatives are stark: either start caring about the fate of everyone on this planet or be prepared for a slippery slope toward violence that will eventually dominate our daily lives.
None of this should be read as somehow mitigating our anger at the terrorists. Let's not be na&#iuml;ve about the perpetrators of this terror. The brains and money behind this operation isn't a group of refugees living penniless in Palestinian refugee camps. Many of the core terrorists are evil people, as are some of the fundamentalists and ultra-nationalists who demean and are willing to destroy others. But these evil people are often marginalized when societal dynamics are moving toward peace and hope (e.g. in Israel while Yitzhak Rabin was Prime Minister) and they become much more influential and able to recruit people to give their lives to their cause when ordinary and otherwise decent people despair of peace and justice (as when Israel from 1996 to 2000 dramatically increased the number of settlers).
So here is what would marginalize those who hate the United States.
Imagine if the Bin Ladins and other haters of the world had to recruit people against America at a time when:
America was using its economic resources to end world hunger and redistribute the wealth of the planet so that everyone had enough.
America was the leading voice championing an ethos of generosity and caring for others-leading the world in ecological responsibility, social justice, open-hearted treatment of minorities, and rewarding people and corporations for social responsibility.
America was restructuring its own internal life so that all social practices and institutions were being judged "productive or efficient or rational" not only because they maximized profit, but also to the extent that they maximized love and caring, ethical/spiritual/ecological sensitivity, and an approach to the universe based on awe and wonder at the grandeur of creation (what I call an Emancipatory Spirituality).
Think it's naive and impossible to move American in that direction? Well, here are two reasons why, even if it's a long shot, it's an approach that deserves your support:
It's even more na&#iuml;ve to imagine that bombings, missile defense systems, more spies or baggage searches can stop people willing to lose their lives to wreak havoc and capable of airplane hijacking, chemical assaults (like anthrax), etc.
The response of people to the World Trade Building collapse was an outpouring of loving energy and generosity, sometimes even risking their own lives, and showing the capacity and desire we all have to care about each other. If we could legitimate people allowing that part of themselves to come out, without having to wait for a disaster, we could empower a part of every human being which our social order marginalizes. Americans have a deep goodness-and that needs to be affirmed.
Indeed, the goodness that poured forth from so many Americans should not be allowed to be overshadowed by the subsequent shift toward militarism and anger. That same caring energy could have been given a more positive outlet — if we didn't live in a society which normally teaches us that our "natural" instinct is toward aggression and that the best we can hope for is a world which gives us protection.
The central struggle going on in the world today is this one: between hope and fear, love or paranoia, generosity or trying to shore up one's own portion. In my book Spirit Matters I show why there is no possibility in sustaining a world built on fear. Our only hope is to revert to a consciousness of generosity and love. That's not to go to a lalla-land where there are no forces like those who destroyed the Word Trade Center. But it is to refuse to allow that to become the shaping paradigm of the 21st century. Much better to make the shaping paradigm the story of the police and firemen who risked (and in many cases lost) their lives in order to save other human beings who they didn't even know. Let the paradigm be the generosity and kindness of people when they are given a social sanction to be caring instead of self-protective. We cannot let war, hatred and fear become the power in this new century that it was in the last century.
And it's up to us. We can't expect the Left to be able to organize a successful movement, because they will define it in the most narrow terms. They will talk about the rights of the oppressed and make everyone believe that they don't really care about the terrible loss of life and the terrible fear that everyone now how to endure about our own safety.
Their justified anger at the way capitalist globalization has hurt people around the world will make them play down the outrageousness of this particular attack — and hence be disconnected to the righteous indignation that most of the rest of us feel. Rather, we need a movement that puts forward a positive vision of a world based on caring — and a commitment to rectify the injustices that the globalization of selfishness has wreaked on the world — while simultaneously making it clear that we have no tolerance for reckless acts of violence and terror such as those which Israel has had to experience this past year or those which the U.S. faced in September.
It's only with that balanced view that we can say that it is a huge mistake to make war or violence the primary way we respond to this situation. It's about time we began to say unequivocally that violence doesn't work — not as an end and not as a means. The best defense is a world drenched in love, not a world drenched in armaments.
We should pray for the victims and the families of those who have been hurt or murdered in these crazy acts. We should also pray that America does not return to "business as usual," but rather turns to a period of reflection, coming back into touch with our common humanity, asking ourselves how our institutions can best embody our highest values.
We may need a global day of atonement and repentance dedicated to finding a way to turn the direction of our society at every level, a return to the notion that every human life is sacred, that "the bottom line" should be the creation of a world of love and caring, and that the best way to prevent these kinds of acts is not to turn ourselves into a police state, but turn ourselves into a society in which social justice, love, and compassion are so prevalent that violence becomes only a distant memory.
_________________________
Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
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#11216 - 04/17/02 06:02 PM
Re: U.S. Letter to Europeans
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truetrini
Moderator
Registered: 01/29/01
Posts: 4916
Loc: Smithfield, Virginia, U.S.A.
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hahahahahaha! Idealistic indeed!
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Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
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Moderator: Jagga, truetrini, jt, Princess
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yet the warmongers, hegemons and their academic apologists who preach the rhetoric of violence and power escape that labelling even though it is the ideal they kill for. 
, called it poppycock!! 
