Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema wrote:
> Leo,
>
> Like everybody else, I have had a lot of reactions to last Tuesday's
> tragedy, but mostly have felt unready to comment in any extensive way.
> You and your family had a near brush, and I didn't. I was luckier than
> you, though not as lucky as people outside New York City.
>
> At the same time, I read the debate on LBO between you and others, and
> think I must restore a degree of balance. None of those you disagreed
> with defended the terrorist attack. None blamed the victims. All
> recognized that this murder of thousands was a great crime. Some tended
> to discuss the situation in more abstract terms than yours. That is
> different, but not worse. And not necessarily a lot better, but,
> remember, this was an internet discussion in which people put forward
> views to be tested. Peoples' understandings will develop over time as
> they and the situation develop.
>
> I did hear underlying premises to the discussion. One was that
> preventing repeated crimes like this is an imperative. Another was that
> understanding the relationship of the United States government to other
> people in the world is key to finding ways to prevent it. Still another
> was that dominant American patriotic myths, and some of the ways many
> Americans see themselves as participants in the country and in the human
> species will not necessarily help prevent it.
>
> To you this level of abstraction may have seemed insensitive to what you
> experienced. Your response is very easy to understand but not
> necessarily fair or accurate. I work in an emergency room and
> encountered many patients who had survived the attack. Nobody with any
> sense would have imagined they wanted to have intellectual discussion.
> However, that does not mean that such discussion is out of place in
> other quarters. You're not ready for it, and neither am I, but we should
> be glad others are doing it. We should not denounce their efforts, which
> are honest attempts to make sense out of a new and dangerous reality.
>
> To others I would suggest that Leo's statements about being "proud to be
> an American" may not be as jingoist, in their context, as they sound.
> The human response to great and sudden need has been unstintingly
> generous. My son tried to volunteer, but there were too many volunteers
> already. Although I work in a hospital, they had run out of bags on the
> first day, and I haven't been able to give yet, though I'll keep on
> trying. I hope that the public commitment to avoid stigmatization of
> Muslims and Arabs holds up. Here it is even possible to see the
> profusion of American flags in a positive way, as Leo says. Even Mayor
> Giuliani has managed to take a positive rôle.
>
> Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema
>
> leocasey at aol.com wrote:
>
> > Part 1.1 Type: Plain Text (text/plain)
> > Encoding: 7bit
>
> The preceding is a personal opinion. Try not to post more than daily.
>
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