While you were writing your faded purple prose last night, I just happened to be out of the house and away from my computer -- I had left to go to a vigil in Brooklyn, about half a mile away from where I lived, of the Arab-American community to express their sorrow over the deaths. It was the place to be. I have spent a great deal of time working these past few days with teachers and Board of Education officials to make sure that Arab-American students are not scapegoated, but made to feel part of a grieving community. And Winsome and I spent Thursday evening calling our Arabic and Moslem [actually Bengali, but bigots are not very discerning] friends in Brooklyn, to make sure that they were OK, and to let them know we were there for them.
All of that was not something I thought necessary to report for LBO-Talk.
And all of that was a pleasure, because I was among and working with people who genuinely grieved for the lost lives, whose first thought was not how to diminish the gravity of what has taken place, how to tell those who are grieving how their loss is insignificant compared to the loss of others.
>Leo speaks of moving targets, but he has no such speed. Fire-orange fright
>wig on his head, big red rubber nose that flashes intermittently, NATO
>dunce cap on his head, pale yellow sweatshirt sporting a photo of Clinton
>pointing his index finger at the press, telling them that he did not "have
>sex with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky," Leo sits on a stool and picks his
>nose, smiling at the thought of US cruise missiles smashing into civilian
>buildings overseas.
>
>Early on I had sympathy for Leo, and to a degree still do. But he's now
>dragging the dead from the rubble and using them as props in his mad
>defense of Clinton's imperial violence. I lived in NY for 17 years; my
>wife 10. Her best friend and maid of honor at our wedding lives three
>blocks from the WTC and her daughter goes to school in the same vicinity.
>We didn't hear from them for nearly three days, despite endless attempts
>to get through. Another close friend of ours has a wife who worked in the
>Towers. So far, nothing from either of them. We are worried sick.
>
>Of course, when honoring his hero, Leo doesn't mention Clinton's support
>for Israeli ethnic cleansing of Shia areas of southern Lebanon in 1993,
>brutal ground sweeps and air raids that left entire villages and towns
>empty and
>filled refugee camps (which later were bombed with US weapons). Nor does
>he make a peep about the far worse ethnic cleansing by the Turks against
>the Kurds, again supported and financed by Clinton, some 3 million refugees
>fleeing tens of thousands of villages that were pounded with US bombs.
>Forget Sudan, Leo. I won't even mention it. What do you have to say about
>these actions supported and financed by your hero? As bad or worse as what
>happened last Tuesday?
>
>And what are even doing here? Didn't you read in Newsday about the growing
>number of attacks on Arab Americans in Brooklyn? Why aren't you out there
>showing your solidarity (or are you)? If you truly feel the pain you have
>advertised so grossly here, why not put it to good use on the front lines
>of violent racism? The D or the F should get you there in 20-30 minutes,
>depending on where you catch them.
>
>DP
.