<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" http-equiv=Content-Type> <META content="MSHTML 5.00.2722.2800" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>How is explaining that the term coward is strange as applied to people who are willing to give up their lives for a cause justifying the terrorist acts. How is trying to understand and explain how it is that the terrorists and Palestinians might understand the acts and their consequences and even celebrate them a defence of those</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>acts?</FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>How is it the intellectual equivalent of dancing in the streets in celebration?. I guess you have no interest in understanding why terrorists act. Why not? Is not understanding why they act as they do helpful in d</FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>etermining what actions to take to prevent future terrorism. I am sickened by your moralising  and holier than attitude</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>but also shocked that a person of your training seem unable to understand relatively simple distinctiions between my explaining</FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2> how X can see act Y as justified and perhaps something to be celebrated and my justifying it and celebrating it. But unless you can demonstrate to me otherwise this seems to me a distinction that somehow escapes you.</FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2> Iam also sickened when I see the likes of Bush, Powell,</FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>and Chretien talking about freedom, democracy, and civilization being attacked.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>    Perhaps you could refresh my memory about my writings re Bosnia and Kosova. You will have to reference my Rwanda posts. I dont recall any.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I dont recall writing about Bosnia exept perhaps to point out that Milosevic the now war criminal was then applauded for his diplomatic skills as i recall. On Kosova I cant recall justifiying the ethnic cleansing. I did point out that knowing the proclivities of Milosevic by removing inspectors and by bombing NATO contributed to although it was not the direct agent of cleansing. Do you disagree with that?  WHy</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>    Surely, you do not sympathise with or justify Kosovan terrorism and surely you should feel solidarity with the Serbs as with the Soviets problems with Chechyna.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>        God Bless America ..</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Cheers. Ken Hanley (sic)</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>----- Original Message ----- </DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px"> <DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A href="mailto:LeoCasey@aol.com" title=LeoCasey@aol.com>LeoCasey@aol.com</A> </DIV> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A href="mailto:lbo-talk@lists.panix.com" title=lbo-talk@lists.panix.com>lbo-talk@lists.panix.com</A> </DIV> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, September 12, 2001 2:33 PM</DIV> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> (no subject)</DIV> <DIV><BR></DIV><FONT face=arial,helvetica><BR><FONT size=2><< Are you, Leo, pleading for something like a moment of silence, or a period <BR>of  grief, before we try to make sense of this? >> <BR><BR></FONT><FONT color=#000000 face=Arial lang=0 size=3 FAMILY="SANSSERIF">First we need to realize that a lot of us do not even know for whom we have <BR>to grieve yet. Max's story about his friend could be told by many of us, I <BR>fear. My immediate family is safe, and so too, a close friend who worked in <BR>WTC but happened to be away yesterday, but there are still others from whom I <BR>have not heard -- offices of a number of major education reform and teacher <BR>activists groups are very close to the WTC, and from what I can gather on the <BR>TV, the buildings which house them are severely damaged. One of my daughter's <BR>teachers broke into tears when she heard the news yesterday, as her husband <BR>was a firefighter. Is he one of the 300 missing firefighter, apparently <BR>killed trying to rescue people when the towers collapsed? I could go on: but <BR>the point is that we don't even know whom we have to grieve for yet, much <BR>less had the chance to begin grieving. If ever there was a need for some <BR>simple human compassion, and a virtual moment of silence, this would seem to <BR>be it. <BR><BR>But what has deeply disturbed me about some of the discourse here -- and <BR>about the incredible comments I have received off-list -- is not about the <BR>desire to explain, to intellectualize, what happened; that is, in itself, a <BR>way of trying to cope and of trying to tame, the insanity of these deeds. Nor <BR>can I disagree with those who have rushed to talk about the need to defend <BR>civil liberties or to prevent vigilante attacks on Arab-Americans -- although <BR>neither has happened, and it seems strange that one should focus first on <BR>what might happen, as opposed to what has actually happened, although it <BR>seems so disproportionate to be concerned with a potential wrong against so <BR>great and grievous an actual wrong -- I still know that civil liberties must <BR>be protected, and that Arab-Americans must not be scapegoated for what <BR>appears, at this point, to be the work of bin Laden. Perhaps if those who <BR>wrote those e-mails thought a little, they would have given a moment until <BR>those who were still searching for lost friends had a moment of relief, or <BR>the start of a grieving process. <BR><BR>But what is real offensive, so offensive I have difficulty finding the words <BR>for my rage about it, is the series of posts from the Heartfields, the <BR>Hanleys and the like which offer the intellectual equivalents of the <BR>celebrations of joy in the streets of Nablus. It is obscene beyond belief <BR>that they should foist upon us these justifications and explanations for mass <BR>murder as a blow against American imperialism at a time like this. It was bad <BR>enough that one has had to read from their keyboards the justifications for <BR>genocide in Rwanda and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Kosova, but at least <BR>they did not visit them upon the Tutsis of Rwanda and the Muslims and <BR>Albanians of Bosnia and Kosova while they were in the midst of those crimes. <BR>And that they should do it in the name of human emancipation just shows how <BR>little they understand of emancipation, and the struggle for it. I share <BR>NOTHING with them. <BR><BR>Leo Casey <BR>United Federation of Teachers <BR>260 Park Avenue South <BR>New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869) <BR><BR>Power concedes nothing without a demand. <BR>It never has, and it never will. <BR>If there is no struggle, there is no progress. <BR>Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who <BR>want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and <BR>lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. <BR> <P align=center>-- Frederick Douglass -- <BR><BR><BR></FONT><FONT color=#000000 face=Arial lang=0 size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF"><BR></P></BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></FONT></BODY></HTML>