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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I would imagine most people here are taking their
shock and horror to their nonvirtual friends. Here people are trying
to think about this horror, as they should. Inevitably, some of the
thinking is more driven by counterdepressive motives, and might look obsessive
and detached. Also, some of it is an attempt to avoid getting drawn into a
mandated vortex of outrage over "Evil attacks on freedom/our way of life/basic
American institutions," and all the other mischaracterizations in the dominant
media that amazingly obscure any links to the Israel/Palestine background, which
thereby becomes "unspeakable." I think we're faced with the aporia --
I think that's the word -- of having to acknowledge that the people who did
this must be stopped, and at the same time that some of the motives of their
actions can't be regarded as "insane" or "monstrous," that they reflect human
misery and suffering, and that any attempt to try to address what is
happening in the Mideast will have to somehow reflect this aporia by
not angrily dismissing those motives.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Are you, Leo, pleading for something like a moment
of silence, or a period of grief, before we try to make sense of
this?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>re</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=LeoCasey@aol.com href="mailto:LeoCasey@aol.com">LeoCasey@aol.com</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=lbo-talk@lists.panix.com
href="mailto:lbo-talk@lists.panix.com">lbo-talk@lists.panix.com</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, September 12, 2001 11:22
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> (no subject)</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV><FONT face=arial,helvetica><FONT size=3>I have alternating
feelings of incredible depression and barely controllable <BR>rage when I read
some of the post-WTC e-mails to this list. Are folks so <BR>removed from
simple sentiments of human compassion, much less feelings of <BR>human
solidarity, that in the face of thousands of innocent human lives
<BR>destroyed, they can do nothing more than spin justifications for such mass
<BR>murder, and even join in celebrations of it. How sad that you are so
detached <BR>from your humanity. How fucked that you think mass murder has
anything to do <BR>with human liberation and human freedom; you are prisoners
of an ideology <BR>that has lost all real touch with its purported ends. How
pathetic that all <BR>you can do is quarrel over how many thousands are dead,
as if the escape of <BR>intended victims makes this murder less of a crime. I
feel no kinship <BR>whatsoever with those of you who have posted these notes;
you are the spin <BR>masters of mass murder. <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 lang=0
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