Re: [Leica] Terror

[George Lottermoser <imagist@concentric.net>]

Hopefully this will be my last offering on this thread:

__________________________

Piece by L. Pitts addressed to terrorists
Wed Sep 12 08:40:41 2001
- --

They pay me to tease shades of meaning from social and cultural
issues,
to provide words that help make sense of that which troubles the
American soul.

But in this moment of airless shock when hot tears sting
disbelieving
eyes, the only thing I can find to say, the only words that seem
to fit,
must be addressed to the unknown author of this suffering.

You monster. You beast. You unspeakable bastard.

What lesson did you hope to teach us by your coward's attack on
our
World Trade Center, our Pentagon, us? What was it you hoped we
would learn?

Whatever it was, know that you failed.

Did you want us to respect your cause? You just damned it.

Did you want to make us fear? You just steeled our resolve.

Did you want to tear us apart? You just brought us together.

Let me tell you about my people. We are a vast and quarrelsome
family, a
family rent by racial, cultural, political and class division,
but a
family nonetheless. We're frivolous, yes, capable of expending
tremendous emotional energy on pop cultural minutiae -- a
singer's
revealing dress, a ball team's misfortune, a cartoon mouse.

We're wealthy, too, spoiled by the ready availability of trinkets
and
material goods, and maybe because of that, we walk through life
with a
certain sense of blithe entitlement. We are fundamentally decent,
though
- -- peace-loving and compassionate. We struggle to know the right
thing
and to do it. And we are, the overwhelming majority of us, people
of
faith, believers in a just and loving God.

Some people -- you, perhaps -- think that any or all of this
makes us weak.

You're mistaken. We are not weak. Indeed, we are strong in ways
that
cannot be measured by arsenals.

Yes, we're in pain now. We are in mourning, and we are in shock.
We're
still grappling with the unreality of the awful thing you did,
still
working to make ourselves understand that this isn't a special
effect
from some Hollywood blockbuster, isn't the plot from a Tom Clancy
novel.

Both in terms of the awful scope of its ambition and the probable
final
death toll, your attacks are likely to go down as the worst acts
of
terrorism in the history of the United States and, indeed, the
history
of the world.

You've bloodied us as we have never been bloodied before.

But there's a gulf of difference between making us bloody and
making us
fall. This is the lesson Japan was taught to its bitter sorrow
the last
time anyone hit us this hard, the last time anyone brought us
such
abrupt and monumental pain. When roused, we are righteous in our
outrage, terrible in our force. When provoked by this level of
barbarism, we will bear any suffering, pay any cost, go to any
length,
in the pursuit of justice.

I tell you this without fear of contradiction. I know my people,
as you
do not. What I know reassures me. It also causes me to tremble
with
dread of the future.

In days to come, there will be recrimination and accusation,
fingers
pointing to determine whose failure allowed this to happen and
what can
be done to prevent it from happening again. There will be
heightened
security, misguided talk of revoking basic freedoms. We'll go
forward
from this moment sobered, chastened, sad. But determined, too.
Unimaginably determined.

There is steel beneath this velvet. That aspect of our character
is
seldom understood by those who don't know us well. On this day,
the
family's bickering is put on hold. As Americans we will weep, as
Americans we will mourn, and as Americans we will rise in defense
of all
that we cherish.

Still, I keep wondering what it was you hoped to teach us. It
occurs to
me that maybe you just wanted us to know the depths of your
hatred.

If that's the case, consider the message received. And take this
message
in exchange: You don't know my people. You don't know what we're
about.
You don't know what you just started.

But you're about to learn. 

_L. Pitts_ 

George