Gary--
Sorry, Gary, but your analysis is pretty close to obscene. If you can't look
at the events yesterday, and not identify them as falling under the rubric
of ``evil,'' then I'm sorry for you, because your moral compass is out of
whack. I'm not defending some knee-jerk all-American position, and won't be
prodded into playing that useless game. When American soldiers torch
Vietnamese villages, that is evil. When ethnic minorities in Central Africa
or the Balkans are rounded up and mass-murdered, that is evil. When
individuals or governments enact slaughter against innocents, that is evil.
Why do some in the intelligentsia have difficulty with this concept,
especially when it is presented with such a clear face? We are not seeing a
media image, santized for our consumption; to the contrary, we are seeing
the image of the act as it actually happened. To repeat from my previous
email, it would be no different than black and white film footage of the
Nazi blitz on London: It is a pure visual recording of the act. It is only
when the image is juxtaposed against another does its meaning become altered
to suit one or another ideological position. But, you see, Gary, such
juxtaposition--and thus, altering--isn't possible with the attack yesterday.
Home video captured it; the democratized spread of media framed evil within
an easily affordable viewfinder. This is no time for moral relativism, nor
is it a time to opine about the bad deeds of this or that nation-state. This
is a time that demands clear thinking--as clear as the images framed and
captured yesterday on cameras owned and operated by everyday people. This,
in other words, is no Tonkin Gulf episode; this is genuine.
Robert Koehler
----- Original Message -----
From: "holden caulfield" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 3:06 PM
Subject: Re: A Terrible Act of Evil (SIC)


> >If not, then the horror of the televised images must surely make it
>clear.
>
>
>
>
> robert,
>
> Unfortunately those images muck it all up and evoke purely emotive
> responses, which is something our gov't appreciates.  It allows the masses
> to be rallied behind a singular ideology.
>
> I certainly don't think that the events of yesterday become any more
> shocking or real because a two year old died.
>
> And I am probably among many others who would appreciate not turning any
> possible comforting conversation about a tragic event (conversation should
> be encouraged) into a mythic discussion concerning good and evil. It
assumes
> that the US is good and some others are evil (definition through
> opposition.)  President Bush referred to this when he said that the US is
a
> "shining beacon" for freedom to the rest of the world.  WHO IS HE KIDDING!
>
> It just isn't cut and dry like that.  Even if, for example, the Taliban
had
> some in/direct connection to the attack...The US created the Taliban long
> ago in support of Afghanistan against the USSR.
>
> The chickens always come home to roost.
>
> The US has no ground to stand on when it comes to moral discussions
> concerning horrific violence aimed at innocent civilians.  We grant
billions
> to countries such as Turkey and Israeal each year so that they can afford
to
> buy arms from our weapons manufacturers in order to kill innocent Kurds (a
> genocide-in-progress, we should note) and Palestinians...we dropped two
> bombs on Japan more in an effort to scare Stalin than for any necessity to
> "punish" Japan...and then there's internment...and some recent decades-old
> stereotyping of the Arab people and the Islamic faith.
>
> Thousands of our friends and families didn't deserve to die...Luckily my
NYC
> cousin and friends are all OK...no one deserves to be the victim of
> terrorist acts. However, we should avoid reducing discussions to who is
> right and who is wrong.
>
> The fact that many more may die before we can put this behind us and begin
> to heal is AWFUL.  Colin Powell spoke of returning to normalcy...maybe we
> should be discussing just how we are supposed to act normal.
>
>
> gary norris
>
> _________________________________________________________________
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