File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_2001/postcolonial.0109, message 164


Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 11:21:49 -0700 (PDT)
From: Wolf Factory <wolf_factory-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: the speech Bush could give


Dream on!
--- saeed urrehman <saeed.urrehman-AT-anu.edu.au> wrote:
> THE SPEECH
> GEORGE W. BUSH COULD GIVE:
> By Doug Morris
> Good evening, my fellow Americans.
> St. Augustine said that hope has two beautiful
> daughters: anger and 
> courage. Anger at the way things are, and courage to
> struggle to create 
> things as they should be. These acts perpetrated
> against humanity today 
> were acts of anger at the way things are. They were
> not courageous acts, 
> but horrendous atrocities, acts of anger laced with
> hate. Our first 
> response must be support and compassion for the
> victims, and families and 
> friends of the victims. But, in addition, we should
> ask ourselves what 
> conditions led these fellow humans to develop such
> anger and hatred, led 
> them to commit such abominably inhumane acts, and
> why was it directed at 
> these particular targets in the United States?
> We should not repress our anger and indignation at
> these hateful and 
> callous acts, or our anger and indignation at all
> hateful and callous acts, 
> but our anger must be accompanied not by hate, but
> with love, and by the 
> courage to struggle to create a more just world, and
> THAT my fellow 
> Americans will require a major effort to question,
> understand, challenge, 
> change and raise OUR national consciousness. Please,
> my fellow Americans, 
> listen with open ears, open minds and open hearts.
> While no loving and decent human will tolerate acts
> of terror, we must try 
> to understand the extremely difficult question: why?
> For example, what is 
> the symbolic significance of the Pentagon and the
> World Trade Center in the 
> eyes of the world? And here, my fellow Americans we
> must search deep into 
> our own history, our own policies, our own pursuits,
> our own impositions, 
> and, our own hearts. It is painful, but, let us be
> blunt: the war against 
> terrorism has begun, violently. The two most potent
> symbols of global 
> military and economic violence, global military and
> economic terrorism, 
> have been struck. These were cowardly and
> unconscionable acts, to be sure, 
> and, as in most acts of terror, the innocent suffer
> most, the working 
> class, the toiling class. We must launch a war
> against terrorism, 
> non-violently. A.J. Muste, committed pacifist,
> advised us that in a world 
> built on violence we must be revolutionaries before
> we are pacifists. 
> That is, we must work to abolish the institutions of
> violence, non-violently.
> However, make no mistake, my fellow Americans, the
> Pentagon IS the center 
> of world military violence and terrorism. The US is
> the worlds leading 
> exporter of tools of death and destruction. Let us
> be honest, we have been 
> committed to violence as a way to address
> international conflicts for many, 
> many years. And a PARTIAL list of the results of our
> commitment to violence 
> includes: Korea  millions killed. Vietnam  millions
> killed. Cambodia  
> hundreds of thousands killed. Laos  hundreds of
> thousands killed. Iraq  
> hundreds of thousands killed. Guatemala  hundreds of
> thousands killed. 
> Hiroshima and Nagasaki  hundreds of thousands
> killed. East Timor  
> hundreds of thousands killed. Nicaragua  tens of
> thousands killed. El 
> Salvador  tens of thousands killed. Colombia  tens
> of thousands killed. 
> Dominican Republic  thousands killed. Somalia 
> thousands killed. Haiti  
> thousands killed. Yugoslavia  thousands killed.
> Panama  hundreds killed. 
> And let us not forget the ways in which we have
> mistreated the Cuban people 
> for over 40 years now with our embargo and repeated
> acts of terrorism. Let 
> us remember my fathers words during the buildup to
> the US attack on Iraq: 
> there will be no negotiationswhat we say goes. No
> negotiations simply 
> means we prefer violence. What we say goes expresses
> the arrogance, 
> chauvinism and mystique of invincibility that has
> separated the US from the 
> world. Both views express the notion that the US is
> above international law 
> and the UN Charter, outside the family of nations.
> Is it any wonder that 
> Harvard professor Samuel Huntington said that in the
> eyes of most of the 
> world the US is seen as THE rogue superpower,
> considered THE single 
> greatest external threat to their societies? The
> world quakes in its boots 
> wondering when we will attack, and what form of
> violence will ensue: cruise 
> missiles, helicopter gunships, chemical or
> biological agents, nuclear 
> bombs, F18s, F22s, B52s, fumigation campaigns,
> IMF/World Bank 
> Structural Adjustment Programs, or Austerity
> Programs, embargoes, 
> sanctions, disappearances, assassinations,
> massacres, tortures, cultural 
> cooptation or erasure, etc., etc., etc.
> The Bible warns us: what ye sew, ye shall reap.
> Today, sadly, we have 
> experienced what we have sewn on much of the world.
> Today, as a country, we 
> have learned that raining death and destruction on
> another country creates 
> a toll far higher than simply destroyed buildings
> and dead bodies. Today 
> our freedom came under attack. We thought we were
> free to impose military 
> and economic violence anywhere we chose, with
> impunity. The freedom from 
> impunity appears to no longer exist. The World Court
> attempted to sanction 
> the US for our commitment to violence but the Reagan
> Administration claimed 
> that the World Court had no jurisdiction over our
> actions. Yes, we have 
> been, and we are a rogue state, and, my fellow
> Americans, it must stop!
> Tonight, my fellow Americans we must raise a call of
> humility, a humility 
> that does not in any way diminish humanity, but a
> humility that raises the 
> respect for, and dignity of, all people, a humility
> that allows us to 
> celebrate all human life. It is time that we joined
> the world, not as its 
> major purveyor of violence and destruction, but as a
> peaceful participant 
> who will work to end violence, end racism, end
> classism, end sexism, rather 
> than increase them. The proposed Pentagon budget,
> the violence budget, 
> for next year is $330 billion dollars. I am tonight
> proposing an immediate 
> 50% decrease in this spending that promotes
> violence, and calling for a 
> redistribution those funds to help ameliorate
> problems of hunger, poverty 
> and poor-health around the world. It is a call to
> reach out with love, and 
> a call to find the courage to struggle to create a
> more just, peaceful, 
> healthful and equitable world, a world in which
> human creativity is 
> celebrated rather than the human capacity for great
> violence.
> Tonight we must call on the world to forgive us OUR
> sins, forgive us OUR 
> sordid and calamitous acts of violence that we have
> pursued without pause 
> for over 50 years. Let this be the beginning of our
> reconciliation with the 
> world. We now, to some degree, understand the pain,
> misery and suffering we 
> have caused, the turmoil we have perpetrated, the
> hate we have elicited, 
> the destruction we have imparted, the physical,
> emotional, psychological 
> and spiritual scars and unconscionable hurt we have
> created and that much 
> of the world has endured because of our rapacious
> and destructive pursuit 
> of wealth, power and privilege at the expense of
> human concerns and human 
> lives. We humbly beg the forgiveness of all
> humanity, as we pray that you 
> will offer your support, your compassion, your
> understanding, and your love 
> in our time of suffering, mourning and loss.
> This is not a time, as it is never a time, to seek
> vengeance, but a time to 
> seek the courage to forgive, to harbor the power of
> anger to be used in 
> acts of love, and to uncover insights that will
> allow us to direct our 
> indignation at the institutions of power, violence
> and 
=== message truncated ==

===="All the wolves in the wolf factory paused at noon, 
for a moment of silence."
........from laughing Gravy by John Ashbery.
---------------------------------------------------------
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