[Fwd: Who we are]

[Robert N. Eaton]

This was sent to me by friends in the UK.  It should have had national
exposure, I think.

Richard Bram/Monika Machon wrote:
> 
> This ccame to me from a friend yesterday. It  sums up my emotional
> feelings as an American living abroad, especially in a world which
> badly underestimates the United States and often finds a mild,
> condescending anti-Americanism to be chic. If it is jingoistic, so be
> it. In many ways I am surprised to find that I feel this so strongly.
> I do.
> 
> Richard, in sorrow and anger in London.
> 
> >From columnist Leonard Pitts Jr.
> THE MIAMI HERALD
> Published Wednesday, September 12, 2001
> 
> We'll go forward from this moment.
> 
> It's my job to have something to say.
> 
> They pay me 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, please know that you failed.
> 
> Did you want us to respect your cause?  You just damned your cause.
> 
> 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, social, 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 development
> from a Tom Clancy novel.
> 
> Both in terms of the awful scope of their 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, probably,
> 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, I think, do not.  What I know reassures me.  It also causes me
> to tremble with dread of the future.
> 
> In the 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.
> 
> You see, the steel in us is not always readily apparent.  That aspect
> of our character is seldom understood by people 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.
> 
> So I ask again:  What was it 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 capable of.  You don't know what you just started.
> 
> But you're about to learn.

-- 
Bob Eaton

It was lack of data that killed the cat.
Curiosity just got a bad rap.  RAH