Fwd: Very moving. Damn straight.

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In a message dated 9/12/01 7:52:41 PM !!!First Boot!!!, mkwarre@...

writes:

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http://www.miami.com/herald/content/features/columnists/pitts/digdocs/000565.htm

>

> Editorial

> ************

> 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.

>

> IN PAIN

>

> 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.

>

> THE STEEL IN US

>

> 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.

>

> --

>

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