Today I will think about this: men chose to do evil. A small number of individuals judged themselves qualified to decide that advancing their agenda was of greater value than the lives of other people. There is no moral relativism here, there is no rough justice for other lives lost elsewhere. Human life is not a currency. This was an evil and cowardly act designed to instill fear and doubt and panic.

And Today I will not give in. Today I will make a decision to trust. Today I choose to act as if this didn't happen. Today I will ride the subway home and not worry about the unattended backpack, or the man in the turban. I will not accept These Turbulent Times as an excuse for tyrannical security measures. I will not surrender my liberty in exchange for safety.

I will mourn the dead and grieve with those who have lost, but I will not give in to fear.

Well said. Absolutely right.

.

A-fucking-men.

Thanks, Capn. That was eloquent and true.

But still do pay attention to unattended bags. There are many things you can't do. Reporting unattended bags is something you can do. It matters. It's not giving in to fear. It's acting with good sense.

Yes.

But still do pay attention to unattended bags.

No.
This is what I mean about making a decision to trust. I live in Toronto, not Isreal. It is a million times more likely that someone just forgot their bag than that it is a bomb. I make a choice, I refuse to see the world as a terrifying place that full of people who want to kill me. I will not let fear pervade my thinking

Well said Capn.

This is one of those times when trying to see 'the other side' of an argument is not justified.

There's no rationality, no ideology, no agenda that can be advanced by indiscriminate carnage. It's nothing other than fucked up. And sad.

Live large.

Well said, Capn. I was just emailing a friend that I feel as if the horrible thing is that the people who did this have more hope than I do: they think that their actions will change something, I think we cannot stop this kind of thing. Thanks for adding a little hope to my soup.

Also, to the Military and Law Enforcement personell in the UK, the US, Spain, Iraq or anywhere terrorism affects people: whatever we may think of the decisions the men leading you make, we realize you have an important, difficult and dangerous job to do. We wish you well.

I'm glad I'm not in Toronto, though if I was, I probably wouldn't be so pressed about it, either.

I live in New York, which is not Israel but is still a target. Any blanket refusal to report unattended bags makes me less safe. I will continue to look out for you, though. If you visit here, please don't leave your bag unattended.

The sky is not falling. But unattended bags are like dudes trying to set fire to their shoes. They may be innocent; they may be some asshole trying to blow shit up.

Suit yourself, and live in peace.

I'm with Hugh. We needn't be paranoid, but we shouldn't be clueless either.

You are going to act like this didn't happen? That is unfortunate for the people who do die. My respect for the dead is by acknowledging that this is a reminder of the evil in the world and the need to combat it. If we ignore it, and pretend like it isn't out there, then we let it spread unadulterated. 9/11 was the wake up call; this was a reminder for those who have started to forget the wake up message. There is a serious threat in part of the world that has to be addresseed.

You don't have to be terrorized by these events, but you have to respect the importance of them: you have to see that there is an evil that you can't ignore because it will find you.

I'm sorry, Capn, but you're wrong.

By established measures of moral, civilized behavior, it's easy to classify terrorism as "cowardice". In reality, however, it's an example of arrogance, of sheer, brazen contempt for others. Rather than confine themselves to established notions and rules, those who act in this way, like any other criminal are quite deliberate, and take satisfaction in sneering down those whom they case to dismiss or ignore.

That's what makes them truly dangerous, why it's difficult to easily hunt down and apprehend such persons, and why so many idealists are lured into the confidence of these extremists. Their hiding underground further escalates the seeming romanticism, thus reinforcing dogmatic and insular reasoning. But rather than betraying their fear, it raises everyone else's, as they are only emboldened by their transgressions.

We needn't be paranoid, but we shouldn't be clueless either.

That is, of course, your choice, and I'm not looking to get in to an argument here, I just wanted to get something off my chest but...

What you call cluelessness I call practicality. We create the world through our perceptions and you can choose to live in a terrifying urban dystopia where every lost luggage could be a bomb or in a not-so-bad world, where people forget their stuff sometimes.

How many bombs have been found in unattended backpacks? "One would be too many! We must be ever vigilant!" I hear you cry. Well that is your choice. You should also check every garbage can and mailbox you pass too, just in case. You should probably check for bombs in every newspaper box you pass too. That would be a great place to hide a bomb. Surely 50 cents is not too great a price to pay for safety? A blanket refusal to do so would make you feel less safe, non?

Where do you draw the line? How much do you let the terrorists terrorize you?

"One would be too many! We must be ever vigilant!" I hear you cry.

Don't hear my cry something I didn't cry, Capn. I don't want to argue with you since we're more or less on the same side. I just think it can't hurt to be aware of the possibilities. I'm not calling for some kind of clampdown, merely awareness.

9/11 was the wake up call; this was a reminder for those who have started to forget the wake up message.

oh, puh-leeeeeez.

Can we not bicker? Just this once?

Red brigades, Badar Meinhoff, PLO, ANO, Al-Fatah, ETA, Hizballah, IRA, Islamic Jihad, WTM, The USS Cole, the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, Tanzania and the Murrah Federal Building bombing and yet "9/11 was the wake up call"?

Just this once?

so then what about the fact that on the international stage it looks more and more like this particular group of terrorists is rubbing it in america's face that they have economically disabled themselves by validating a war with them as an excuse?
don't even answer, don't reason it out, just watch someone paint us all in a corner by avoiding any hint of rationale besides the look over there tactic and the ooh shiny shiny scam.
we have to have this deep personal connection with victims to care about anyone?
i've disabled myself from being in a state to argue what of many many problems this causes on top of many many problems at a very troubled and mutable time.
i just think there should be a more inventive plot than i could conceive being played out on a world stage.
i think the "terrorists" did what they planned to do. right now everything is damage control.

But it was, q. Most people go through their days in La-la land. Cheerfully and blissfully ignorant of the fact that there are people, who given the opportunity, would love nothing more than attacking their city and kill them dead. 9/11 woke those people up. It told them that terrorism was a real thing that can happen in "civilized" worlds; not just in mudhuts over in some sandy country with oil.

Now you, a sophisticated and urbane person may have been aware of the world's threats, but the average person was not. To the average person, it was a wake up call. But time mediates all things, and likewise, people have a desire to return to carebear land. Hopefully this is a reminder to those people that there is a threat out there that must be addressed.

arse_hat: of course it was. You can't possibly be disputing the fact that 9/11 was a hinge event in consciousness of the average person. See, the problem is that you might be some world-conscious and informed person. But the average person is not. The average person didn't "wake up" when the USS Cole was bombed; or Badar Meinhoff, etc. 9/11 was clearly the wake up call for the average person, and I can't really believe that you are suggesting that it was not.

I'm not being melodramatic here; I'm just suggesting a practical point about the average person: they have moved on and forgot the lessons of 9/11.

OK

I don't want to argue either, man. I didn't mean anything belligerent in my last comment, honest.

Most people go through their days in La-la land.

That's not quite right. The immediate problems and day-to-day bullshit of most peoples lives are what's foremost in most peoples minds, like how to pay the bills, deal with their family, boss, etc. This can often drown out things happening in the larger world. This is a sad thing, but most citizens are not dancing in a imaginary meadow, I assure you.

" 9/11 was clearly the wake up call for the average person, and I can't really believe that you are suggesting that it was not."
I think if you change “average person” to “average person in the USA” then you are right. Much of the world has lived with terrorists for a long time. 9/11 was a sad day for them but certainly nothing like a wake up call.

If they were cowards, we'd have a much better chance against them.

Thinking every unattended bag is a possible bomb is like thinking every male is a potential rapist. This is not terror? Call it what you want, say it's "prudence", but that is the beginning of the loss of freedom in your own mind.

I agree, let's not bicker. But let's also not turn a blind eye to other sides of the debate, the way most everyone happily did after 9/11.

Capn, "Let the terrorists terrorize you" is an interesting phrase, as is "We create the world through our perceptions." I think they are both bullshit, but I don't want an argument, either.

I choose to live in a place where bombings do happen, but where ordinary people can do ordinary things to make their world just a bit safer.

You choose to live in a place where the risk is much less, and where there are, strangely, no grey areas.

There are things we cannot do. Checking mailboxes and newspapers are a couple of them. But reporting unattended bags is easy and makes sense.

Neither of us lives in cloud-cuckoo-land. But since we're putting words in others' mouths, you think that a drop of vigilance is full-blown paranoia. I think there are subtleties at play, and while I agree with you in a general sense, I hope your cavalier attitude towards unattended bags is endemic to safe places like Toronto.

I think you're right about not letting them terrorize us, but if caution=losing, then they won four years ago.

On preview, I should really make clear that I'm not trying to bicker. It's all about the baggage. And dreamsign, I see a lot more men every day than I do unattended bags. I think you've used a bad analogy.

Where do you draw the line? How much do you let the terrorists terrorize you?

You're asking the wrong question. How much do you let your leaders and your media terrorize you, when the reality is that many more people die random, gruesome deaths from causes completely unrelated to 9/11-style terrorist acts?

For example, Americans have an obesity problem and heart disease is the biggest killer, but we don't wage a war on hamburgers. Some of us die from automobile accidents, but we don't cut up our driver's licenses. Some of us die from cancers induced from air and food pollution, but we don't shut down our coal burning power plants or stop processing gasoline.

The real question is drawing the line between your own private space and the public space around you, and how the people in power want you to react to people they don't like, and control the decisions you make. Do you have the strength of will to make up your own mind about the world around you?

for a moment, i thought dios comment was brilliant sarcasm intended to skewer the likes of the guy who wrote "today, we are all londoners". then he went and ruined it. "today, we are all londoners." sounds like people are diving headlong INTO carebear land if you ask me!

Yeah, I was making a rethorical point and I went over the top.

Everything I wanted to say I said at the top of the thread, I shouldn't have spouted off later in the thread. To summarize my position:

* These are evil and unjustifiable acts.
* Today, as a counter attack, I choose to act as if this didn't happen and not live in fear, to trust in the goodness of Man. Tomorrow is the day for sober reconsideration of the geo-political landscape.

I've done a lot of thinking about this sort of thing over the last eleven years.

Here's something to chew on

And a little more.

I've known women to think that way, Hugh J, and for them it's caution, not paranoia. I'm not against reporting unattended bags by any means, any more than I am against locking your front door or looking both ways before crossing the street (the whole "but it could happen anyway" is so much karmic willful blindness. there is causality. you can prevent many accidents and occurrences)

What I'm not for is seeing every dark alley as a potential threat, every hitchhiker as a potential murderer, every pack of kids some roving gang. And people do look at the world that way. And make no mistake, that IS what these pricks want.

Your comment, Alex R, reminds me of The Power of Nightmares (excellent documentary). I am less-than-convinced that some Euro AQ group in name is part of some huge international network with BL as its figurehead and mastermind. But it's so much easier to see the world in black and white.

Everybody doesn't have to be paranoid and worrying about the worst case. A few of us are enough.

The fact is that most of us will never come into direct contact with these events. And it makes perfect sense for most people to live as sane and as sensible a life as they can. War fever has made many Americans ill -- in mind and body.

So the real crunch comes when you least expect it and when you are just going to react and respond by instinct. And most people, practically all, everywhere, do the right thing, keep their heads, lend a hand.

There's no point in living every moment in a state of imagined crisis.

And when the crunch comes, there will be enough common sense, courage and humanity to go around.

"today, we are all londoners." sounds like people are diving headlong INTO carebear land if you ask me!

I wuv wuv wuv you q!

*giggles, hugs and kisses and tickles q until he has a heart attack* ; >

And make no mistake, that IS what these pricks want.
Which pricks? Our very own ones in power have clearly stated that's what they want.

Amber, it's not a two-way dog fight. I know you know this, but the whole "you're with us or against us" nonsense is pretty damn corrosive.

I, for one, will gladly speak in defense of what people have referred to as "cluelessness" here. The good, in the sense that Socrates discusses it in the Platonic dialogs, should include people being at liberty to live in a state of blissful ignorance of the evils of the world. This won't protect them from those evils, necessarily, but they should be able to live that way if they so choose.

This may sound odd, coming from me, somebody who spent years fighting (and being inevitably entangled in) those evils. But isn't that part of an open and civil society? Just because civil society cannot be disentangled from the uncivil society of crime, war, and the rest, doesn't mean that the fluffy people don't get to exist. That way lies totalism.

I think this is what quansar is poking at. And oddly enough, Dios gets that part too (though he and I will probably never agree about underlying values that we don't share or means by which evil should be confronted.)

It always irks me to get slagged and prodded by the fluffy people. You know, the "you become what you oppose" fallacy. There are some conflicts that can't be avoided. Which is not the same as saying that because there is conflict between civil and uncivil society we all have to start marching in lock-step.

Al Qaida is an atavistic revitalization movement. They're not going to succeed in their program, but it's going to be a messy deal until they run out of steam. Likewise, BushCo is likewise wrong in trying to recast the friction between civil and uncivil society as a militarized conflict (the poisonous notion of a Global War On Terror, GWOT).

Al Qaida (and the rest of the jihadis like the Pakistani revanchists) want a totalistic world with them on top or an apocalyptically ruined world. They aren't going to get it. BushCo is just playing the old game of using a foreign enemy to centralize corrupt domestic power. They, likewise, will fail historically, but at considerable and avoidable cost to the nation and the world.

So, keep the stiff upper lip, soldier on like an underdog in the night, or just bliss out. Whatever floats yer boat.

So, keep the stiff upper lip, soldier on like an underdog in the night, or just bliss out.

For the ordinary citizenry, sure. For the military, law enforcement and the government charged with keeping these things in check: I'd prefer they stay somewhat vigilant.

Al Qaida (and the rest of the jihadis like the Pakistani revanchists) want a totalistic world with them on top or an apocalyptically ruined world. They aren't going to get it. BushCo is just playing the old game of using a foreign enemy to centralize corrupt domestic power. They, likewise, will fail historically, but at considerable and avoidable cost to the nation and the world.

This I agree with. Well said.

If we ignore it, and pretend like it isn't out there, then we let it spread unadulterated. 9/11 was the wake up call; this was a reminder for those who have started to forget the wake up message.

We brits feel sick right now.
Sick as a new yorker on 9/11.
Sick as a Brummie after the 1974 IRA bombings, sick as any civilian attacked by a bomb.

And sick as any Iraqi, counted as collateral damage (if counted, that is), when the RAF or USAf dropped a bomb on their wedding party (for example).

I don't watch Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan or The Longest Day. The message is that war is bad, avoidable and indiscriminate. I know that! It was ever thus. It will always be thus.

I despair, on days like this. But terrorism will no more defeat me than the blitz defeated Eastenders in 1940. The Iraqis know what I mean.

Wow, such a somber mood in Metachat. Does this mean no more Fourth of July jokes?

9/11 was the wake up call
Only for those in the US who had never had an enemy attack their shores before. The rest of the world has lived with terrorism to varying degrees for a long long time.

But capn, I applaud your counter-attack and happily join you. As trite as it may be, the terrorists have won when we live in terror of them.