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NON-TR

To: fot@autox.team.net
Subject: NON-TR
From: "Bill Sohl" <billsohl@pop.mindspring.com>
Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 12:36:29 +0000
NON TR, But this is worth distributing...it is what America
and the free world is all about...
---------------
 Leonard Pitts Jr. , 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.

      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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