This Pretty Planet

Subject: This Pretty Planet
From: Sorcha
Date: 25 Sep 01 - 01:00 AM

This pretty planet is going to war against an unknown and unknowable opponent. All the fine young ones will die, and there is not one damned thing I can do about it except cry.

Shall I list their names now, before they die?
Jason, Daniel, Dillon, Lucas, Beau, Brad, Matt, Meagan, Julie, Dovid, Mahommed,Iaac, Benjamin, Samuel, Abdul, ............ad nauseum.

Regardless of what I or anyone else thinks, Our Fearless Leaders will lead us into war...........
No matter what any of us think, feel, or believe, we will not prevail. The Planet is going to War......

No matter how much money I donate, how many candles I burn or which flag I fly, it will stink to hell and back. These are our sons and daughters. The children of the Planet.

War is hell, gentlemen, war is hell.

I just don't know what to do or believe anymore.

(come get the soapbox---rant over. I'll try not to do this again.......all I can do is cry just now)

Subject: RE: This Pretty Planet
From: DougR
Date: 25 Sep 01 - 01:05 AM

Sorcha: I guess that's war. Hopefully all of those you listed will not suffer. Hopefully, more people, regardless of country, will not suffer as the 7000+ people have at the WTC and the Pentagon, not even including those that grieve for them.

Try to keep a stiff upper lip. War is hell. No doubt about it.

DougR

Subject: RE: This Pretty Planet
From: Gypsy
Date: 25 Sep 01 - 10:46 PM

Yer right, Lassie. I can only agree, and be deeply thankful that the handsome mando player is just too damn old to go.......

Subject: RE: This Pretty Planet
From: AliUK
Date: 26 Sep 01 - 09:25 PM

I thank my lucky stars that I live in Brazil and will probably be away from the obvious targets. But war seems inevitable, so it's time to take sides and then try to do lots of damage control. Steamrollers have that effect.

May the Lord have mercy on us all.

Subject: RE: This Pretty Planet
From: sc
Date: 26 Sep 01 - 09:36 PM

I feel so helpless. I am one with you in the tears for sanity and conscience. But I don't know what to do. Just keep doin' what we're doin' and tryin' to get someone to listen, I guess. Cause addin' another 30 or 60 or 190 thousand to that 7 thousand just does not make sense. Already the innocent are starving in Afghanistan. There's gotta be a better way... Peace! -sc

Subject: RE: This Pretty Planet
From: Amos
Date: 26 Sep 01 - 09:42 PM

Sorcha:

It is very possible that the memories we have of past wars and their brutal, terrible losses are wholly inaccurate as a description of the future. Somehow I don't see this situation as being in the long bloody tradition of meat-monger wars.

There are two reasons for this.

First is that there is no known race, city, nation or tribe to whom we can point and say -- "Target". There's just a wide-spread cult.

You can't send a platoon of tanks against a widely distributed cult.

There's no one place to bomb them, and they have no beaches or trenches. They use banks, cell phones, mail, and revved up fanatical kamikazes. Their "resources" are not weapons and soldiers and airplanes, but certain ideas that only prosper in certain kinds of dark corners rich with manure.

We aren't going in to that kind of campaign -- we're going into a long, slow, information-based campaign in which most of what we deploy will be email, PowerPoint slides, wireless phone calls, banking transactions, and creative thought about how to communicate.

No one has yet been killed by a Power Point slide, Sorch. I asked Bill Gates and he told me this was certainly true.

There is much to cry about, and I will not try to tell you not to. But the images of the past will probably not fit in this future. IMHO.

Above all -- do not let yourself be terrorized by EITHER side!!!

Fond regards,

Amos

Subject: RE: This Pretty Planet
From: GUEST,Genie
Date: 27 Sep 01 - 01:32 AM

This Pretty Planet may be a casualty of this "war" in another sense, too. There is talk among backers of G W Bush's domestic agenda, and among his opponents as well, that he may use this time of bipartisanship to push forward with his energy policy (focusing on oil, gas, coal, and nuclear and giving only scraps to development of sustainable technologies) and other controversial aspects of his domestic agenda.
In other words, the terrorist attacks are being seen by many, both Democrats and Republicans, as reason not to oppose the Bush administration in anything it proposes -- as justification for shelving all our other concerns about protecting our environment for either the short term or the long term. It's as though people are saying, "So what if we destroy our forests, pollute our air and water, and ensure the extinction of many other species--we're at war!"

Genie