-----Original Message-----
From: Scott Freeman [mailto:scottyfreeman@hotmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 2:08 PM
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Subject: I couldn't have said it better







> 
> I thought this was appropriate. 
> 
> 
>We'll go forward from this moment by Leonard Pitts Jr. of the Miami Herald 
> 
>"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." 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 

  _____  

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