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Hope... (maybe)
October 2001
Quotes:
Posted: October 13, 2001
"the least democratic process for debating questions fundamental to democracy I have ever seen. What we decided to do in committee, correctly, was to give the law enforcement officials all the expanded powers they asked for," he added. "But we simultaneously tried to put into effect a full set of safeguards to minimize the chance that human beings . . . would abuse that power. The problem is that the bill before us today preserves the fullness of the powers but substantially weakens the safeguards."
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Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), a member of the judiciary panel, denounced the maneuvering that led up to yesterday's 'Patriot's Act' vote. Source: Washington Post
Posted: October 1, 2001
"Aside from the space movement itself (which, paradoxically, is oriented to a former future which has now become merely the present, with all the problems of the present), the thinking which I have provisonally labeled "postfuturist" is most strongly -- if unconsciously -- embodied in the diverse and ineradicable resistance movements against US/UN hegemony: Khazakl People's Front, the ex-neo-Communists of the NVC, the nonexistent but influential conspiracy known as the Last International, the Army of the New Republic and many more. No shared ideal unites them -- on the contrary. Having every cause to rebel, they need no ideal, no "cause." One stubborn conviction is common to all of them: No More New World Orders. I will not conceal my own conviction that in this they are right. For we have seen the future -- we have by now centuries of experience of the future -- and we know it doesn't work. It'll be a great day when the future goes away! It'll be a great day of liberation, when the armies, the functionaries, the camp-followers, the carpetbaggers of the future go away and leave us in peace to get on with the rest of our lives!"
- Jonathan Wilde "Towards the End of the Future" - Ken Macleod from "The Star Fraction"
"Terrorism is based on the persistent and deliberate violation of fundamental human rights. With bullets and bombs and now with hijacked airplanes, terrorists deny the dignity of human life. Terrorism preys particularly on cultures and communities that practice openness and tolerance. Their targeting of innocent civilians mocks the efforts of those who seek to live together in peace as neighbors. It defies the very notion of being a neighbor... The strength of America's response, please understand, flows from the principles upon which we stand. Americans are not a single ethnic group. Americans are not of one race or one religion. Americans emerge from all of your nations. We're defined as Americans by our beliefs, not by our ethnic origins, our race or our religion... It's tragic and perverse that it's because of these very principles, particularly our religious, political and economic freedoms, that we find ourselves under attack by terrorists. Our freedom threatens them because they know if our ideas of freedom gain a foothold among their people, it will destroy their power. So they strike out against us to keep those ideas from reaching their people... We are right and they are wrong. It's as simple as that. And by that I mean that America and its allies are right about democracy, about religious, political and economic freedom. And the terrorists are wrong, and in fact evil, in their mass destruction of human life in the name of addressing alleged injustices... Those who practice terrorism, murdering or victimizing innocent civilians, lose any right to have their cause understood by decent people and lawful nations... If you need to be reminded of this, you don't need to look very far. Just go outside for a walk in the streets and the parks of New York City. You can't walk a a block or two blocks in New York City without seeing somebody that looks different than you, acts different than you, talks different than you, believes different than you. If you grow up in New York City, you learn that. And then you learn something, if you're an intelligent or decent person, you learn that all those differences are nothing in comparison to the things that unite us... In some ways the resilience of life in New York City is the ultimate sign of defiance to terrorists. We call ourselves the capital of the world in large part because we're the most diverse city in the world. And we're the home of the United Nations. So that spirit of unity amid all our diversity has never ever been stronger. "
- Mayor Rudolph Giuliani Address to the United Nations, October 1, 2001
"As some of the injuries done us have become
intolerable we have still been clear that we
wished nothing for ourselves that we were not
ready to demand for all mankind - fair dealing,
justice, the freedom to live and to be at ease
against organized wrong."
- Woodrow Wilson
"I believe that men will see the truth, eye to
eye and face to face. There is one thing that
the American people always rise to and extend
their hand to and that is the truth of justice
and of liberty and of peace. We have accepted
that truth and we are going to be led by it,
and it is going to lead us, and through us the
world, out into pastures of quietness and peace
such as the world never dreamed of before." -
Woodrow Wilson's last words before a public
audience.
- Woodrow Wilson
"They that can give up essential
liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety deserve
neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
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July 2001
August 2001
September 2001
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Cover Updated October 21, 2001
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