Alan Keyes is starting to sound like a principled elder.

<font color="blue">
Reason, the strongest weapon

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? 2001 WorldNetDaily.com


The war against terrorism is a war in defense of liberty. The defense of liberty has many aspects, of course. We should be careful not to let the drama of the military and diplomatic struggles now beginning, to distract us from what we can do at home to shore up freedom's moral foundation. Today, America is insisting that the world join us in enforcing the fundamental standards of civilized life. It is a time to be particularly clear in our own minds what those standards are, and how we intend to sustain them in the years to come.

As I have written before, I believe that one of the best ways to keep America on track is to return the study of the founding principles of American life to our schools. Several states have already taken steps to ensure that all children will receive a clear and direct formation in the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the crucial features of American life that flow from it. There is no more important part of "homeland defense."

Florida is the latest state to join the effort. A bill is now before the legislature of that state to "reaffirm the American character" by beginning each school day with the recitation of the key portion of the Declaration, and by requiring an "age-appropriate curriculum" teaching the "meaning and importance of this statement" in American life. Rep. Jerry Melvin, the author of the bill, wisely makes the connection between our national response to terror and the teaching of our young. "The strongest weapon in our arsenal," his bill states, "is the firm American character informed by the reasoned principles of the Declaration of Independence."

Rep. Melvin goes on to trace how the Declaration's statement of the "fundamental human principles of government upon which the new nation was to be founded continued to have resonance long after the contents of the remainder of the document were forgotten." Inspiring our national conscience with the noble goal of liberty and justice for all, the Declaration was the banner of the struggles to end racial injustice, including slavery, and to establish women's suffrage, the rights of labor and property, and all key components of self-government in America.

Rep. Melvin's bill makes a crucial point in the following words: "reason is the strongest weapon against the mindless fear the terrorist seeks." American resolve to destroy the enemy that has taken aim on our liberty is founded on our rational understanding of the justice of our cause. We can be grateful to God that we have, in the Declaration, a founding creed that has not only inspired our hearts but also informed our minds.

We can be grateful as well that leaders are coming forward at the state and local level to take responsibility for renewing our dedication to the reasons for the confidence America still has in the justice of its cause, and in the aid that we can rely upon from Divine Providence in the pursuit of that cause. Citizen education, particularly of our young people, has no finer purpose than to sustain the people's support for the just ends of government while ensuring that they will recognize and resist any usurpation of its powers for other ends.

In time of war, there is a natural and necessary tendency for power to concentrate at the federal level, and particularly within the executive branch. Far from simplistically rejecting this tendency, our founders understood that it was necessary for the nation to be able effectively to prosecute any armed conflict. They relied upon us, however, to remember and insist that the extraordinary and necessary imbalances in government that war can require are just that ? extraordinary, and to be accepted only because they are necessary. The impossibility, during wartime, of the same degree of leisurely and public deliberation that can be expected in our national policies during peacetime is a necessary danger to our liberty.

The concentration of government power that war requires is safe only if the people understand the reasons for its necessity, and retain the firm purpose to permit it only so long as it remains necessary to meet the extraordinary demands of war. This understanding can be secure only in a people that understands the reasons for its liberty, and its duty to defend it.

The moment of unifying national determination in response to the September 11th attacks needs to be supplemented by months and years of rededication to what America is, and why it must be defended. State legislation to encourage and prepare our young to join this effort will help ensure that the federal government ? which we trust and pray will soon be a "terrible swift sword" to the terrorists ? remains forever the authentic servant of the American people. Let us cherish the sacred fires of liberty. Let us be a generation that shows a high resolve that it will indeed be the American truth ? liberty and justice under God ? that, in the war against terror, is marching on.</font>

On 2001-09-29 20:32, madscientist wrote:
Alan Keyes is starting to sound like a principled elder.

Ummm... Maybe I'm missing something. Since when did Mr. Keyes stop sounding like a principled elder?

The "little green thing" called "BoomXer," from my hometown continues it's assault, "Marc, The fact that you are white and the small town you live in is 99% white goes to the heart of your tiff with angeli."

[Lamb] Wrong. The fact that she called me "white man," and then ridiculously asserted that, because of my skin color, I have nothing to fear in the clear and present danger "goes to the heart of" my "tiff with angeli."

["BoomXer"] No, I didn't read any private messages - I didn't even know about them until you told me..thanx

[Lamb] "thanx"? You're unwelcum. :smile:

["BoomXer"] "Frankfort, OH is 99% white, very rural and has many of the attitudes you would associate with such a town."

[Lamb] Wrong. Click on the following website:

http://www.fofs-oura.org/south.htm

Pull quote:
"The Concord Presbyterian Church at Lattaville [just outside Frankfort] provided a safe haven for fugitives in a hiding place above sanctuary of the church and several ministers that served the church were avowed abolitionist. Not far away, in South Salem, Rev. Hugh Fullerton, John Harmon. David Pricer, James Anderson and Satterfield Scott were receiving fugitives from Greenfield and from Lower Twin. They sent them to Col. Robert Stewart, James Jackson and others near Frankfort."

Many of these "fugitives" settled in present-day Roxabell, just outside of Frankfort. Their descendents, several generations later, remain happily ensconsed there to this day.

Again, not that it matters one wit with regards to anything concerning Ms. angeli, or the "little green thing" called "BoomXer" from my hometown.

["BoomXer"] "Growing up on the north side of Columbus would expose you to a wider range of people and experiences..."

[Lamb] Gee, how lucky was I? Mom and pop, I thank thee from the bottom of my heart I wasn't born in places like those dumb podunks from sunden ohiah.

["BoomXer"] "... but I still feel angeli with her travels and work has senstized her in a way that you don't and can't understand...Hence her objection to your attitude. It has nothing to do with my perception of who she is , but with what she has experienced."

[] I have come to call it "victimhood." The right of some to deem themselves, somehow more worthy, more blessed, more sensitive, more "politically correct," more righteous, more thinking, sophisticated, intelligent, and annoited by God, Allah, Krishna, or whatever to "inherit the kingdom of God."

H.L. Mencken had a more perfect word to describe that nonsense. He called it "quackery." I agree with him.

"Are You Experienced?" Jimi, Jimi! Where are you Jimi Hendrix?

["BoomXer"] "I'm anything but racist or bigoted. Opinionated and condescending? probably. Again, I apologize."

[Lamb] Boy you apologize a lot.

["BoomXer"] "I didn't know angeli was non-white....Is she? It never crossed my mind."

[Lamb] You're a real piece of work, pal.

["BoomXer"] "If you have ever read her posts over the years you know that she is well travelled and her work has sent her to various places on the planet. She has expeerienced things that most Americans such myself and Mr. Lamb have not, so she may have a different perspective than people who travel out of the country for pleasure. She also may be sensitized to certain attitudes more so than others. That's the only point I was trying to make."

[Lamb] "myself and Mr. Lamb"? You assume an awful lot. Is it because we happen to live in Ohio that that you just assume we have never "expeerienced things"? Please, "little green thing" move away. Go somewhere else and spill your tripe.

["BoomXer"] "Marc, I'm not a baiter or a spammer....just a smart ass."

[Lamb] Let's rephrase that, shall we? You, sir, or whatever, are a smart-ass baiter and spammer.

:lol: :lol: :lol:





<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Marc Lamb on 2001-09-29 21:48 ]</font>

Mr. Leedy,
it is not easy being green. One would think Mr. Lamb would be rather endeared to such verdure. One would, but would be wrong. HTH

Is the economy going to hell?

<font color="blue">
September 30, 2001

Many Once-Thriving Cities Are Suddenly Hurting
By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH

Sept. 11, most people agree, changed everything ? including, it now appears, the economic map of the United States. The suicide attacks of 19 terrorists are not only tipping the economy into a recession, they have also scrambled the business landscape in places thousands of miles from the destruction. Many cities and regions that, in America's gathering economic gloom, had strong growth prospects just three weeks ago no longer do.

"The parts of the country that were holding up well before the attack are going to be nailed by this," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com, a forecasting concern in West Chester, Pa., that analyzed the attacks' implications for Money & Business. Yet the terrorists' punch was so strong that even places reliant on military contracting and telecommunications, which may benefit from the nation's new spending priorities, will be hurt, though to a lesser degree.

It is, of course, too soon to know the scale of the economic damage in any particular place with any precision. But it is no secret that, because the attackers used commercial jets as weapons, the most dramatic economic effects are already being felt in cities most heavily dependent on air travel and the lodging industry: tourist sites catering to fly-in visitors, major convention centers and cities whose airports serve as hubs for the big airlines. The damage is compounded in cities that also have important financial activity.

A few months ago, Las Vegas, Honolulu, Fort Worth, Miami and Orlando, Fla., were enjoying growth, for example. Now, many of their swimming pools shimmer silently and their cavernous convention halls stand empty.

"Recessions are similar in some ways, but they each have different triggers," said David Orr, chief economist at First Union in Charlotte, N.C. The last one, in the early 1990's, was started by a lending crunch in commercial real estate and struck Eastern cities with office towers, he recalled. The one before that, in the early 1980's, was set off by high interest rates and followed by a downturn, spurred by collapsing oil prices, that ravaged the oil patch.

This one, economists agree, has a spark no one could have guessed: fear of flying.

"Before the attack, you could draw a line down the map from Detroit to Birmingham, and for 500 miles on either side of that line, you were in a recession," Mr. Zandi said. "Now, the economic problems are going to broaden out and engulf the entire country."


In his analysis, Mr. Zandi ranked the nation's metropolitan economies, based on their vulnerability in the coming months. He also ranked the cities best positioned to withstand the shock of the attack. The rankings are to some degree based, he cautioned, on assumptions that may ultimately prove false: that there will be no more terrorist attacks in the United States, that the Federal Reserve will reduce interest rates by an additional half-point, that the government will continue to provide fiscal stimulus and that energy prices will remain relatively high.

Not a single city of the top 318 metropolitan areas in the ranking will benefit economically from the shock, he added. Every one will be hurt.

But the pain will probably be buffered in communities with colleges ? students tend to stay in school during recessions ? like Waco, Tex., State College, Pa., and Yolo County, Calif. Towns with humble tourist attractions that mainly draw visitors who arrive by car will also be helped, like Panama City, Fla., a beach town in the Panhandle whose relative obscurity may hold new appeal to jittery tourists. Cities with a military presence, like Fort Walton Beach, Fla., which has two Air Force bases, or information-technology businesses of interest to intelligence agencies, may also be cushioned. So will cities with oil activity, like Bakersfield, Calif., according to Mr. Zandi's thinking.

Jersey City, which ranks as the American city most resilient to the downturn, is a special case, Mr. Zandi said. It will reap large gains in economic output from the many displaced workers from Lower Manhattan who cross the Hudson River to work there.

Up and down the rankings, a general pattern emerges: America's larger cities, no matter how diverse their economies, are expected to witness the greatest economic disruption in the months to come. Towns and cities on the roads not taken ? the places one enters and leaves on propeller planes ? will endure much as before.

"Lubbock is at the ends of the earth," said Mr. Zandi, explaining why the remote Texas farm center landed seventh on his list of communities best positioned to weather the coming storm.

New York, perhaps oddly, does not make the top 10 distressed areas; that is because the rankings are based on projected economic activity in the coming months, not the economic value that was lost when the World Trade Center turned to dust. Not that New York won't suffer ? it ranked 13th on the list of hardest-hit cities, close behind a Connecticut cluster that includes Stamford, Danbury and Bridgeport, and just ahead of Hartford and New London.

New Yorkers alone will file 75,000 unemployment claims as a result of the attacks on the World Trade Center, according to the Labor Department. But Mr. Zandi said their lost jobs were likely to be offset by jobs created by flows of federal and state money for rebuilding.

The more quickly and effectively President Bush's promised reprisals against the terrorist network restore public confidence, he added, the more quickly the rebuilding of Lower Manhattan will begin.

"If there's a quick resolution to the conflict, say, by the end of the year, then the New York City economy may come out of this better than many other parts of the country," Mr. Zandi said. "It will depend on how things unfold militarily."

Las Vegas, by contrast, relies heavily on air travel but has no rebuilding to do. Its economy appears to be the most harshly affected by the devastation 2,200 miles to the east. Before the terrorist attack, it had enjoyed the fastest economic growth of any American city ? more than 5 percent.

The city's booming growth is driven, to a degree that only now seems alarming, by air tourism. On any given day, Las Vegas boasts a quarter of a million visitors, about a tenth of them conventioneers. In normal times, 46 percent of them come through the airport.

"One of every three jobs here is in travel and tourism," said Keith Schwer, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Even as the city's economy has soared over the last decade, he said, the ratio has remained the same.

In recent days, the tourists who support those jobs have largely stopped coming. Some of those who were in Las Vegas left after the World Trade Center fell, saying they could not imagine rejoicing over a jackpot amid the national shock and grief. Business planners have called to cancel hundreds of conventions; as of last week, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority counted 249 such cancellations, a loss of 78,000 anticipated visitors who would have spent an estimated $78.7 million, not counting gambling. Even the city's quickie wedding business has tumbled, according to the Clark County Marriage License Bureau.

Immediately after the disaster, the large casino and resort concerns, like the Mandalay Resort Group (news/quote), Harrah's Entertainment (news/quote) and MGM Mirage (news/quote), tried to avoid laying people off by juggling part-timers' schedules and asking idle staff members to go home early. When that proved insufficient, they closed off whole floors and wings of their vast properties, and began layoffs.

Jim Gentleman, a vice president of Certified Airline Passenger Services, woke up one morning and found his business, which provided airline check-in services to tourists at their hotels, essentially banned by new federal security rules.

The company "has no cash flow at this point," he said.

Mr. Gentleman has laid off his entire field staff of 65 people and set about investigating a new business model: training his employees to operate the costly explosive-detection systems that have been considered for United States airports after previous air disasters, but rejected for cost and space reasons.

Mr. Gentleman now thinks that their arrival is inevitable ? the only questions being who will run the machines and whether his lenders will tide his company over while he waits to find out.

"Can we reinvent ourselves?" he asked. "We are trying to be creative. But from a financial standpoint, we're in a very difficult position right now. We've been in touch with our banks and many of our suppliers and asked them to be patient, and fortunately, they are being understanding."

Las Vegas's newest megaresort, a hotel, shopping, gambling and convention complex called the Aladdin Resort and Casino, filed notice with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it might have to cease operations entirely. The Aladdin was already heavily burdened by construction debt before the crisis.


The troubles of Las Vegas will not be confined to Las Vegas. Nevada gets about three- fourths of its budget from tourism and gambling revenue, and already, the government in Carson City has frozen hiring and postponed several building projects. Henderson, population 150,000, has been warned that it may not get all the money it had counted on for a new state college that was to have opened next year. The Highway Patrol will have to make do with its outmoded headquarters a while longer.

Reno is also likely to suffer deeply ? the nation's fifth-most-affected city, Mr. Zandi figures. There, casino owners are trying to avoid mass layoffs by cutting back staff hours.

Chuck Alvey, president of the Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada, put on a brave face and warned against drawing lessons about Reno from the Las Vegas outlook.

"Reno is very much a drive-in market," he said, noting that even amid the flood of the cancellations in Las Vegas, Reno held a motorcycle rally on the weekend of Sept. 22 that drew big crowds.

"People from the Bay Area can get here in a few hours' time by vehicle," Mr. Alvey said. "So we may be a little more insulated than Las Vegas."

Mr. Zandi thinks otherwise. Much of Reno's drive-in traffic comes from the San Francisco Bay Area, he said. And San Francisco is the seventh-most-affected city on his list, largely because of its ties to United Airlines, and its reliance on financial services and the weakened high-technology sector. He expects even drive-in tourism to Reno to taper off in the coming months, as Bay Area residents trim discretionary spending.

In Honolulu, civic leaders are not playing down the extent of their economic devastation. Honolulu ranks only fourth on Mr. Zandi's list of hard-hit cities, but that is because the list ranks degrees of change, not absolute misery. Yet while Las Vegas is falling back from powerful growth to a crawl, Honolulu had one of the slowest economic growth rates of any American city before the attack. Now it is being knocked flat.

No biker rallies, no special promotions will buck up Honolulu's economy until the day tourists are willing to fly out over long stretches of water again.

"This set of circumstances has really demonstrated our fragility and our vulnerability," said Gov. Benjamin J. Cayetano of Hawaii.

A recent tally by the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization of air arrivals for the third week of September found domestic travel down 30 percent from the comparable period last year. International travel was down by 78 percent. During the gulf war, Honolulu suffered when its arrivals declined by just 13 percent. Now all bets are off; no one knows how long the shock will last.

"We are, quite simply, in uncharted territory," the university study concluded.

By the third week of September, Hawaii's Labor and Industrial Relations Department was receiving unemployment claims at more than twice the usual rate, the vast majority from people who had lost tourism income.

Jeremy Harris, Honolulu's mayor, hopes to prime the pump with construction. He has promised to spend more than $200 million on new building over the next four months. He is also lobbying the City Council to extend a seven-year property tax "holiday" on business construction and is considering giving Honolulu home- builders a tax holiday, too.

Governor Cayetano has called the Legislature back into session and is also floating relief packages, including $1 billion in new borrowing to build a prison, a medical school and a biotechnology research center. He, too, is talking about tax cuts, and he thinks the state may delay a scheduled increase in the minimum wage. He has suggested diverting money from Hawaii's hurricane relief fund to shore up an economy flattened by an attack half a world away.

Some business executives are using the down time to catch up on inventorying, repairs and maintenance. Others are preparing a new marketing campaign for the islands, featuring discount coupons and new cultural events. One idea is to promote the islands' "healing" qualities. The executives all want quick action, but they admit that they still do not know when it will be safe to begin the campaign.

In Fort Worth, which ranks third on Mr. Zandi's hardest-hit list, the economic downturn is no less powerful, but it takes a different form ? and its experience is more typical of major American cities. Unlike Honolulu, Fort Worth can be reached by land. Unlike Las Vegas, it has spent the last decade consciously trying to diversify its economy. It was motivated by a round of mass layoffs when the cold war ended and the Navy canceled plans to build the A-12 fighter. Within six months, more than 7,000 General Dynamics employees there were out of work.

As it weaned its economy from military contracting, Fort Worth enjoyed one of the nation's highest job- creation rates in the 1990's. It built a big new freight airport, attracted a cast of big-name companies to an industrial zone that sprouted nearby, and revamped its downtown. It benefited mightily from the presence of the AMR Corporation (news/quote), the parent company of American Airlines, whose headquarters in the city make it the area's largest employer. American is also the largest tenant at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport; it runs one of its largest maintenance hangars at the new freight airport.

So Fort Worth had a sense of d?j? vu when on Sept. 19 AMR announced that it would lay off 20,000 of its 138,000 employees.

"All of those layoffs won't be here, of course," said Michael Ellis, an associate professor of economics and finance at Texas Wesleyan University. "But the dominoes are beginning to fall."

The Dallas/Fort Worth airport swiftly cut $10 million from its $200 million operating budget, and warned of more large cuts to come. Sabre Holdings, based in Fort Worth, announced that it would miss its earnings projections. Fort Worth hoteliers who cater to American pilot trainees said they feared for their survival. Restaurant owners worried that no one would want to eat out if America went to war. Home sales fell to 56 percent of the normal level, according to Edward L. Wilson Jr., a partner with the market research firm Residential Strategies.

Then came a blow from the financial-services sector: Ameritrade (news/quote) Holding, an online broker based in Omaha, announced that it was shuttering half of its 140,000-square-foot customer calling center at the Fort Worth freight airport.

Now, Fort Worth is pinning big hopes on military contracting again. It is lobbying hard on behalf of Lockheed Martin, which operates the former General Dynamics plant, and is competing with Boeing (news/quote) to build the Joint Strike Fighter, a successor to the F-16. The contract is expected to be awarded next month.

"We've all got our fingers crossed," said Bill Thornton, president of the Forth Worth Chamber of Commerce. The contract is the largest military procurement ever, worth as much as $200 billion over time.

Fort Worth's young people, meanwhile, seem to think business school is the best place to ride out the new tough times. Almost all of the area's business schools are reporting significant increases in enrollment this fall.

Mr. Zandi, the economist, said college enrollments were likely to be up all over the country in the coming semesters, particularly at state colleges and universities. Their relative low cost and proximity to home will hold special appeal in today's climate of insecurity and belt-tightening, he said. As enrollments rise, colleges are likely to hire more teachers, and students will spend their money in college towns, buffering those economies.

Thus State College, Pa., and Yolo County, Calif., home to the University of California at Davis, are on Mr. Zandi's list of least-affected localities. Albuquerque, whose economy is the largest of the "resilient" cities, is home not only to a large campus of the University of New Mexico but also to the Sandia National Laboratory and Kirtland Air Force Base.

In Albuquerque, business leaders perceive possibilities at Sandia, where the work includes weapons design and energy research. Sandia may one day contribute to the battle against international terrorism, said Webb Johnson, director of business research at the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce. Before the attack, Sandia had sponsored a business forum that gave rise to a number of spinoff companies, he said, like Micro Optical Devices, which makes tiny solar cells for satellites and was acquired by Emcore of Somerset, N.J.; and MesoSystems Technology, which sells devices that measure airborne contaminants.

Now, America's heightened sense of insecurity may give rise to even more commercial applications. Mr. Johnson spoke of Sandia's work in nanotechnology ? the science of engineering complex machines the size of a pinprick ? and the promise it holds for developing microscopic nerve-gas detection robots or spy satellites the size of grains of pollen.


But all that is in the future, Mr. Johnson added. In the here and now, Albuquerque's tourism sector is about to meet its first big test since the terrorists struck. This week, it is holding its hot-air balloon fiesta, normally the biggest tourist event of the year.

At first, when the Federal Aviation Administration banned all non-instrument-guided flying, city leaders were afraid that they would have to cancel the festival, which has been held for 30 years, Mr. Johnson said. But then the authorities declared that the balloons could ascend. Now the big question around town is how many balloonists will brave the trip to New Mexico.

Mr. Johnson spotted his first balloon of the season Wednesday morning, he said. He took it as a good sign.

"There seems to be a degree of confidence left," he said. "But it's fragile."</font>

Yes, it seems to be going to hell. Definitely is looking like the beginning of 4T. I want to direct your immediate attention to the last part of the article:

The reluctance to board a plane causes Mr. Kohut, the pollster, to wonder when the economic damage from the terrorist attacks will begin to fade. "We have to recognize that this is a mood in America unlike any we have ever seen before," he said. "It could last, or people could snap out of it."

<font color="blue">
September 30, 2001

Sales Drop and Spending Crawls as Uncertainty Grips Economy
By LOUIS UCHITELLE

In the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, sales are falling in nearly every sector of the economy ? from autos and home building to high technology and department stores ? as gloom spreads beyond the airline and travel industries.

As a result, executives in one industry after another are postponing whatever spending they can until the uncertainty lifts and they have a clearer idea of how consumers are reacting to the crisis. "People are saying things like, `We have hit the wall and the fourth quarter will be very bad,' " said Jerry Jasinowski, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, describing conversations with chief executives of companies in his organization.

The damage is considerable. An economy that was struggling before Sept. 11 has sunk rapidly in the nearly three weeks since the terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon. Hardly anyone predicts that economic activity increased in the third quarter, which ends today. The attacks guarantee contraction, forecasters say, leading to an outright recession if the downturn continues through Christmas.

The immediate economic harm from the attacks was stark, but limited. Airlines shut down, and air traffic is still way off. Industries directly linked to airline travel ? hotels, rental cars, aircraft manufacturing, theme parks, airport restaurants ? also suffered. Still, the airlines and their satellites represent less than 4 percent of the nation's $10 trillion economy, according to the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis ? hardly enough to sink the economy alone, short of shutting down almost entirely. The operations of the brokerage firms and investment houses in the World Trade Center were barely visible in the national accounts.

But beyond the immediate damage, the terrorism and the reaction to it ? particularly the psychological damage ? appear to be rippling through most of the economy, unchecked so far.

"The problems we have now have the potential to become much bigger," said Peter Temin, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "It is the role of government to make sure they don't. Maybe the economy can save itself and maybe it cannot, but it does not look good right at the moment."

The troubles are big and small. Disney and Warner Brothers delayed the release of two expensive films because they dealt with terrorism and a bomb smuggled aboard an airplane. EMC (news/quote), the nation's leading vendor of data storage equipment, announced the layoff of 2,000 employees, 10 percent of its work force, because of a "blanket of hesitation" among its customers, said Joseph M. Tucci, the chief executive.

In Jacksonville, Ark., the Hiwasse Manufacturing Company, which makes control panels for stoves and other kitchen appliances, had to slow production because a technician was afraid to fly to Arkansas from Chicago to repair a balky machine. "We found a way to work around the problem, but at greater cost to ourselves," said J. Richard Derickson, chief executive of Hiwasse.

Consumer confidence, the chief gauge for determining how willing people are to spend, has twisted up and then down in the nearly three weeks since the attacks. The consumer confidence index produced by the University of Michigan rose initially, but plunged in the second week, the university said on Friday.

"The public's first reaction was to reassert confidence that the terrorists were not going to win," Richard T. Curtin, director of the surveys, said in summarizing the results of the 500 phone interviews on which the index is based. "And then in the second week, the reaction set in."

Confidence fell more sharply than at any time since the oil embargo in 1973 and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. It might revive in October absent another terrorist attack or a military operation that heightens the fear of further retaliation, Mr. Curtin said. "Right now," he said, "people tell us they are unsure about their own personal safety, they are concerned about casualties in a military action abroad, and they have decided that this is the moment to be cautious spenders ? particularly for major items like homes, autos, appliances, furniture, computers."

The fearfulness was reflected in spending patterns last week. Sales fell at Saks Inc. (news/quote), the Gap, Limited, the Gucci Group (news/quote) and other stores whose upscale merchandise is less than essential, said Richard Baum, a retail analyst at Credit Suisse First Boston (news/quote). At the same time, sales rose for basics ? toothpaste, packaged food, shoes, toilet paper, diapers ? at Wal- Mart, Kmart and other discount stores. Data gathered from supermarket scanners showed big declines in sales of facial cosmetics and nail polish but a sharp increase in spending on candles.

The question in Mr. Curtin's mind is how long the fearfulness and shock will last. That is also the concern of Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center, who found in a poll of 1,000 people that 70 percent said they were depressed, 50 percent said they could not focus on their jobs and 33 percent said they were having trouble sleeping.

"People are down, and the question is when they will come back," Mr. Kohut said, noting that in previous crises the bounce-back came relatively soon.

Still, companies are sometimes damaged in ways that do not necessarily hurt the economy. Insurance companies, suffering their biggest single loss ever, are paying out more than $40 billion, but those filing the claims and receiving the money will presumably reinvest it in the economy, particularly to rebuild Lower Manhattan.

Merrill Lynch (news/quote) and Lehman Brothers (news/quote), with offices in the World Trade Center, have been forced to operate at less than full strength since Sept. 11. But their customers are still trading, and brokerage fees that Merrill and Lehman once collected are now going to Credit Suisse First Boston and other firms.

Many restaurants nationwide report fewer patrons, but fast-food chains say business is up ? not inside the restaurants themselves, but at the take-out windows, perhaps reflecting a reluctance to linger in public places.

Among other businesses that have gained, pharmaceutical companies report that sales have risen for sleeping pills and antidepressants. One antidepressant, Zoloft from Pfizer (news/quote), has been specifically approved to treat post-traumatic stress disorder.

The nation's automakers are uniformly suffering. With sales falling, Ford Motor (news/quote), General Motors (news/quote) and DaimlerChrysler (news/quote) have curtailed production and offered zero-interest financing to draw buyers, a tactic that cuts into profits.

As in many other industries, the savings from strategies that are meant to minimize the expense of keeping inventories have been diluted. Toyota (news/quote), for example, had maintained enough Canadian parts for only one day's production at its three United States assembly plants. Because of unpredictable border delays, that has been doubled to two days' inventory.

For every tractor-trailer that used to make the border crossing, a second is now bringing a parallel shipment, in case one is delayed at the border. "All this adds to cost," said Dennis C. Cuneo, a senior vice president at Toyota. "And there has been another cost. I don't know how you calculate it, but a lot of management's time has been focused in the last three weeks on keeping our plants running."

Apart from the pullback in consumer spending, nothing is more damaging to the economy than the freeze that many executives say has descended on investment in new equipment, computers, software and other tools of production. Spending on information technology in particular has suffered, according to surveys of Fortune 1000 companies by Howard Rubin at the META Group (news/quote).

Eight days after the terrorist attacks, 87 percent of the companies said it was too soon to decide whether to cut their investment spending. But by last Wednesday, 53 percent said they would cut their spending, in some cases by as much as 15 to 20 percent.

Home construction had remained strong in a weakening economy, but builders say that in the wake of the attacks, declining home sales have forced them to pull back. Sales are likely to be off by as much as 6 percent by the end of the year, despite 30-year mortgage rates that have dropped below 7 percent, the National Association of Realtors said.

That prediction jibes with the experience of Lee Baum, a home builder in Memphis. When the terrorists struck, his company, Baum & Company, had 18 houses in the $200,000-to-$350,000 range under construction. Only three had buyers, while the other 15 were going up in the previously reliable expectation that they would be sold before their completion.

Now, 3 of the 15 are nearly finished but still for sale. "Normally we don't come to completion without having sold a house," Mr. Baum said. Like many other builders, he has decided to pull back on speculative building, or starting new homes before buyers are found, which represents one-third of the single-family home construction in the United States.

The economic damage since Sept. 11 seems to touch dozens of industries. Movie attendance is down, apparently out of a fear of terrorism in public places, and the recording of new music is likely to suffer, says Richard D. Parsons, co-chief operating officer of AOL Time Warner (news/quote).

"In things like the record business," he said, "where people just don't want to travel anymore, things will slow down on the production side because just getting the artists there to record or release or promote is difficult."

The airlines are the hardest hit, laying off 100,000 workers already and still not able to cut costs enough, industry executives say, to offset their losses. Passenger traffic last week averaged less than 50 percent of capacity, and even with billions of dollars in emergency support from the federal government, the airlines said they will lose money until the average rises above 50 percent.

The reluctance to board a plane causes Mr. Kohut, the pollster, to wonder when the economic damage from the terrorist attacks will begin to fade. "We have to recognize that this is a mood in America unlike any we have ever seen before," he said. "It could last, or people could snap out of it."</font>


_________________
Robert Reed III (1982)
---------------------------------------------
"Life is not a cancer of matter; it is matter's transcendence of itself." - John S. Lewis
"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Einstein

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: madscientist on 2001-09-29 21:51 ]</font>

Aren't all "things" that come from Mars, a "little green," Mr. Saari?

Silent Judge Sandra Day O'Connor is concerned about the future of civil liberties.

Key segment: Now, she said, "there is a new spirit here and it's one of warmth, solidarity, humanity and determination that we have not witnessed before."

<font color="blue">
September 29, 2001

THE SUPREME COURT
O'Connor Foresees Limits on Freedom
By LINDA GREENHOUSE

Describing herself as "still tearful" after viewing the World Trade Center site, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor told a law school audience in Manhattan yesterday that as part of the country's response to terrorism, "we're likely to experience more restrictions on our personal freedom than has ever been the case in our country."

Lawyers have a special duty to work to maintain the rule of law in the face of terrorism, Justice O'Connor said, adding in a quotation from Margaret Thatcher, the former British prime minister: "Where law ends, tyranny begins."

Justice O'Connor, who was on an official visit to India when the terrorist attacks took place on Sept. 11, was the first Supreme Court justice to speak publicly about the events and their possible legal consequences. She was the main speaker at the groundbreaking for a law school building at New York University in Greenwich Village.

Her brief remarks emphasized the need to proceed with care in the aftermath of a national trauma that she said "will cause us to re-examine some of our laws pertaining to criminal surveillance, wiretapping, immigration and so on."

Lawyers would play an important role in striking the right balance, she said, adding, "Lawyers and academics will help define how to maintain a fair and a just society with a strong rule of law at a time when many are more concerned with safety and a measure of vengeance."

Justice O'Connor did not offer an analysis of any particular proposal, instead observing that "no single response is appropriate for every situation."

Referring to the prospect that military deployments overseas rather than domestic prosecutions will be a principal means of bringing terrorists to justice, she said: "It is possible, if not likely, that we will rely more on international rules of war than on our cherished constitutional standards for criminal prosecutions in responding to threats to our national security."

Justice O'Connor posed a series of questions at the ceremony:

"First, can a society that prides itself on equality before the law treat terrorists differently than ordinary criminals? And where do we draw the line between them? Second, at what point does the cost to civil liberties from legislation designed to prevent terrorism outweigh the added security that that legislation provides?"

Without answering the questions herself, she concluded: "These are tough questions, and they're going to require a great deal of study, goodwill and expertise to resolve them. And in the years to come, it will become clear that the need for lawyers does not diminish in times of crisis; it only increases."

Justice O'Connor, who grew up in Arizona, said her visit to New York and the trade center site had changed her image of a city she and her husband, John, had considered "harsh, brash, brassy, tough."

Now, she said, "there is a new spirit here and it's one of warmth, solidarity, humanity and determination that we have not witnessed before."

She added: "It's very noticeable and very moving."</font>

Mr. Saari writes, "One would think Mr. Lamb would be rather endeared to such verdure. One would, but would be wrong. HTH"


Main Entry: ver?dure
Pronunciation: 'v&r-j&r also -dy&r
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from verd green
Date: 14th century
1 : the greenness of growing vegetation; also : such vegetation itself
2 : a condition of health and vigor
- ver?dur?ous /'verj-r&s; 'ver-j&-r&s, -dy&-/ adjective



DTH? :lol:

I would not hold my breath waiting for protection of certain citizen group behaviors from the SCOTUS in a 4T. They seem to have an affinity to election returns and mob rule in a Crisis. A slim reed indeed, Mr. Reed. HTH

Ye shall accept that we are in 4T

<font color="blue">
50 stolen flags returned
Thieves in Moorestown have a change of heart

By Steve Doland
BCT staff writer



Thieves in Moorestown have a change of heart

MOORESTOWN - Unknown thieves plucked Howard Forvour's "unknown soldiers" from his Collins Avenue lawn more than two months ago.

On Sunday morning, the World War II veteran stepped onto his front porch and found that the "soldiers" - American flags once used to mark the graves of military veterans - had been returned, accompanied by a simple note of apology.

The note, which was inside a plastic bag that Forvour at first mistook for a piece of trash, read: "I am sorry that my friends and I took your flags away a while ago. We did it as a joke, but after the fact, all of us felt bad and completely regretted doing it. We are truly sorry."

Below the typed note, written in scrawling letters, was one word: "SORRY."

The simple note is apology enough, Forvour said.

"They did something and then made it right," he said. "That's the American spirit.

"Whoever did it, it doesn't matter now."

Forvour said he doesn't know whether the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 precipitated the return of the flags, although he noted the renewed sense of patriotism sweeping the nation.

On Sunday morning, Forvour placed all 50 flags back in his yard and said he plans to keep them there as a tribute.

"When they blow, they look like they're saluting those people in New York," he said.

That appearance is fitting for the 15-by-20 inch flags.

Forvour said friends in Princeton gave him the flags, which were used on special occasions by the state Department of Veterans Affairs to mark veterans' graves in Princeton Memorial Park.

"When you see these flags, when they put them out, it's really neat," he said. "It takes your breath away."

The flags are each used about twice at the park before they are replaced, Forvour said.

Although he said he wasn't really worried about getting the flags back or finding those responsible, Forvour said they do hold a special meaning for him.

"I look at them now and (know) that every flag I have out there was on the grave of a veteran," he said.

He may not know the men's names or what war they served in, but that doesn't matter as he pays homage to the "unknown soldiers."



Friday, September 28, 2001</font>

Yes, Mr. Reed, everything is "going to hell."

Has been for a long time now. Perhaps... 3-4,000 years?

I think we peaked in the "bronze age" actually. Since then... "What the... is going on?", has been the prevailing wisdom.

Dow was up nearly 8% last week. Anybody notice?

On 2001-09-29 22:05, Marc Lamb wrote:
Mr. Saari writes, "One would think Mr. Lamb would be rather endeared to such verdure. One would, but would be wrong. HTH"


Main Entry: ver?dure
Pronunciation: 'v&r-j&r also -dy&r
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from verd green
Date: 14th century
1 : the greenness of growing vegetation; also : such vegetation itself
2 : a condition of health and vigor
- ver?dur?ous /'verj-r&s; 'ver-j&-r&s, -dy&-/ adjective



DTH? :lol:

Ovine animadversion of verdure [put that on a tee shirt and see how it sells] spells 3T to me. HTH

On 2001-09-29 22:14, Marc Lamb wrote:
Yes, Mr. Reed, everything is "going to hell."

Has been for a long time now. Perhaps... 3-4,000 years?

I think we peaked in the "bronze age" actually. Since then... "What the... is going on?", has been the prevailing wisdom.

Dow was up nearly 8% last week. Anybody notice?

Yes, I noticed. But that doesn't mean anything. After EVERY crash, there is always a rebound. There was a big rebound after the 1929 and 1987 crashes.

Young, Mr Reed wonders, "After EVERY crash, there is always a rebound. There was a big rebound after the 1929 and 1987 crashes."

What the h... do you think crashes are for? To just lay there amongst the rubble and whine?

Get a grip, kid. :smile:

More on "verdure"...

Hypertext Webster Gateway: "verdure"
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (web1913)
Verdure Ver"dure, n. [F., fr. L. viridis green. See {Verdant}.] Green; greenness; freshness of vegetation; as, the verdure of the meadows in June.
A wide expanse of living verdure, cultivated gardens, shady groves, fertile cornfields, flowed round it like a sea. --Motley.

From WordNet (r) 1.6 (wn)
verdure n 1: green foliage [syn: {greenery}] 2: lush greenness of flourishing vegetation [syn: {greenness}, {verdancy}]


DTH? :lol:

Alright, we have a liberal talking about the need for economic security. Need I say more?

On page 260, S&H describe the initial reactions of the Stock Market Crash: A market comeuppance was foreseen by some, but the public reaction caught everybody by surprise. In a mood shift historian Allen described as "bewilderingly rapid," Americans now realized that "an old order is giving place to the new," that the 1930s "would not be a repetition" of the 1920s, that there would be no more "aching disillusionment of the hard-boiled era, its oily scandals, its spiritual paralysis, the harshness of its gaiety."

Sounds like Deja Vu all over again.

<font color="blue">
Needed: Economic Security
Merrill Goozner


Over the next few weeks, America will be consumed by debate about how life in this beacon of freedom may have to change to confront the terrorist threat. Liberals will have to think creatively about how to protect civil liberties in an era when it has become apparent that there are cells of people within the U.S. who are willing to engage in indiscriminate mass murder to further their insane politics.

But we have to do more. We must use this moment of national grief and unified purpose to advance a positive agenda that speaks to all Americans, who are desperate for a way to contribute to the war effort. Issues of economic security and policy have not gone away --they have only been upstaged for now by the terrorist threat. Here are a few questions that should not be overlooked:

First, the nation must immediately embark on a crash program to wean itself from dependence on foreign oil. That means substantially weaning itself from oil itself.

The most fitting memorial to the dead of September 11, 2001 will come if, decades from now, the assault is recalled as the event that triggered the end of the era of oil. Oil, as Daniel Yergin wrote in his Pulitzer Prize winning book "The Prize," fueled both economic growth and the great geopolitical conflicts of the 20th century.

But in the 21st century, it has become an albatross around the advanced industrial world's neck. It is the primary source of not only air pollution and global warming, but of geopolitical instability. The nations that, through the fluke of geography, are the source of much of the world's oil, have largely squandered the patrimony that flowed into their wallets. Their spiritually and economically impoverished peoples have become the seedbeds of the fanaticism that has needlessly taken so many lives.

The technologies already exist to accomplish the goal of eliminating half of our oil usage over the next decade. The automobile industry must be given generous tax incentives and subsidies to ensure that every new car that rolls off assembly lines within five years uses clean technologies like fuel cells that are either oil-free or are hybrids. Car fleet fuel efficiency standards should be doubled with generous financial awards for date-certain completion. And then they should be doubled again.

The government should also jump start massive new investments in non-polluting and non-oil using technologies for producing electricity. Solar, wind, geo-thermal and biomass -- these are the energy sources of the 21st century, not oil and natural gas from politically unstable regions.

The debate over changing our travel habits in the U.S. in response to the horrific hijackings cannot be limited to adapting new security precautions at the nation's overburdened airports. There were undoubtedly many ways the terrorists could have eluded our slapdash airport security precautions. Long lines of harried travelers brushing past the underpaid rent-a-guards at x-ray checkpoints pose almost no deterrence to the determined mass murderer.

Yet the outlook for the nation's airports in the coming decades promises even bigger crowds and longer lines. Moreover, as long as the current economics of the airline industry are in place -- with their thin operating margins in good times and massive losses in bad times -- improving the quality of airport security could prove very difficult to finance.

But there's a way around this dilemma. The nation should resolve now to end gridlock at its airports by eliminating all flights of up to 300 miles. How? By building a high-speed rail system in this country that will get people to their business and pleasure destinations just as fast, if not faster, and at less cost and with more comfort than current air travel.

A crash program now could have a modern, high-speed rail system in place in ten years that would largely eliminate the Washington-New York and New York-Boston shuttles; link the cities within Florida and Texas; hub-and-spoke the checkerboard-patterned cities of the Upper Midwest; run up and down the West Coast. It's a crash program that would create tens of thousands of new jobs in every section of the country.

Then, the airlines could adopt continental schedules that fill up their planes. Do competing airlines really need to send planes from Boston to Los Angeles every hour that are only one-third filled?

Businesses can adapt by altering their business schedules, and airlines can drop their ruinous competition for the limited trans-continental market. High-speed rail and full planes will mean less frequent aircraft departures and less crowded airports. That will give the airlines and airport authorities time to carry out the sophisticated and appropriate security measures that must be adapted in the wake of this week's terrorist assault. Those flights may cost more, but it's a small price to pay.

These are just some of the home front programs that the American people can unite behind now to combat terrorism within our borders. They're practical. They're high-tech. And they will give the economy a boost.

And most important, they will unite the home front in the war against terrorism in a way that doesn't sacrifice our basic freedoms.

Merrill Goozner </font>

Mr. Reed is stunned, "Alright, we have a liberal talking about the need for economic security. Need I say more?"

Question: What else do liberals talk about?


Sex in the oval office perhaps?

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: cbailey on 2001-09-30 10:18 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: cbailey on 2001-09-30 10:20 ]</font>

On 2001-09-29 22:42, Marc Lamb wrote:
Mr. Reed is stunned, "Alright, we have a liberal talking about the need for economic security. Need I say more?"

Question: What else do liberals talk about?


Sex in the oval office perhaps?

Hey, don't push it, Marc, or else you will have to fight not only Brian Rush, but also me. :wink:

91 year old GI speaks of Roosevelt's Four Freedom as being crucial.

<font color="blue">
Terrorism and the Four Freedoms
Doris Haddock, AlterNet
September 28, 2001

The following is a speech given by 91 year-old Doris "Granny D" Haddock, who walked across the U.S. in 1999-2000 for campaign finance reform, in Unity, Maine on September 22, 2001.


It is hard to think clearly as we yet rock in the wake of the recent terrorist attacks on our cities and our people. But think clearly we must. Politics is a serious business. Not everyone cares to listen when people argue about the policies and practices of our political leaders. Americans would rather be painting their house or going to a good ball game than listening to a speech, and that is not a bad thing. We wouldn't get much done if we just argued politics all the time.


But there is a time for it, and this is that time. Our neighbors and children are being killed in great numbers because Americans are not in control of the American government, and haven't been for some time. And now we are being killed by our own airplanes, just as we were killed in our African embassies in 1998 by our own explosives, which we gave to the Islamic fundamentalists so that they would please kill our then enemies, the Russians.


And four months ago the current Bush administration gave $43 million to the current Taliban Regime so that it would please kill our enemies, the heroin dealers of Afghanistan. Or was it to protect an oil pipeline? That's what we are now learning.


Our subcontracting of death has never done us much good, with Vietnam still the shining example, and with many other examples still bleeding in Central and South America, Africa, and in Southeast Asia.


The Coca-Cola company has been accused of financing the death squads in Columbia that kill union activists among the plantation workers. This so that our Coca-Cola is affordable to us. Wherever our large mining companies extract the value from foreign lands, we have a CIA and a military working to keep any leaders in power who will guarantee us a cheap labor supply and cheap mining products, at the expense of local people and their efforts toward democracy.


This is not who we want to be.


If you ask the common American to describe the America he or she wants us to be, you will here this: "We are the country that represents freedom, opportunity and fairness. We use our strength to help people around the world. We oppose brutal regimes and work toward world health and justice and democratic participation of all people. The Statue of Liberty is our beacon to the world."


The common American wants the American government to be that -- to be that every day, in every corner of the world.


The common American would never answer: "America is this: We use our powerful military forces, intelligence forces, and our huge financial power to extract from weaker countries what we need for our own, affordable lifestyle in the US. We will support any brutal regime so long as they provide us with the cheap labor and materials we need, and so long as they keep any competing political systems out of the region. We will finance the massacre of peasants and workers, the torture of journalist and clerics, and the rape of nature and the sky itself so that we may live pleasantly today in America."


The common American feels ill at such words. And yet, that is the vision of America that many people in the world carry in their angry hearts. They see their miserable lives and their precious children and land being sacrificed for our luxury. They see our US-made helicopters and jets and guns and rockets suppressing and killing them. Naturally, they celebrate when we are made to suffer.


The disconnection between their perception and ours is profound: Our people are stunned at the idea that we are not universally loved.


In classrooms all over America this week and last, teachers and professors asked their students, "why do you suppose that some people around the world are so angry at us?" Many students no doubt suggested that differences in religion make some people intolerant and fanatically homicidal. What other reason could they have?


In a West Virginia college classroom last week, a friend of mine had something different to say.


"Look at it like this," he said to a classroom filled with honor students who couldn't imagine why America was under attack, except for reasons of religious extremism. "Imagine that West Virginia was a third world country," he said. "We have all this valuable coal, but there is one country, far away, that buys it all. They are the richest nation in the world, and they stay that way by getting our resources cheaply. They use their wealth to buy-off our government officials, and to kill or torture any worker here who tries to organize a union or clean up the government. How mad would we be toward that distant country, and just how innocent would we think its citizens are, who drive around in luxury cars and live in elegant homes and buy the best medicines for their children, and otherwise live a life in sparkling skyscrapers -- a life made affordable by the way they get resources from us? They admire their own democracy, turning a blind eye to what their government and their corporations do abroad."


The classroom was silent. "Well," he said, "that's pretty much what we do all over the world.".


Someone at the back of the room said, "Well, we may not be perfect, but this attack didn't come from Central America or Africa or Southeast Asia, it came from wealthy people from the Mideast, for religious reasons. "


The class soon remembered that the US had supported the brutal regime of the Shah of Iran so to better protect the supply of oil to the US, and that the brutality of the Shah led to the rise of the Ayatollah Khomeini and the camp of violent Islamic fundamentalists, of which Bin Laden was a product. The class was silent again. Then they began to discuss our problem, and they were in a position to come up with real answers.


So must all Americans see America as the world see us, so that we can strive for justice and the peace that comes with justice.


The politics that killed six thousand people in New York last week is the politics of Mideast oil, the politics of the Shah of Iran and our support for him and his torture police -- supported so that we might secure cheap oil and an anti-Communist puppet at any price to the local people and at any price to their democracy. The Shah did not deliver peace or safety, but instead he delivered into the world the Ayatollah Khomeini and the present wave of violent Islamic fundamentalists -- who are no more Islamic in their practices than America's radical right are Christian in their practices. Both radical fringes are beating the war drums and accusing everyone who is not exactly like them of causing last week's horror. George Bush, has declared war on evil. That is a holy war as chilling as the Taliban's call for war on evil.


This is not a time for all good Americans to forget their political differences and rally behind the man in the White House. The man in the White House should apologize for the most serious breach of internal security in the nation's history, not disguise his failure in calls for war. Can he hope that the fiery explosions in New York and Washington and Pennsylvania will be more acceptable to us if they are placed in a larger context of explosions of our own making? I do not rally around that idea. It is "wag the dog" taken to an extreme level, for he is not covering up his failure with a fake war, but with a real one.


He has taken every opportunity to make the world less safe, first in North Korea and then in the Mideast and in Russia and in China. He needs a dangerous world to sell his military vision of the future. He is getting it. We must not go along with him.


The international community may soon have to rescue the Afghan people from the Taliban just as we had to rescue Europe from the Nazis, and rebuild it and let it find its way to self-government, but that is not the same issue and that will not resolve international terrorism at its roots. It is a diversion of our attention from Bush's catastrophic failure at home and abroad.


Sixty years and eight months ago Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered his "four freedoms" State of the Nation speech to Congress as he prepared the nation for war. In it, he laid down the sensible and humane preconditions for future world peace and democracy.


If Mr. Bush insists on preparing us for his war against evil, let him learn from that great speech.


Let me read you the final paragraphs:


"In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world."


Now Mr. Bush, do not tell us that we must prepare to lose our free speech rights and our rights to privacy, so that you and your corporate-military complex can continue to abuse the world safely. Do not take away our first freedom. You have installed your closest political associate as the head of FEMA, which has its own prison camps set up across America for any coming disturbances. We are indeed disturbed.


And now it seems we are to have an internal secret police, headed not by a law enforcement man but by Tom Ridge, and it is to be a cabinet-level position. This puts it far above the FBI, our non-political, professional internal security police, which has been discredited in an intensive campaign this year.


"The second," FDR continued, "is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in the world."


Do not, Mr. Bush, let your vision of good and evil and your friends on the religious right overpower the religion of mainstream America, which is the religion of peace and justice. Do not take away our second freedom.


"The third," said FDR, "is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants -- everywhere in the world. Unquote.


We cannot live peacefully if we do not work every day for the people, not the despots, of the world -- for justice, not for banking arrangements and trade agreements to fatten our already fat banks and corporations. Do not deprive the third world of this third freedom, for none of us are free if some of us are yet enslaved.


"The fourth is freedom," said FDR, "from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor -- anywhere in the world."


Let the US stop selling the weapons of death throughout the world. We have fallen far, far away from the vision of a peaceful, unarmed world. We are now the principle source of arms and high-tech weapons for all the despots of the world. Mr. Bush, you can only give us freedom from fear if the people of the world are free of fear. This the common American knows in his heart.


I remember Roosevelt's speech well. My husband and I no doubt discussed it at the dinner table. We had already been married eleven years at the time. I hope I speak for many common Americans who cannot see our flag without getting emotional with love for it. Our dream is that it should always represent the best that human beings can do on this earth. This is a time for us to rally around its best values and its highest dreams.


To the terrorists, here is my message: you are not martyrs, but cowards. Your selfish, ego-maniacal greed for a place in heaven cannot be purchased with the deaths of other people. Look across the Khyber Pass toward the land of Gandhi, who taught us that violence makes justice harder to come by, not easier. Today in America, the work of terrorists makes the work harder for those who want reform America's policies and practices. You do not want to change American policies, or you would be using your millions to bring your message to us in ways that we can understand and act upon. You want only your shortcut to heaven. We have the same great God, the same Allah, and he shakes his head in sad disbelief at your spiritual immaturity.


"The ultimate weakness of violence," Dr. King taught us, "is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it... Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate.... adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."


Terrorism makes it hard for us to do the right thing, but do it we must.


Old "Fighting Bob" LaFollette, that great reformer, said that "war is the money-changer's opportunity, and the social reformer's doom." But we will not accept doom. We will keep going. It is a time for all of us to speak the truth with courage and hope. America is, despite all, still the best hope for the world. But we are a work in progress, and we all have some work to do right now. It is the work of peace, of frank education, of making our lives and our communities more sustainable and less dependent on the suffering of others, and of cleaning up a campaign finance system that has allowed our elected leaders to represent not our interests and values, but those of international corporations who are set on world domination and who have the resources to buy our government away from us if we will let them. We will not, so long as we live, and so long as our four freedoms are our guiding lights and inspiration. </font>

:wink: Robert.

Mr. Mark Steyn surveys New Hampshire in Loyalty and Liberty from the Telegraph UK of 29 September 2001 via the FreeRepublic.

It includes some thoughtful action for our Attorney General in the War on Terror. HTH

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Virgil K. Saari on 2001-09-29 22:56 ]</font>

The "little green thing" called "BoomXer," from my hometown continues it's assault, "Marc, The fact that you are white and the small town you live in is 99% white goes to the heart of your tiff with angeli."

[Lamb] Wrong. The fact that she called me "white man," and then ridiculously asserted that, because of my skin color, I have nothing to fear in the clear and present danger "goes to the heart of" my "tiff with angeli."

["BoomXer"] No, I didn't read any private messages - I didn't even know about them until you told me..thanx

[Lamb] "thanx"? You're unwelcum.

["BoomXer"] "Frankfort, OH is 99% white, very rural and has many of the attitudes you would associate with such a town."

[Lamb] Wrong. Click on the following website:

http://www.fofs-oura.org/south.htm

Pull quote:
"The Concord Presbyterian Church at Lattaville [just outside Frankfort] provided a safe haven for fugitives in a hiding place above sanctuary of the church and several ministers that served the church were avowed abolitionist. Not far away, in South Salem, Rev. Hugh Fullerton, John Harmon. David Pricer, James Anderson and Satterfield Scott were receiving fugitives from Greenfield and from Lower Twin. They sent them to Col. Robert Stewart, James Jackson and others near Frankfort."

Many of these "fugitives" settled in present-day Roxabell, just outside of Frankfort. Their descendents, several generations later, remain happily ensconsed there to this day.

Again, not that it matters one wit with regards to anything concerning Ms. angeli, or the "little green thing" called "BoomXer" from my hometown.

["BoomXer"] "Growing up on the north side of Columbus would expose you to a wider range of people and experiences..."

[Lamb] Gee, how lucky was I? Mom and pop, I thank thee from the bottom of my heart I wasn't born in places like those dumb podunks from sunden ohiah.

["BoomXer"] "... but I still feel angeli with her travels and work has senstized her in a way that you don't and can't understand...Hence her objection to your attitude. It has nothing to do with my perception of who she is , but with what she has experienced."

[] I have come to call it "victimhood." The right of some to deem themselves, somehow more worthy, more blessed, more sensitive, more "politically correct," more righteous, more thinking, sophisticated, intelligent, and annoited by God, Allah, Krishna, or whatever to "inherit the kingdom of God."

H.L. Mencken had a more perfect word to describe that nonsense. He called it "quackery." I agree with him.

"Are You Experienced?" Jimi, Jimi! Where are you Jimi Hendrix?

["BoomXer"] "I'm anything but racist or bigoted. Opinionated and condescending? probably. Again, I apologize."

[Lamb] Boy you apologize a lot.

["BoomXer"] "I didn't know angeli was non-white....Is she? It never crossed my mind."

[Lamb] You're a real piece of work, pal.

["BoomXer"] "If you have ever read her posts over the years you know that she is well travelled and her work has sent her to various places on the planet. She has expeerienced things that most Americans such myself and Mr. Lamb have not, so she may have a different perspective than people who travel out of the country for pleasure. She also may be sensitized to certain attitudes more so than others. That's the only point I was trying to make."

[Lamb] "myself and Mr. Lamb"? You assume an awful lot. Is it because we happen to live in Ohio that that you just assume we have never "expeerienced things"? Please, "little green thing" move away. Go somewhere else and spill your tripe.

["BoomXer"] "Marc, I'm not a baiter or a spammer....just a smart ass."

[Lamb] Let's rephrase that, shall we? You, sir, or whatever, are a smart-ass baiter and spammer.







[ This Message was edited by: Marc Lamb on 2001-09-29 21:48 ]

It's obvious that a significant change has occurred in the thought processes of Americans. I find it particularly telling to see how the two dominant political parties have stopped railing at each other over trivia. We have pulled together as a country,... we share a common goal which could decide our very survival. *That* is *not* the mark of a third turning scenario. The fourth turning has begun,... lets pray that God sees fit to allow us to emerge from the other end of it.

Marc, or should I say Mr. Lamb?
For a "born-again" christian you're awfully caustic and unforgiving. Maybe you need to take alittle trip down to the "North Fork" be immersed again.......It's a beautiful day, the water is probably still pretty warm?

Now if you would have actually been living Christ's teachings - the actual, sublime psycology of His teachings - instead of living out of your obviously fragile ego......if you would have maintained self-control....I would be the one looking bad now. (of course, my behavior isn't stellar either - but then again, I'm not coming from a position of self-righteousness like you are Mr.Lamb). Your defensive reactions are way out of proportion. You're acting like a hurt child.....GET A GRIP!

Now I'll let you have the last word, say what ever you like, and then PLEASE let this thread continue with the business at hand or you're going to end up looking like Edgar over in "Women & The 4th".....Thanx

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: BoomXer on 2001-09-30 14:06 ]</font>