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Where do you Stand?
by Patricia Cori
23 September 2001
The doomsday message has been cast: “If you are not
with us,” said President George W. Bush in his address to the nation,
“then you are with the terrorists.”
Let us give due consideration to the meaning and the impact of such
an unyielding, arrogant statement – since our behavior, thoughts,
conversations, interests and actions will soon be subject to all
manner of surveillance and scrutiny and, if we are going to be categorized
into such dangerous archetypes, then we are most definitely going
to need to know which side we are on.
I understand “with us” to mean that we must be determined to attack
all enemies of the Alliance and particularly those of the United
States - regardless of proof and due process (upon which our entire
democracy claims to be based.) To me it means allowing innocent
civilians to be massacred in the name of ‘infinite justice’; it
means not only watching our youth go off to war, perhaps never to
return – but celebrating it. It means revenge over unknown enemies,
striking out (not unlike Don Quixote) against shadows, absurdly
aggressive actions and irreparable damage to the fragile balance
of our world. It means the unleashing of new, terrifying weapons
of destruction, the further poisoning of the earth and the sky,
the perpetuation of hopelessness amongst us.
I understand that to be ‘with them’, we must be willing to give
up the right to dissent or peaceful protest – and by nature of that
denial we will certainly be obliged to silence. To be ‘with them’,
we have been told, will mean ‘sacrificing some of our civil liberties
for safety’. It means accepting that much of the military offensive
about to be enacted by our democracy, leader of the NATO alliance,
be conducted in ‘secrecy’. To be ‘with them’ requires these concessions
of the citizens of the ‘free’ world. We must wave our flags, sing
our anthems, go to war and ask no questions.
Careful now. If we are not willing to accept these conditions then
we are with ‘the terrorists’. Indeed, I imagine that we are
terrorists. My God, before long we too, may be persecuted, like
those who were sought out as ‘Communists’ by the McCarthy Committee…
like witches, in the inquisition.
What a dilemma. From where I’m sitting, friends, it appears that
all peace-seeking citizens of planet earth are being told that they
must forego their desire for non-violent resolutions and agree to
live by the sword or be burned at the proverbial stake.
The One World Order is upon us, friends.
Sound the alarm.
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