Turning Around
Turning Around
Monday, September 17, 2001<
- A remarkable development: After I´ve calmed down, I found my way of thinking totally reversing itself. Now my concern is: what do we gain from retaliation?
Nothing.
- Let´s start with three assumptions that have been proven time and again:
- Events like the one from Sept. 11th are going to happen again.
- They can not be prevented by using violence or technology.
- Humanity will survive them and eventually the brave and peaceful people will survive the violent and cowardly.
- After what happened, what the friends and families of the victims need is hope and a vision for a future worth living. War will not give them that.
- New things need to be built on the ruins of the old.
- A wave of positive energy should be unfolded. Some of it already has in the form of the people working on the recovery of New York from this terrible, inhuman act. But becoming inhuman ourselves is not going to make it better.
- Still, no reaction at all is not what we can expect from our fellow human beings.
- How can we make the people less afraid? I am afraid myself. I was so scared that I was (and probably still am, should the issue be forced) to give up our humanity in order to fight those who cause the fear. The problem is, it would not work.
For centuries to come, there will always be people with a crazy mind and the means to make terrible things happen. And this does not only include terrorist attacks.
- Now, here is an idea I like: Towers of light.
What would you rather like to see: an indestructable monument or lightbeams searching the sky for enemy war planes?
- Bush enjoys his greatest hour. He even might win himself a reelection. But if he really plunges America into a crusade that lasts years, it will be his ultimate downfall. The american public is not noted for extended attention spans. Eventually, People will look in their back yards (aided by the pitiful mass media) and notice that it does not really concern them personally all that much, but that the prices for fuel and food have gone up considerably and that it is the government´s fault for persuing this war in those far away places that the average high school graduate has problems even to spell correctly. That is how people are, Mr. Bush.
- Apple cancelled the Apple Expo in Paris. This is a strange move. Nobody in Paris thinks that the security threat is any higher now than it was before. Reasons speculated on by other sites include problems moving equipment (the Apple products are mostly manufactured in Ireland) and personell (the overwhelming number of people that man the Apple and other booths are from Europe) out of north America. Whatever the reasons, a lot of people are disappointed. Many will have to pay cancellation fees for their travel arrangements. Apple itself will have to pick up a heavy fee, not counting the money they already spent on marketing for the event. This is a considerable blow for the european Mac market.