SCN: [Fwd: [swing-poly] [Fwd: Thoughts on the madness...]]

[sharma]

-------- Original Message --------



-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Thoughts on the madness...
Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 10:34:58 -0700 
I rarely forward messages, but I think this one
has a
lot of important points in it...it's from Michael
Moore (of ROGER & ME/TV NATION fame)...




Attachment: Forwarded Message

Date:	Wed, 12 Sep 2001 06:10:17 -0400
To:	michaelmoore-l at cloud9.net
From:	Michael Moore <mikemail at cloud9.net>
Subject:	[Mike's Message] Death, Downtown
Reply-to:	mikemail at cloud9.net
Death, Downtown

Dear friends,

I was supposed to fly today on the 4:30 PM
American
Airlines flight 
from 
LAX to JFK. But tonight I find myself stuck in
L.A.
with an incredible 
range of emotions over what has happened on the
island
where I work and 
live in New York City.

My wife and I spent the first hours of the day --
after being awakened 
by 
phone calls from our parents at 6:40am PT --
trying to
contact our 
daughter 
at school in New York and our friend JoAnn who
works
near the World 
Trade 
Center.

I called JoAnn at her office. As someone picked
up,
the first tower 
imploded, and the person answering the phone
screamed
and ran out, 
leaving 
me no clue as to whether or not she or JoAnn would
live.

It was a sick, horrible, frightening day.

On December 27, 1985 I found myself caught in the
middle of a terrorist 
incident at the Vienna airport -- which left 30
people
dead, both there 
and 
at the Rome airport. (The machine-gunning of
passengers in each city 
was 
timed to occur at the same moment.)

I do not feel like discussing that event tonight
because it still 
brings up 
too much despair and confusion as to how and why I
got
to live* a 
fluke, a 
mistake, a few feet on the tarmac, and I am still
here, there but for 
the 
grace of*

Safe. Secure. I'm an American, living in America.
I
like my illusions. 
I 
walk through a metal detector, I put my carry-ons
through an x-ray 
machine, 
and I know all will be well.

Here's a short list of my experiences lately with
airport security:

* At the Newark Airport, the plane is late at
boarding
everyone. The 
counter can't find my seat. So I am told to just
"go
ahead and get on" 
-- 
without a ticket!

* At Detroit Metro Airport, I don't want to put
the
lunch I just bought 
at 
the deli through the x-ray machine so, as I pass
through the metal 
detector, I hand the sack to the guard through the
space between the 
detector and the x-ray machine. I tell him "It's
just
a sandwich." He 
believes me and doesn't bother to check. The sack
has
gone through 
neither 
security device.

* At LaGuardia in New York, I check a piece of
luggage, but decide to 
catch 
a later plane. The first plane leaves without me,
but
with my bag -- no 
one 
knowing what is in it.

* Back in Detroit, I take my time getting off the
commuter plane. By 
the 
time I have come down its stairs, the bus that
takes
the passengers to 
the 
terminal has left -- without me. I am alone on the
tarmac, free to 
wander 
wherever I want. So I do. Eventually, I flag down
a
pick-up truck and 
an 
airplane mechanic gives me a ride the rest of the
way
to the terminal.

* I have brought knives, razors; and once, my
traveling companion 
brought a 
hammer and chisel. No one stopped us.

Of course, I have gotten away with all of this
because
the airlines 
consider my safety SO important, they pay
rent-a-cops
$5.75 an hour to 
make 
sure the bad guys don't get on my plane. That is
what
my life is worth 
-- 
less than the cost of an oil change.

Too harsh, you say? Well, chew on this: a
first-year
pilot on American 
Eagle (the commuter arm of American Airlines)
receives
around $15,000 a 
year in annual pay.

That's right -- $15,000 for the person who has
your
life in his hands. 
Until recently, Continental Express paid a little
over
$13,000 a year. 
There was one guy, an American Eagle pilot, who
had
four kids so he 
went 
down to the welfare office and applied for food
stamps
-- and he was 
eligible!

Someone on welfare is flying my plane? Is this for
real? Yes, it is.

So spare me the talk about all the precautions the
airlines and the FAA 
is 
taking. They, like all businesses, are concerned
about
one thing -- the 
bottom line and the profit margin.

Four teams of 3-5 people were all able to
penetrate
airport security on 
the 
same morning at 3 different airports and pull off
this
heinous act? My 
only 
response is -- that's all?

Well, the pundits are in full diarrhea mode,
gushing
on about the 
"terrorist threat" and today's scariest dude on
planet
earth -- Osama 
bin 
Laden. Hey, who knows, maybe he did it. But,
something
just doesn't add 
up.

Am I being asked to believe that this guy who
sleeps
in a tent in a 
desert 
has been training pilots to fly our most modern,
sophisticated jumbo 
jets 
with such pinpoint accuracy that they are able to
hit
these three 
targets 
without anyone wondering why these planes were so
far
off path?

Or am I being asked to believe that there were
four
religious/political 
fanatics who JUST HAPPENED to be skilled airline
pilots who JUST 
HAPPENED 
to want to kill themselves today?

Maybe you can find one jumbo jet pilot willing to
die
for the cause -- 
but 
FOUR? Ok, maybe you can -- I don't know.

What I do know is that all day long I have heard
everything about this 
bin 
Laden guy except this one fact -- WE created the
monster known as Osama 
bin 
Laden!

Where did he go to terrorist school? At the CIA!

Don't take my word for it -- I saw a piece on
MSNBC
last year that laid 
it 
all out. When the Soviet Union occupied
Afghanistan,
the CIA trained 
him 
and his buddies in how to commits acts of
terrorism
against the Soviet 
forces. It worked! The Soviets turned and ran. Bin
Laden was grateful 
for 
what we taught him and thought it might be fun to
use
those same 
techniques 
against us.

We abhor terrorism -- unless we're the ones doing
the
terrorizing.

We paid and trained and armed a group of
terrorists in
Nicaragua in the 
1980s who killed over 30,000 civilians. That was
OUR
work. You and me. 
Thirty thousand murdered civilians and who the
hell
even remembers!

We fund a lot of oppressive regimes that have
killed a
lot of innocent 
people, and we never let the human suffering THAT
causes to interrupt 
our 
day one single bit.

We have orphaned so many children, tens of
thousands
around the world, 
with 
our taxpayer-funded terrorism (in Chile, in
Vietnam,
in Gaza, in 
Salvador) 
that I suppose we shouldn't be too surprised when
those orphans grow up 
and 
are a little whacked in the head from the horror
we
have helped cause.

Yet, our recent domestic terrorism bombings have
not
been conducted by 
a 
guy from the desert but rather by our own
citizens: a
couple of 
ex-military 
guys who hated the federal government.

 From the first minutes of today's events, I never
heard that 
possibility 
suggested. Why is that?

Maybe it's because the A-rabs are much better
foils. A
key ingredient 
in 
getting Americans whipped into a frenzy against a
new
enemy is the 
all-important race card. It's much easier to get
us to
hate when the 
object 
of our hatred doesn't look like us.

Congressmen and Senators spent the day calling for
more money for the 
military; one Senator on CNN even said he didn't
want
to hear any more 
talk 
about more money for education or health care --
we
should have only 
one 
priority: our self-defense.

Will we ever get to the point that we realize we
will
be more secure 
when 
the rest of the world isn't living in poverty so
we
can have nice 
running 
shoes?

In just 8 months, Bush gets the whole world back
to
hating us again. He 
withdraws from the Kyoto agreement, walks us out
of
the Durban 
conference 
on racism, insists on restarting the arms race --
you
name it, and Baby 
Bush has blown it all.

The Senators and Congressmen tonight broke out in
a
spontaneous version 
of 
"God Bless America." They're not a bad group of
singers!

Yes, God, please do bless us.

Many families have been devastated tonight. This
just
is not right. 
They 
did not deserve to die. If someone did this to get
back at Bush, then 
they 
did so by killing thousands of people who DID NOT
VOTE
for him! Boston, 
New 
York, DC, and the planes' destination of
California --
these were 
places 
that voted AGAINST Bush!

Why kill them? Why kill anyone? Such insanity*

Let's mourn, let's grieve, and when it's
appropriate
let's examine our 
contribution to the unsafe world we live in.

It doesn't have to be like this*

Yours,

Michael Moore
mmflint at aol.com




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