Turtle (way of warrior) - who speaks for wolf? Intersticial riposte to long reply

[Toni Petrinovich]

I have been reading the posts that request that we go off this topic and on to others.  I am willing - and yet a piece of me knows that many people - perhaps most - will reference the rest of life using 9/11 as zero point - so I am not sure that going of fthis topic is completely possible.  I also here Winston's inserts below very loud and so clearly.  I had awakened this a.m. with a desire to share something with you and so, I am going to stay on this topic for this post.

Obviously, we have all been reading the war vs. peace words that each of us feels in our hearts - one way or another.  Each person feels what is true for him/her based on his/her own frame of reference which is based on experience which is based on conditioning which is based on the society that each one grew up in.  Having said that, I know and have proven to myself that we can go beyond that in our daily lives.  Case in point:

When I lived in S.F. during the 60's and 70's, I worked with an organization that patrolled the less desirable parts of town talking with addicts of all types and letting them know that we were running halfway houses for showers, food and beds.  There was no Christian conversion necessary, no meetings you had to attend (though we had them and you could if you wanted to, yet nothing was mandatory) and no belief system to buy into.  

During this period, one evening, I was walking with a companion through the Tenderloin (for those who do not know S.F., know that the word speaks for itself) when a man appeared waving a loaded gun, screaming, throwing around the bags of garbage left for the sanitation department on the street and generally causing a great deal of fear within this district.  Of course, people were running, screaming and generally expressing fear and anger.  

I placed myself in the deepest, most complete feeling of peace that I knew in my heart, extended my open hand and began walking toward this man - fastening my gaze on his eyes (when I could catch them) - and holding the knowing that he and I were One upon this earth.  By the time I got to him, he was simply standing there, pointing the gun at me.  I said, "Give me the gun."  He said, "Why?"  I said, "Because I asked you to."  He did.  Gun in my hand, clip removed, I asked him what was going on.  He was quite drunk (increasingly dangerous with a loaded gun), very upset and generally a mess.  He was having a fight with his wife who was hanging outside a window above us yelling at him to come back in. 

My companion and I talked with him for some time, persuaded him that a wife who wanted you to come back probably wanted to resolve the issues, at least he could give it a try, and, at last, he decided that we might be right.  I gave him his gun back, minus the clip, and he went back upstairs.

I have mused often about this event knowing that if just enough people had been agitated enough, it might have agitated him more and the gun could easily have gone off - in what direction I do not know.

I tell this story not because I believe that asking the el Queda to turn over their weapons is necessarily going to work (?), only to show that there are other ways to come to resolution within a seemingly impossible situation.  It takes knowing your own truth, courage, peace in your heart and compassion for all - seeing each of us as a cell in a much larger organism.

And so, I question whether bombing them is the way - I question whether our ground troops have what it takes to kill everyone in sight in the entire land of Afganistan since that is going to be what it does take.  The Taliban have lifted the ban on weapons for the citizenry and everyone who has hidden a gun is bringing it out and getting ready.  As one old man said to a reporter - "We will fight until the last man".  Will anyone put their hand out to these people?

With peace in my heart, love for mankind and a prayer that we do not easily walk away from this discussion when it is exactly what those who wish to fight us are hoping for,

Toni
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Winston Kinch 
  To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU 
  Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 6:29 AM
  Subject: Re: Turtle (way of warrior) - who speaks for wolf? Intersticial riposte to long reply




   [see intersticial comments in parentheses below]

  Mr. Everett wrote in part:


  I guess I'll take on your inquiry, who speaks for wolf.  I think on this list I'm likely of the wolf breed.  In a private interchange with Michael Hermann, re: Mr. Krauthammer's column that I posted earlier, in which he wanted to clarify my views, I responded with the following to the question "Where do you stand?"  I have added one sentence that I didn't think of before regarding the papal encyclical and a clarification on the reading comment. 

  Dear Michael,

  Where do I stand?  Open and free inquiry.  Listening to many sides, and all sides.  Voltaire had it right---"I do not believe in what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it."  Asking all the possible questions as a means for discovery [check; all the questions].  Openly questioning the Convention Wisdom of this listserv that is heavily weighted to those who expect a loving response to sway Mr. bin Laden and his murdering followers [possible assumption and oversimplification? I for one have seen no "voting" in this forum, only open discussion of the very questions - and possible answers - that CNN and its ilk are not raising].  Good luck.


  Mr. Krauthammer [a nom de plume, one hopes?] asks some very important questions. We also need to ask some hard questions.  Prudens questio dimidium scientiae---to ask the proper question is half of knowing [check; Socrates himself would agree].  Why are not the Imam's of Islam the world over vigorously condemning the concept of suicide bombers as being something out of Islam, as claimed by the fundamentalists?  Why are they so relatively quiet?  Where are the equivalent of the Papal Encyclical or the Ex Cathedra pronouncement condemning, unequivocally, with no obfuscation, the actions of ALL suicide bombers as being nowhere in the teachings of Islam [perhaps they are not infallible like he is when speaking "ex Cathedra"?].  Where is the fatwa against suicide bombing of every kind?

  Are they going to be like the Christians and liberals in Germany and the West, especially Britain, and including the USA, who stood silently by while the Jews and Gypsies went to the gas chambers by the millions?  Or, like the gullible "liberals" who praised Stalin ("I have seen the future, and it works") while he murdered millions of his own people?  If we remain silent, the very rocks will cry out, I think [check].

  Might it be that there is some truth to the general population's belief that Islam isn't necessarily a peaceful religion, not really benign, with respect for those who do not belong to their religion [oh, you mean like Christianity?].  Certainly not benign, or good, for women, even in the "liberal" Islamic countries.  That maybe the  fundamentalists of Islam have it right, that violence is tolerated by their religion?  Or, advocated if it is against the Infidels?  Infidel, that's me, for sure, don't know about you or your religious leanings.  None of my business [check].

  You might think that I'm a radical rightist.  Far, far from it.  I see myself as a fairly steely-eyed realist with a soft heart for the downtrodden of [American?] humanity.  I believe the people of the US are sick, ill at heart, from their wealth.  Their materialism (may) be their downfall, imho.  There is the iron law of responsibility---to those who have been given much, of them will much be required [or how about: "I have seen the enemy and it is us"?].  We don't understand that yet, except for a very few [maybe even some on this list].  Maybe Sept. 11th is the needed wake-up call [maybe!]?


  We build billion dollar stadiums with public tax money to watch over-paid children play sports while our streets teem with the desperately poor, without hope or real help.  We pay our teachers, the shapers of the future, niggardly salaries and don't demand enough of them or our children (I'm not a teacher, I'm a business consultant).  We produce 25% illiterates or functional illiterates (that's for reading---the numbers are far worse for math, not to mention critical thinking) from our school system and don't look to see that there are much better ways to educate children (I use a system of teaching reading for my clients who have many illiterates in their employ that is 99.5% successful in teaching anyone to read as fluently as they talk---and I mean anyone, no matter what they have been "diagnosed" as having---dyslexia, adhd, mental slowness, etc., at the rate of 1 grade level gained per 10 hours of tutoring, which is 10x faster than the usual program).  We can't seem to figure out how people can get a modicum of medical care while our governments and insurance companies are busy destroying the best medical care in the world.  (The stories my brother, an MD, can tell you would make you weep.)  Very disheartening.

  Anyway, I don't want to get into an argument with you, [oh] or a jeremiad [nice word!].  I posted that column because I thought it had some points of view we'd better pay attention to if we are to figure this whole thing out and move accordingly.  We need to know the real position of the Islamic clerics and leaders of the world.  The real position of Islam for we non-believers.  I think they'd better start speaking up.  Freedom, in all [check, all] it's ramifications, is far, far too precious to be lost or cloaked under the blanket of PC [personal computers? persecution complexes?].

  Sincerely,

  Paul Everett

  Today, I would add that we need to do both, stop the terrorists by force [why necessarily by force?] AND to begin an even greater effort to win over [interesting term: "win over"] the minds and hearts of the people of the nations that are currently harboring terrorists bent on our destruction.  Make no mistake, that is their goal, the downfall of the West, because they despise our values, including those of freedom of religion, assembly, press, speaking out, petition, etc., contained in the Bill of Rights [interesting identification of "we" and "the West"]. It makes for an immoral society, in their view, one that must be destroyed.  Especially it makes for an immoral society for women.  (Are you women on this listserv listening and observing what is really going on?)  For those of you doubting their intention, you haven't been listening or watching, as we didn't listen to Hitler in Mein Kampf or Lenin in his writings, to our great sorrow.  We'd better listen and act now [check].

  Below is another too-strong piece that has a substantial element of truth in it.  He, unfortunately, does not bring up the way of inclusion for those not bent on our destruction, but that is not his mission in this piece.  He is speaking only of the terrorists and the pacifists.  Many of you won't like his writing [check] but I can assure you, being out in the work world with folks who get things done, build things, dig trenches, haul garbage, clean sewers and make things, they are on his side and not the side of those on this listserv, in general [so the folks on this list don't live in the "work world"? Is work to be defined as physical only?). That's what the Gallup poll numbers mean.  I doubt we will allow another WTO- or Mardi Gras-like riot in Seattle.  They will be crushed [hmm, while expressing their freedom of speech and assembly?].

  I also can't any longer carry my nail clipper or pocket knife I've carried for 30 years when flying.  My freedom is being further compromised but I'll deal with it rather than allow terrorists to kill at will.  What we must resist is turning the US into a police state [see previous comment re "crushing"].  We must also resist and destroy terrorists and those governments and leaders harboring them, physically, where they live [one sure is glad that McVeigh and friends didn't do it].  To fail to do that is to fail our future.  That is my position.

  Paul Everett





-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20010927/583782c1/attachment-0017.htm>