From: Michael Wiik (mwiik@messagenet.com)
Date: Wed Sep 19 2001 - 10:55:33 MDT
"Harvey Newstrom" <mail@HarveyNewstrom.com> wrote:
> Robert J. Bradbury wrote,
> > I will now raise the unspeakable question -- could the recent
> > "terrorist" events have been engineered by U.S. politicians?
>
> Regardless of whether your theory is correct or not, the result will be the
> same.
I agree. I would hope that if such an attack had been engineered as
such, the people behind it could have achieved the same result with a
smaller scale attack. The choice of targets also seems to argue against
this possibility.
Nonetheless, people and institutions will of course make use the attack
to further their agenda. I've done the same myself, trying to make the
point that americans might be more open to imprinting new memes at this
time, such as using a supposed heightened state of awareness to urge a
humanistic form of civil security, averting or at least delaying
ubiquitous law enforcement thru technological means.
> Nobody is going to stand up and say that this event has changed their minds.
> Everybody is even more determined that their viewpoints are right.
> Everybody assumes that this proves their point as everyone else should see.
Yup. But some things have changed. It's a different world now. Perhaps
people cling to their pre-attack agendas partly as a defense mechanism,
but I think there is a opening for self-examination to take place. With
the passage of time rage will lessen. And I think there might be a high
level of guilt over any innocent people that are killed in the upcoming
retaliation and war. Maybe not at first, but eventually. TV and movie
violence is one thing, this is real, up close death and destruction in
your living room quite possibly every night for the next several months,
maybe years.
-Mike
-- ====================================================================== Michael Wiik Principal Messagenet Communications Research Washington DC Area Internet and WWW Consultants http://messagenet.com mwiik@messagenet.com ======================================================================
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