X-Message-Number: 20045 From: Date: Sat, 14 Sep 2002 05:01:45 +0000 >> Message #20032 > Date: Wed, 11 Sep 2002 09:51:50 -0700 > From: Natasha Vita-More <> > Subject: JOHN PERRY 9/11/02 > > I was thinking of John Perry today, a former Alcor member who didn't find > the time to resign up after an untimely lapse. John was an attorney and > policeman in New York City and volunteered to help on 9/11. His body was > found. > > http://membres.lycos.fr/jwperry/index-1.html > > http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?itemid=437161&journal=vyoma > > With permission: > > "September 11: Enough Day >> >James wrote, >Natasha I just want to say before I comment that I know you did not write this article so please don't take personally any criticism of it I am about to make. > Let's remember the victims of the Holocaust and of the firebombing of Dresden, > too. With all due respect to the modern day peoples of Germany I must set some facts straight here. First though I want to say that I agree wholeheartedly with the article as far as it is well past time to reduce "Nationalism" and high time we consider ourselves peoples of a planet rather than of this or that faction, nation, religion or whatever. That said, I think it was unwise for the author of this article to include Dresden as "innocent" and "dying through no fault of their own" and especially so in the same sentence juxtaposing it to the victims of the holocaust. Many have tried to make out the firebombing of Dresden as an Allied atrocity because 200,000 lost their lives there in one fell swoop. I wonder how those apologists compare and value the six million holocaust lives lost compared to the 200,000? People have to be held accountable for the actions of their government. Right now there is great concern for the innocent civilians of Iraq living under the oppression of Saddam Hussein. Innocent? Look at some point one has to get to a moral absolute. We tend to cut some slack for those held at gun point and so called "forced to" commit atrocities under orders of their superiors. Baloney! There is such a thing as a personal moral absolute. I don't care if a luger was pointed at my head, in some similar situation, I would not gun down innocent people just to save my own life. I would know it was fundamentally wrong. If I did not realize it as fundamentally wrong I am still not therefore excluded from personal responsibility. Some things are known fundamentally, instinctually. Likewise the non Jewish people of Germany were not innocent victims of their government, "dying through no fault of their own". They put that government in place. No matter how dangerous to oppose that government once it was established it should still have been opposed and opposed widely. Instead the "innocent" Dresdens closed their eyes to the atrocities of their government while welcoming economic prosperity at the least level and super racedom at the worst level! The same goes for the citizens of Iraq. They are responsible for the government they allow to rule over them. If they all stood in opposition that government would soon disappear. Look, Extropes listen up and listen good! Go read Howard Bloom's excerpt from his "The Lucipher Principle--A Scientific Expedition Into The Forces Of History" http://www.howardbloom.net/islam.htm. Islam is THE biggest threat to our technological paradise dreams. The Quran does not allow, not one single bit, for the existence of anyone non moslem. It plainly instructs Islamics to actively kill infidels, especially Jews, Christians and Atheists. All the real, imminent and serious threats of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam "Insane" aside for the moment, something has to be done to stem the tide of radical terrorist ludditism that goes by the name of Fundamentalist Islam. >Does making a clear statement in Iraq work to this end? Enough said. James **** Exactly what about the actions of thugs, looters and other such two-legged vermin makes everyone in a certain geographic proximity collectively "responsible" for their actions? Those who directly aid & abet their crimes, and/or knowingly accept "blood money" (in any form) derived from them, can be held liable for this, but people who, for whatever reason, do not risk their lives to stop a crime in progress, are not rendered liable merely by their inaction. A large proportion of Dresden's population at the time of the bombing were civilian refugees from other bombed cities, who fled to Dresden specifically because it *entirely lacked military targests* and was thereby considered "safe". (The *only* structure in the city that could possibly have been deemed to be "of military value"- the railroad depot- was also virtually the only building left completely unscathed by the attack. It could be argued that fundamentalist Xtianity in the U.S. poses a threat to the entire world (because their apocalyptic "end-times" nonsense leads many of them to endorse World War III as the fulfilment of *their* "holy" book's alleged prophecies, and these views have often reached all the way to the top U.S. leaders). Would some other nation "making a clear statement in the U.S." be justified to supress such (self-fulfilling) Armageddonist prophecies? Brian Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=20045