just please don't stop buying those trucks and bikes. as long as your doing it i know what i have to look forward to in the not too distant future.

 

99RedWV has a point. America has taken a much larger hit than sveveal thousand lives.

Airlines, rental cars, hotels and other tourism is in disarray. Small businesses gone bankrupt. People afraid to open thier mail. People afraid to go home because they live in a highrise.

Gone are the days when we could run about carefree. Now we always have to look over our shoulders. We have lost our innocence.

If not bin Laden then another terrorist will make us fear. Even at home, Tim McVeigh was white and without turban. There are some suspicions that domestic white terrorists are behind the anthrax mailings.

We can kill every last Afghani, Pakistani, Saudi and Iraqi, but we will still fear.

The only war to say the war is won is to be able to say life is as it was before Sept 11.

 

Maybe no one will win, but here's why we can't lose.

written by a Romainian journalist recently:


An ode to America
Why are Americans so united? They don't resemble
one another
even if you paint them! They speak all the
languages of the world
and form an astonishing mixture of civilizations.
Some of them are
nearly extinct,others are incompatible with one
another, and in
matters of religious beliefs, not even God can
count how many
they are.

Still, the American tragedy turned three hundred
million people
into a hand put on the heart. Nobody rushed to
accuse the White
House, the army, the secret services that they are
only a bunch of
losers. Nobody rushed to empty their bank
accounts. Nobody
rushed on the streets nearby to gape about. The
Americans
volunteered to donate blood and to give a helping
hand. After the
first moments of panic, they raised the flag on
the smoking ruins,
putting on T-shirts, caps and ties in the colors
of the national flag.

They placed flags on buildings and cars as if in
every place and on
every car a minister or the president was passing.
On every
occasion they started singing their traditional
song: "God Bless
America!".

Silent as a rock, I watched the charity concert
broadcast on
Saturday once, twice, three times, on different TV
channels. There
were Clint Eastwood, Willie Nelson, Robert de
Niro, Julia Roberts,
Cassius Clay, Jack Nicholson, Bruce Springsteen,
Silvester
Stalone, James Wood, and many others whom no film
or
producers could ever bring together. The
American's solidarity
spirit turned them into a choir. Actually, choir
is not the word.
What you could hear was the heavy artillery of the
American soul.
What neither George W. Bush, nor Bill Clinton, nor
Colin Powell
could say without facing the risk of stumbling
over words and
sounds, was being heard in a great and
unmistakable way in this
charity concert.

I don't know how it happened that all this
obsessive singing of
America didn't sound croaky, nationalist, or
ostentatious! It made
you green with envy because you weren't able to
sing for your
country without running the risk of being
considered chauvinist,
ridiculous, or suspected of who-knows-what mean
interests. I
watched the live broadcast and the rerun of its
rerun for hours
listening to the story of the guy who went down
one hundred floors
with a woman in a wheelchair without knowing who
she was, or of
the Californian hockey player, who fought with the
terrorists and
prevented the plane from hitting a target that
would have killed
other hundreds or thousands of people. How on
earth were they
able to bow before a fellow human?

Imperceptibly, with every word and musical note,
the memory of
some turned into a modern myth of tragic heroes.
And with every
phone call, millions and millions of dollars were
put in a collection
aimed at rewarding not a man or a family, but a
spirit which
nothing can buy.

What on earth can unite the Americans in such a
way?
Their land?
Their galloping history?
Their economic power?
Money?

I tried for hours to find an answer, humming songs
and murmuring
phrases which risk of sounding like commonplaces.
I thought
things over, but I reached only one conclusion.

Only freedom can work such miracles.

 

thanks MRBBQMAN,

there are a lot of people out there that need to hear that kind of thing to raise their spirits.

 

yes they say we've taken a hit in the entire tourism industry. but was it really the tragedy or was it an already faltering economy that has caused some to vaction less or maybe vacation closer to home instead of traveling great distances.
as far as those afraid to go home, or to work, or shopping in high rises, yes we must be wary of possibilities but we must not stop our lives. don't let them cause our lives to have drastic change for if we succomb to fear then they have won. rejoice in our solidarity, realize that while some lives will be lost, over all our country will be victorious. we will stand again as a free nation. if we stop living our lives then we may as well hang our heads in shame and give veils to our women to wear. i for one will not hang my head, will not be afraid to go where i want, when i want, and will definitely not cover the face of a single beautiful american woman, out of fear.
finally the most important thing we can do is remember what happened, don't cry about new policies, go about your business but never forget what could happen. become more aware of your surroundings and watch for suspicious persons or actions. show them that rather then running scared we're ready to act proactively this time and stop the tragedy before it happens again. this is not a loss of freedom merely a chance for all americans to show they are willing to fight for their freedom by watching one another's back and being ready to handle any situation that may arise.
mrbbqman thank you for that note. it says a lot about how other's think of us. remember ladies and gents there are millions of people around the world who would love to live here in america, and feel the way we do about our nation and our felloe country men.

 

Hey MRBBQMAN, THANKS a lot. Love to all Americans. Dennis