Thank you Catherine. who has e-mailed me in response to my WORDMAPS NJC posting.
> > Nicely said, Lucy. That pretty much sums up the way I > feel too. When will they STOP? This kind of thing has > happened on the list before, but has never gone on so > long and unrelentlessly - it is very tiring! > My further reply..... I have begun to open my mails with something approaching apprehension. (and I try to skip what fails to interest me) Whilst I know we ARE a community and everything can be discussed from circumcision to abortion to hot food for cold days, to the interpretation of lyrics, to the authenticity of guitars offered for saile of e-bay, to caring that colin has had to make a very touch decision about his dog, to wheat free cooking, to wally going to America, to OH Hey, you name it its welcome... but the sheer relentless to-ing and fro-ing of who said what, when and about whom and whether being anti-war = being communist or Anti-American and all the getting personal and all the personal affront that seems to be taken is just soooooo depressing and ultimately futile. We have no power and the smirking faces who decryed the protesters will one day rue their holding of high and cold-blooded office. I really do admire those who can spend their days finding THE article to link in to the mails, but to me it is feeding the beast rather than calming the heart or giving strategies for coping with the absolute certainty that if war does happen it will errupt in our own cities.....we have Poked the sleeping lion at our own risk. The UK has lived with constant knowledge that we are targets for bombs for years and years and years courtesy of the IRA..... We have had enough of that but it will be terror groups from Islamic fundamentalists next and they will not use bombs or if they do they will be like nothing else we have ever experienced. THE USA has had its share of whacko people who have bombed and poisoned and killed. If the events of 11th Sept were the beginning you can be sure there are people in place to back up any retaliation..... Sadly I feel that the West has arrogantly set themselves up for this, by persuing aggressive corporate strategies that hinge on arms and oil and propaganda. I am sure my view point will be shot to pieces and I will be sent evidence that we are kindly and benevolent and always "just" but do you know what, Catherine,.... these are my own feelings and I do not have to justify them nor defend them.... I stand by my humanist feelings that all war is wrong., By sending aid, and not arms or soldiers, we would be far better in a position to understand the world we and others live in. I am reminded daily of the good that can be done... I ran an appeal in a school that sits in the middle of a huge and failing estate. Many of the children come from families that have huge financial problems and constraints on their time and ability to take part in fundraising. I banked well over a thousand pounds from that school and those families. They bothered to look outwards, away from their petty concerns to help children whose lives are not so very different from their own.... makes you think a bit doesn't it. Lucy
