Alright, this isn't Aeon related but I feel the need to say it. Over the last few days, I have participated in several forums, watched TV, recieved emails and read hundreds of messages concerning the recent tragedy. I am emotionally and optically drained.

I have watched vast numbers of the right-wing cock their shotguns, the left wring their hands before going to eat at Spago's, and only a few enlightened souls say what needed to be said. I have gotten hot under the collar, called people names and been called names. I have explained my despondence, in halting tones, to my very understanding family - it is not sympathy I'm looking for here but empathy. If you understand this message, please - keep your lives in the right direction. Don't allow yourself to be swallowed up, your personal views distorted by jingoism, nationalism, or just sheer apathy. Instead, be brutally honest, and follow your own internal beliefs regardless of what happens around you.

To Frostbite, Chaos, and other right-leaning members of this board: There will be a lot of anger, a lot of knee-jerk reactions to this incident. Please try to sort through these emotions and make sense of them. Ask yourself not "is it justified?", but "what will the consequences be?"

To Lady Morgan: I'm sorry you couldn't get along with everyone here. Hopefully you will come back and give it another try.

To the left & moderates: Don't despair. There is always another way.

Don't let the bastards get you down.

-- Paul (AKA Inukko) (nadisrec@worldnet.att.net), September 14, 2001

Answers

Paul, war is hell. Perhaps this is the end of the United States, or even the beginning of a World War. We could all die, but then again we are going to die at last anyhow. The question is how easily led we are by information we personally cannot verify. What acts will it lead us too with emotions as our only guide. I think you are wise to step back. The way out is within. Aeon spoke to the boy at Calodan, and he quoted to her the words from the Diamond Sutra "All phenomena are like a dream,an illusion a bubble and a shadow, like dew and lightning. Thus you should meditate upon them".

-- Barb e. (Suesuebeo9@cs.com), September 14, 2001.

I am glad someone broke the ice. I did'nt want to start an argument, particularly as most people from the forum are in the US. I have to say I think that 2000+ innocent people being killed in such a way is a tragedy. But if the US government decides to bomb a whole country it could be the beginning of the end (of everything) I am pretty sure they realise this so I just hope the act sensibly. Violence will lead to more violence and if these terrorists are crazy enough to do this who knows what could be next. Probably not nuclear but certainly biological (yuk!).

-- William (stateofflux@yahoo.com), September 15, 2001.

I'm hurt no one mentioned me. Anyway, there are much better ways to deal with this problem than war. Unfortunetly America is full of vengence and can't see 2 feet in front of their faces. If we are going to war then I'm gettign on a plane(or boat) and going somewhere else, I hear Northern Europe is nice and quiet.--Emma

-- Emma Frost (ice_cold_emma_frost@yahoo.com), September 15, 2001.

I'll see you there :-)

-- William (stateofflux@yahoo.com), September 15, 2001.

aww thats sweet William,...*gives him peck on his other cheek,...is that because I give you lil pecks? I think i just ran out of cheeks to peck btw. hehe :D

-- Emma Frost (ice_cold_emma_frost@yahoo.com), September 15, 2001.

Thanks. I'm feeling a lot better now... just met a good friend of mine today, someone I hadn't seen in over a month. We played old (ie: 1996) music and talked for a while. That and work have helped keep my mind fresh. Still don't feel like talking politics (nor forcing my views on people), but you can read what you want into my next post...

-- Inukko (nadisrec@worldnet.att.net), September 16, 2001.

Chaos is right wing?

-- Barb e. (Suesuebeo9@cs.com), September 16, 2001.

My heart bleeds every day more and more. The present the future the past, the attacks have consumed my mind, since Tuesday morning. I can’t escape it. Even in sleep it consumes my being. Hate, destruction I can’t take anymore. It’s as if I’m there in that building experiencing the horror that must of gone through the minds of those innocent people, the aftermath, it is then that I begin to weep uncontrollably…it is then that I die. I feel like apart of me has died even though I knew not a single soul that died that day. And I can’t even begin to comprehend how people can feel nothing for what has happened, they deny they hate, what is to become of that? What is the point? Tell me if you know! And I will not believe you! There is a war coming and the beast is awake, and there is no escaping there is no hiding. And I weep for the souls that will be taken.

-- Lady Morgan (AeonFluxFan1@msn.com), September 16, 2001.

Lady Morgan don't let this get to you, they are the losers. How can they win when they hate the human race? That is their own brothers and sisters. The King of Terror sends others to die for him while he lives in caves. Don't let 'Aldus B' get you down. It's an endless loop. 'Good' always wins, you just have to know what the spoils are.

-- Barb e. (Suesuebeo9@cs.com), September 17, 2001.

good always win? this isn't a fairy tale or a top selling movie this is real and good does not always win. You hate and that's a dangerous thing, tell me of the spoils. It is in the cave that the dragon lays; it is in this cave that the dragon sleeps. the sleeper has awakened. evil only begets evil. Synchronicity, scary thing i have always seen and dreampt of the number 11, always thought it was going to be the day when i died, that or the world ending, never even made that connection until you said something about it barb, almost wish you hadn't.

-- Lady Morgan (AeonFluxFan1@msn.com), September 17, 2001.

The spoils are peace within yourself. Murder is a way of trying to control the outcome of fear. The fear others will overtake you, indicating you believe you are something needing to be overtaken. Self loathing is manifest in many ways; the guilty and their paranoid delusions. Evil suffers poverty of soul.

-- Barb e. (Suesuebeo9@cs.com), September 17, 2001.

On a few certain issues, I'm more far to the right than a cyclist on the autobahn (I stole that line), but overall, I'm middle of the road.

Personally, I think these terrorists should be taught the lesson of Metcalfe.

-- Chaos Knight (chaosknight@charter.net), September 17, 2001.

Fun fun fun on the autobahn....btw; who's Metcalfe? I take it he met with ill fortune.

-- Barb e. (Suesuebeo9@cs.com), September 18, 2001.

Oops, forgot about that. Watch "The Tick!" when it premieres in Novemeber, you'll get the reference.

-- Chaos Knight (chaosknight@charter.net), September 18, 2001.

sigh

-- William (stateofflux@yahoo.com), September 18, 2001.

I have to agree with the statements about America's sense of blind revenge. Israeli intelligence is now pointing to a ring of two or three planners with logistical support from Iraq who have only a passing connection to Osama Bin Laden. Tough people - e.g. one of them has successfully eluded Mossad's assassins since 1988!

However, Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban are easy targets for an industrialized semi-moral superpower looking for vengeance. Personally, I believe the US will conduct a lengthy, noisy, morally ambiguous campaign in Afghanistan, hopefully not of Vietnamese proportions. At the same time, I think quiet folks in our intelligence community will be able to do a vast amount of good. All in all I grieve for the men and women, innocent & guilty, American & Afghan, who will have to die before we feel safe again. Starting with six thousand-odd people who planned to live past 9/11/01 and never got the chance.

-- Charlie Princeton (bebop432@hotmail.com), September 26, 2001.

Some journalist (I can't rememer who at the moment) had this to say, and it's much more insightful than anything I can come up with. Basically what he said was that the focus of the inevitable "War on Terrorism" won't be so much on winning as on survival, and just because a certain decision is the right one doesn't mean it's going to work.

-- Frostbite (krooks@agnesscott.edu), September 27, 2001.

11 is when she waved goodbye

I used to dream of 11,binary code 216 digits long,only 2 digits not the 0 of dark matter,but I was blind to the 0 s,but now I see,and 11 is no longer a dream...

Quaternary code of ACTG flashes like a string of christmas lights,reality bows to dream,bounded at either end of the start- finish sequence with a 1...

11 is not important,it is the SPACES BETWEEN the digits,useless trash information under a microscope,but the 11 th number-symbol under a telescope...

-- alex (doesn't work@yahoo.com), May 04, 2003.