[Peace-discuss] Forwarded mail....

[parenti susan rose]

Here's thinking and language from Stefan Brun, the younger son of Herbert
and Manni, who lives in Chicago.

Manni herself will be back from Berlin, in town, in a week!!!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2002 23:43:49 -0600
From: Stefan Brun <brun_stefan at hotmail.com>
To: jemlunar at hotmail.com, mjbrun at ilstu.edu, writermlp at hotmail.com
Cc: brun at prairienet.org, brun at staff.uiuc.edu, culleyorion at hotmail.com,
     DGentner at mhc.uiuc.edu, FAD99 at aol.com, Kfoleylc at aol.com, maitri8 at home.c=
om,
     mariamoller at yahoo.com, MLPease at ci.atlanta.ga.us, rhenz at richardhenzel.c=
om,
     sgopfert at earthlink.net, sparenti at staff.uiuc.edu, sullivan at msu.edu,
     tmacaluso at apexmail.com, tod at nomadicpix.com, tyrus_coursey at hotmail.com,
     wleming at pcc.net

Dear friends,

a couple of thoughts squeezed into words from Stefan Brun:

What is possible to ask for, with any lucidity, when language is so sullied
and the political perspectives seem so bleak? I suggest an appeal for more
proportionate response. The focus of efforts here should be on de-escalatio=
n
of  the whipped up hysteria which plays on our fears, social anxieties,
sicknesses and poverties. These ordained moments of panic serve to distract
from disproportionate  crimes by those who profit and ordain.

A proportionate response would perhaps see how far to the right the
equilibrium of policy has drifted. How radical this sudden willingness to
surge into an endless war is. How honed the stance that knows each shrug of
futility fit to counter any impulse to resist or dissent.

A proportionate response would weigh the presently decried dangers against
those of just months ago. It could consult at least our own biographies if
not searching into history, enough to recognize this or that cycle of cause
and consequence, seeing what changes and what, infuriatingly, remains
constant. In order to be less upwhipable and more informed.

A proportionate response might encounter that facing the true problems of
this world, prosecuting the true criminals of this world: be they the
terrorists or those, more powerful, who get to name who is terrorist =96
involves letting go of comforting over-simplifications, traditions with
their faith in allegiance. It involves measuring the fear now being shouted
about against the fear of this shouter.

A proportionate response might weigh the executive assault on constitutiona=
l
rights and world agreements  -- ostensibly so as not to risk any associatio=
n
with a certain businessman-terrorist -- against the advisability of
retaining a president who, along with his associates and family, has been
constant business partners with this businessman-terrorist's associates and
family,  while all of them trade in the same milieu.

A proportionate response would elicit resistance from a citizenry being she=
d
of its rights while its youth are sent to fight and die  all for a presiden=
t
  who is clearly associated with the business interests that caused -- if
his complicity goes no further --  the very assaults which now serve to
justify his high-jacking of policy.

A proportionate response would at least consider, at a time when the
financial infrastructure faces not even living up to existing commitments o=
f
social security, whether  it is in a citizen's interest to support a war
that widens and has no limitation on those declaring it. Also a citizen
might ask whether in a time of fortunes consolidating and losses being
distributed; a president so intimately engaged with and by high corporate
figures will end up doing the citizen much good.

A proportionate response learns over time to compare an intoxicating presen=
t
with a more desirable future and an at least as different past, and so
delimits the intoxications of the moment.  Viewing the club of world
leaders, a proportionate response might investigate whether our tendency to
fear the unknown and different more than the status-quo, no matter what the
current status-quo is, is a mentally ill tendency.

Stefan G. Br=FCn  02.02.02





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