Excellent message from Bikes Not Bombs-Boston

From: Bikes Not Bombsrox [at] igc.org (Bikes Not Bombs) To: Bikes Not Bombsrox [at] igc.org Subject: Our Response to Terrorist Attacks Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 17:05:19 -0400

Dear BIKES NOT BOMBS Supporter,

I am writing because I believe that in the wake of the horrible and deadly attacks in NYC and DC today, there is an opportunity for all thinking people to take leadership and help our communities, local national and international, to not take actions we will regret later.

Almost without exception everyone I have contacted today is in some degree of shock. Many people have been unable to tear themselves away from their TV\'s, where they are shown, dozens of times an hour, the same footage of the second airplane crashing into the World Trade Center Tower in NYC this morning. Several of the teenagers who work at Bikes Not Bombs spent the entire second half of their school days just watching these scenes on TV, without discussion or help from the adults around them to deal constructively (or at all!) with the tremendous emotions generated by the horrible scenes they were witnessing.

I am afraid that without our leadership there will be a series of strong, negative backlashes. We are already seeing rampant speculation about the involvement of Arab or Palestinian groups, and the director of the CIA is inferring that an Arab state such as \"Iraq or Iran\" is also possibly involved. I fear a wave of anti-Arab racism hurting innocent people all over the US. I am also concerned about President Bush and the right wing in this country using this attack as an opportunity to both introduce new, anti-democratic restrictions in the name of security, AND as a wedge to get the US to spend more scarce resources on the military.

Things you can do:

1) Contact your Congressional representatives (Senators and your House Representative), and urge them to make public statements against rash military or legal action against any parties or nations without due course of law. President Bush said, \"Freedom has been attacked, and freedom will be defended.\" Please remind your representatives in Congress that we cannot defend freedom without having freedom of speech and the freedoms of democratic action. If there are concrete actions that can be taken that would make these kinds of terrorist actions harder to accomplish in the future, fine, let the US take those measures. But let us decide these things after a reasoned debate, with evidence and hard facts. As a few of the anti-terrorist experts they actually managed to quote on this morning\'s news pointed out, there is no real way to defend against this particular type of action. This is not a time for a general reduction of civil liberties. Civil liberties do not lead to terrorist acts - rage, injustice, inequality and feelings of powerlessness and hopelessness lead to terrorist acts.

Since all Federal office buildings are currently closed, your reps aren\'t receiving phone calls, so below we have supplied the contacts for the Mass. Reps, their e-mail addresses as well.

2) Call your local media outlets and ask for a different type of coverage. Ask to see the thousands of humanistic stories that are developing as New Yorkers help one another out, as communities pull together and figure out what to do, as rescue workers and others repeatedly risk their lives and show great bravery. Cover the stories of how people all over are talking to each other more on the streets today, about how parents are figuring out ways to explain this horror to their children. Tell them that we want responsible reporting and not speculation for a situation in which there is no available evidence yet about which group \"may\" be responsible. Remind the media reps that after the Oklahoma bombings there was widespread early conclusions that \"Arabs\" were behind it, only for us to find out if was two confused, sick, white men from the mid-western United States .

3) Contact BIKES NOT BOMBS with your positive suggestions, both for things we can do in response to these attacks and their aftermath, and for real ways to increase security for all humankind. We\'d love to hear your suggestions!

Yours for peace,

Mira Brown Executive Director, BIKES NOT BOMBS