Re: As the dust clears

[Stephen E Philion <philion@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Tom Walker wrote:

The other twin towers that collapsed tuesday were market orthodoxy and
high-tech idolatry.

--Yesterday I heard a remarkable interview with the father of a young man
who was killed in the Panam bombing over Lockerbie (sic) 13 years ago.
First, the WTC/Pentagon terrorism occurred on the birthday of this
father's son. His wife and he had just come back from an early morning
church service (apparently in his son's memory) and turned on CNN only to
see this. The NPR reporter asked him about his role as the head of an
arganization of Lockerbie survivors that monitors FTAA enforcement of
security regulations and lobbies for greater seriousness of enforcement of
regulations that are already on the books. He went on to explain that the
US is the only country in the west that doesn't have an agency that takes
responsiblity for airport security. Rather it is primarily the job of
individual airports and airlines to handle security.  The tie-in between
his remarks and the issue of privatization was clear enough, though not
elaborated on. He could just as well have mentioned the high turnover rate
of those in this industry. But the message was there in any event,
reliance on the market (i.e. privately owned airlines companies,
airports..) are not gonna meet the demand for greater security as
efficiently as government will.
Then, on a personal note, the NPR reproter asked this man if he was an
angry man. His answer was superb and well worth thinking about when we
find ourselves swayed by the argument that we are obliged to support
retaliatory measures by an appointed right wing president, namely that he
is not an angry man, for the last 13 years his ofganization of survivors
has been engaged in intense counseling efforts to not fall victim to anger
so that they can, indeed, survivve tragedy and live. Otherwise he said,
anger only increases the likelihood of early deaths by cancer, heart
attacks, etc. which thrive on anger in lieu of constructive response to
tragedy.

Steve

Stephen Philion
Lecturer/PhD Candidate
Department of Sociology
2424 Maile Way
Social Sciences Bldg. # 247
Honolulu, HI 96822