Hi CFC2001 thread community, CB, Joel, Tradermike, freeus, BBM, que seria, Maurice, DJ, Elmatador and many others, please excuse me for my rambling post on any number of obviously related subjects. I had just arrived at in Hangzhou after a few hours on the Boeing 777 from Beijing. I have cancelled all my appointments for today. I feel sad, and for once I feel the world is sadly as I suspected it to be. I am at my computer keyboard, and I find it unusually difficult to put words on the screen, but I must, for I do not want to feel just sad; I want to feel hope.
How many defenseless and innocent people have to die before we start feeling wretchedly bad about the world? I do not know the answer for others. For me, the answer is just one.
How many blameless civilians have to die before we say our community is changed forever. Again, the answer is only one.
The event singularity that happened yesterday in the skies over New York is not about geo-politics, economics, social systems, nationalities, ethnicity, religious beliefs, or any other complicated concepts that we can debate endlessly about. It was definitely not one of my usual “just is” events. It was simply bad.
In my typical survival oriented anticipatory fashion, I telephoned my wife telling her to stay away from Hong Kong’s Exchange Square, a mega-plex of two towers where she attends meetings often. She started to say how “come on, this is Hong K …” and I cut her off with an uncustomary and impatient scream, “Just don’t do it!” She said OK. I changed, for the worse today, towards my wife. Earlier, the TV news reported that Malaysia’s Petronas Towers received bomb threat.
The Beijing people are in varying degrees of shock. The educated and thinking folks realize the gravity of a world gone mad, and is anticipating more and bigger shocks to follow. No one has clearly verbalized the nature of what may follow, but know instinctively, a sickness is spreading. The taxi drivers, a typically (hate to say it, and hard to say without pretension) an unthinking lot, are gleeful, until I explain the gravity of what is coming towards them in particular, namely higher gasoline prices and less customers. Most folks do not want to think in complicate and convoluted manner; they prefer simple, linear, and direct logic, right or wrong.
I understand the security has been sharply beefed up by the armed police for the US embassies in Beijing, Hong Kong and other cities, and that sub-machine gun toting blue berets are out in force at the Hong Kong airport, where one plane lands or takes off every 60 seconds.
I have telephoned my mother and her sister, asking them to consider canceling their trip to Paris scheduled in a week’s time. I have asked my wife and mother-in-law to cancel their trip to the same city where they intend to support my brother-in-law for the earlier mentioned cello competition. I have e-mailed my relatives around world, comprised of eight nationalities and a bizarre mix of ethnic coding, to simply be careful. Civilization is under attack, and, before reacting in any other way, I first want to know my family is OK.
The rule to be followed during crisis is simple: stop, think, decide, and then act.
I know I have flown the Unite Airline flight from Newark to San Francisco at an earlier time, and in the back of my mind, the World Trade Center is a familiar place. I visited those towers, looked down from way up high, at the ants that were people. I had earlier invested in a chain of coffee shops with a bunch of private investors. The Coffee Station specialized in setting up monopoly shops within large office complex, and as far as I know, the shops were still in operation while undergoing financial restructuring. Now, nothing.
Message 14582771
QUOTE
A sip of my home brewed coffee, as I ran out of Starbucks. I have discovered a bag of coffee sent to me a while back along with some new stock certificates by The Coffee Station, a private equity deal that has entered chapter 11 protection program. Good coffee, and hopefully the absolute highest priced coffee - about the price of 1.5 Audi TT roadsters - I will ever drink in this lifetime.
UNQUOTE
I had downloaded this thread’s new postings and some 400 messages from the CFZ thread before I got on the plane in Beijing. I read each and every one at least once.
My thoughts, while flying on the Boeing 777, were (a) an attack was made at the very heart of global finance, (b) more attacks may happen, (c) in any number of places, (d) for any number of reasons, (e) by any number of groups, (f) with any manner of devices, (g) from scissors to specialized machines, (h) justifying any number of responses, (i) triggering any number of counter responses, (j) lasting a long time, and (k) until all are silenced.
Yes, an undeclared war is now announced, by parties as yet unknown, transforming all into fair, but not game, turning the whole world into what has been the deserts of Arabia, devoid of life, and with the world divided right down the middle, sadness against joy, rich against poor, mighty against wretched, one colored people against another, culture against civilization, a god against the god, promising endless night, just as some hoped for, others wished for, and a few promised with terrible acts of inhumanity.
On TV and the Internet, I see some people asking, “how did it happen”, and others querying, “why did it happen”. I am still waiting for the world’s leaderships to explain to all the population, “what has to happen now”.
Should the answer be “kill, maim, and destroy”, then the world is as it was yesterday, and eons past.
Should, on the other hand, the answer be a new world order based on civilization, culture, peace, growth, choice, and respect for others, then the need for this thread is no more.
Through the connectedness of a complex of future events, of which yesterday’s tragedy is an event singularity, and out of the current chaos with the world at the edge of abyss, we have an opportunity for a better way.
Concerning …
<<I am speechless. I am terribly sad for this world, for what we all, without exception, are responsible for>>
I have absolutely no intention whatsoever to carry on an argument over the meaning of my statement, because there are enough disputes already. I will simply explain myself to BBM, and que seria, and leave it at that.
Hi BBM, you are right, the people who died defenselessly and innocently are never responsible for what happened to them. My comment did not cover them, and when written in haste, was misunderstood by you. The living are, however, very much responsible, either because of our actions or lack of actions, in the past or in the future, and thus my emphasis on “what has to happen now”.
Hi que seria, the WTC event singularity was a clear irrefutable wrong. I do not think I mean collective responsibility in the sense you understood it. I mean, if the WTC event complexity is in anyway related to the events in the Middle East, then right vs. wrong of the complexity cannot be assigned to any single party, and if it is assigned in arbitrary and one sided fashion, then the event complexity, fractal-scaled up, will turn the whole world into Lebanon, and this thread may chronicle events a long time into the future.
I therefore did not want to waste time assigning responsibility for the event complexity. We are all responsible, and now, we are at war with ourselves, deciding for ourselves what must happen next, as in “what has to happen now”.
<<There are folks out there who believe so very strongly in what they are doing that they are not afraid to die the most horrible deaths, and they are certainly way beyond afraid of killing others, innocent and all>>
Killing the innocent is simply wrong. Unless we collectively act to stop it in the future, each in our own way, we are then responsible.
On this statement, I respond to freeus and CB …
<<I hope we find a way, the only way, the way to peace>>
Hi Freeus, see my comments about what is the condition in Beijing. No disturbances. Only precautions. Now folks in the US will hopefully better understand why China is acting the way it has towards the Moslem folks, be they the ones who plot to place bombs on public transports, or just the ones who are innocently standing in the crowd, and other folks who pour gasoline on fellow cult followers and then light a match. The world has been living with Israel, Palestine, Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Chechnya, Singkiang, Indonesia, etc. and now, New York.
Hi CB, I know that poem “First they came for the Jews”. I know it well, because they then came for me, a guilty ten year old …
Message 16182582
… and so I agree, peace is what we will have to work together to achieve. The leadership in Asia, including China, and in fact in all of civilized world, has been abruptly woken up, and they have all spoken up. Now, watch them work, and hopefully reason and logic will guide them to the optimum outcome. They collectively need to remember that the give-and-take is inevitable, unavoidable, necessary, so that the outcome is sustainable.
On <<Pax Americana>> and <<Pax Sinensus>>. Matters must remain as they are, for a while longer. I clip this portion out from our private exchange on the matter, and reserve my worries concerning the teams at the head table …
QUOTE
Message 15128571
Message 15134944
Message 15717476
and I have communicated to you my general agreement with Singapore's LKY on many issues, including the issue of US bases in the Pacific.
UNQUOTE
On a last matter, I am hoping that we can keep this CFC2001 thread the way it was before this WTC attack, but, as people mostly believe everything has been changed, so then will be this thread, along with all the others. I want the folks here to consider one point of view, and that is, the world today is as it was yesterday, and now more people realize what the truth is amongst all the facts, what the world is actually like, we keep calm, and figure out what tomorrow should be made into.
My thoughts, as are yours, are with the folks in the Big Apple, Jay |
