The Alan Sondheim Mail Archive

November 2, 2004


VOTE NEW YORK!!!


It's easy to vote this election! Vote the New York way! We're the smartest
city in America and that makes New York State the smartest state! (In
spite of Albany!) We have the major museums! The biggest shows! In this
city we have neighborhoods from over one hundred and twenty countries!
Where I live we have the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Mark Morris
dance studios - a huge building devoted to one company, built from the
ground up! New York Dolls! Bella Abzug! We have radio stations for every
taste! Our cultural economy is tremendous - where else can you find
regularly, at a thrift shop, Benjamin and Frege, Pavese, and Madison's The
Hermeneutics of Postmodernity? We have the major newspapers, magazines,
cultural journals, anywhere in the English-speaking world! We are the home
of Yiddish theater and hiphop and just about every form of jazz ever
created or discovered! We're the city that produces around the clock, that
never sleeps at night, that constantly moves, dances, and thinks! Our
daily news is almost always political, and our ball team is one of the
best in the country - so good in fact, that we let Boston have the series
this time! And we're liberal enough to tolerate a bit of fascism as Bush
and his cohorts coughed their way through a national convention! Bill
Clinton! The West Village! Civil right and wrongs! We've got the best
artists, and poetry begins and ends here, no matter what you heard about
the west coast! Our art's so important Terry Allen had to make fun of it!
We've got institutions like St Marks and the Met (which? opera or museum,
take your pick) that are nowhere else to be found on the continent! And we
take our politics seriously without moronic lip-service to god and
country! We'll pledge allegiance if the country deserves it! We know the
flag's a piece of cloth! We'll stand tall for or against the powers that
be, and we'll lead the country in demonstrations if we have to! Vote for
us and let us decide! A vote for us is a vote for justice everywhere -
we've got the best law schools in North America here - even Derrida came
and spoke over and over again, Kristeva just did her heart-stopping tour!
We take nothing from no one! We've had the Talking Heads! If we're going
to have a mob, we're going to have the best mob in the world! If we're
going to dig up dirt on someone, we'll do it to the bottoms of our
pockets! If we're going to riot, we'll be second to L.A. but nowhere else!
Saturday Night Live! Springsteen just across the river! We move furiously
on public transportation! We have one of the lowest crime rates in the
nation, and one of the smallest ecological footprints anywhere! We have
some of the best universities in the world, some of the most committed
filmmakers, and our writers are second to none! Look at me, at Franz
Kline, at Charlie Parker, look at the Harlem Renaissance, look at Walt
Whitman, look at the Brooklyn Bridge, and marvel, marvel! And of all the
places in the country, we never lost our cool over 9/11 but took it
bravely and intelligently in stride, even when our thug of a president
came down to make political capital of things! We have Olmsted-designed
beautiful parks, we've got the Jamaica Bay marshes, the Rockettes, even
dancing Santas! We tolerate heterosexuals and just about anyone else; even
men and women can get married, and there's never been a question of gay
rights, which is our fight and yours, although you might not know it! We
question our race relations, our sexual relations, our religious
relations, up front and in your face! We don't file style but make it, and
you can't follow it if you don't live here, because you don't have the
energy! Everyone comes here sooner or later and does something, and even
if they leave, they're never the same again! We're smart when it comes to
voting, we know the ecological score, the home security score, better than
most; we know the foreign policy score, we've got the United Nations, and
there's less trouble in the streets in that regard than anywhere else in
the USA! We're remarkably tolerant and we recognize our faults and work on
them, hard as hell, even in the onslaught of Republican slaughter in an
unjust war! Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground! And we'll tell you
this, that Bush is NOT our president, that his country is NOT our country,
no matter what you hear! We're too smart for that! Sorry Toronto,
Montreal, L.A., Chicago, we're the cultural capital of North America!
Kathy Acker! Apollo Theater! We're the synaptic pulse coursing through
your heart and your neighbor's heart and everything good and bad brought
to you in the name of capital, progress, liberality, liberalism,
liberation, fury, rap, fashion, power, electric culture, Broadway
universe, WiFi universe, mass transportation, just the good life with
thrift-shop books and the headquarters for the Daily Show! NBC ABC CBS and
radio radio radio! Forget Hollywood, that has-been home of cocaine creeps
and heroine harries. Come visit, bring your cash, you'll need it, and we
need it too! Whatever you heard, you don't have to watch your back here!
We're the Soul of the world! We invented Soul! We got Catholics, Muslims,
Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, Witches, Warlocks, Santeria and more!
And when you vote Democratic, just think, you'll be voting with the best
of what this place has to offer, this United States, which may not be much
outside of the five boroughs, but it's all we've got! So let us lead you
to the promised land, and Vote New York, Vote New York, Vote New York!!!!


-

english aljazeera net:

Full transcript of bin Ladin's speech

Monday 01 November 2004, 16:01 Makka Time, 13:01 GMT

Following is the full English transcript of Usama bin Ladin's speech in a
videotape sent to Aljazeera. In the interests of authenticity, the content
of the transcript, which appeared as subtitles at the foot of the screen,
has been left unedited.

Praise be to Allah who created the creation for his worship and commanded
them to be just and permitted the wronged one to retaliate against the
oppressor in kind. To proceed:

Peace be upon he who follows the guidance: People of America this talk of
mine is for you and concerns the ideal way to prevent another Manhattan,
and deals with the war and its causes and results.

Before I begin, I say to you that security is an indispensable pillar of
human life and that free men do not forfeit their security, contrary to
Bush's claim that we hate freedom.

If so, then let him explain to us why we don't strike for example -
Sweden? And we know that freedom-haters don't possess defiant spirits like
those of the 19 - may Allah have mercy on them.

No, we fight because we are free men who don't sleep under oppression. We
want to restore freedom to our nation, just as you lay waste to our
nation. So shall we lay waste to yours.

No one except a dumb thief plays with the security of others and then
makes himself believe he will be secure. Whereas thinking people, when
disaster strikes, make it their priority to look for its causes, in order
to prevent it happening again.

But I am amazed at you. Even though we are in the fourth year after the
events of September 11th, Bush is still engaged in distortion, deception
and hiding from you the real causes. And thus, the reasons are still there
for a repeat of what occurred.

So I shall talk to you about the story behind those events and shall tell
you truthfully about the moments in which the decision was taken, for you
to consider.

I say to you, Allah knows that it had never occurred to us to strike the
towers. But after it became unbearable and we witnessed the oppression and
tyranny of the American/Israeli coalition against our people in Palestine
and Lebanon, it came to my mind.

The events that affected my soul in a direct way started in 1982 when
America permitted the Israelis to invade Lebanon and the American Sixth
Fleet helped them in that. This bombardment began and many were killed and
injured and others were terrorised and displaced.

I couldn't forget those moving scenes, blood and severed limbs, women and
children sprawled everywhere. Houses destroyed along with their occupants
and high rises demolished over their residents, rockets raining down on
our home without mercy.

The situation was like a crocodile meeting a helpless child, powerless
except for his screams. Does the crocodile understand a conversation that
doesn't include a weapon? And the whole world saw and heard but it didn't
respond.

In those difficult moments many hard-to-describe ideas bubbled in my soul,
but in the end they produced an intense feeling of rejection of tyranny,
and gave birth to a strong resolve to punish the oppressors.

And as I looked at those demolished towers in Lebanon, it entered my mind
that we should punish the oppressor in kind and that we should destroy
towers in America in order that they taste some of what we tasted and so
that they be deterred from killing our women and children.

And that day, it was confirmed to me that oppression and the intentional
killing of innocent women and children is a deliberate American policy.
Destruction is freedom and democracy, while resistance is terrorism and
intolerance.

This means the oppressing and embargoing to death of millions as Bush Sr
did in Iraq in the greatest mass slaughter of children mankind has ever
known, and it means the throwing of millions of pounds of bombs and
explosives at millions of children - also in Iraq - as Bush Jr did, in
order to remove an old agent and replace him with a new puppet to assist
in the pilfering of Iraq's oil and other outrages.

So with these images and their like as their background, the events of
September 11th came as a reply to those great wrongs, should a man be
blamed for defending his sanctuary?

Is defending oneself and punishing the aggressor in kind, objectionable
terrorism? If it is such, then it is unavoidable for us.

This is the message which I sought to communicate to you in word and deed,
repeatedly, for years before September 11th.

And you can read this, if you wish, in my interview with Scott in Time
Magazine in 1996, or with Peter Arnett on CNN in 1997, or my meeting with
John Weiner in 1998.

You can observe it practically, if you wish, in Kenya and Tanzania and in
Aden. And you can read it in my interview with Abdul Bari Atwan, as well
as my interviews with Robert Fisk.

The latter is one of your compatriots and co-religionists and I consider
him to be neutral. So are the pretenders of freedom at the White House and
the channels controlled by them able to run an interview with him?  So
that he may relay to the American people what he has understood from us to
be the reasons for our fight against you?

If you were to avoid these reasons, you will have taken the correct path
that will lead America to the security that it was in before September
11th. This concerned the causes of the war.

As for it's results, they have been, by the grace of Allah, positive and
enormous, and have, by all standards, exceeded all expectations. This is
due to many factors, chief among them, that we have found it difficult to
deal with the Bush administration in light of the resemblance it bears to
the regimes in our countries, half of which are ruled by the military and
the other half which are ruled by the sons of kings and presidents.

Our experience with them is lengthy, and both types are replete with those
who are characterised by pride, arrogance, greed and misappropriation of
wealth. This resemblance began after the visits of Bush Sr to the region.

At a time when some of our compatriots were dazzled by America and hoping
that these visits would have an effect on our countries, all of a sudden
he was affected by those monarchies and military regimes, and became
envious of their remaining decades in their positions, to embezzle the
public wealth of the nation without supervision or accounting.

So he took dictatorship and suppression of freedoms to his son and they
named it the Patriot Act, under the pretence of fighting terrorism. In
addition, Bush sanctioned the installing of sons as state governors, and
didn't forget to import expertise in election fraud from the region's
presidents to Florida to be made use of in moments of difficulty.

All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait
this administration. All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to
the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written
al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to
suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for
it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies.

This is in addition to our having experience in using guerrilla warfare
and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as we, alongside
the mujahidin, bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt and was
forced to withdraw in defeat.

All Praise is due to Allah.

So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of
bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah.

That being said, those who say that al-Qaida has won against the
administration in the White House or that the administration has lost in
this war have not been precise, because when one scrutinises the results,
one cannot say that al-Qaida is the sole factor in achieving those
spectacular gains.

Rather, the policy of the White House that demands the opening of war
fronts to keep busy their various corporations - whether they be working
in the field of arms or oil or reconstruction - has helped al-Qaida to
achieve these enormous results.

And so it has appeared to some analysts and diplomats that the White House
and us are playing as one team towards the economic goals of the United
States, even if the intentions differ.

And it was to these sorts of notions and their like that the British
diplomat and others were referring in their lectures at the Royal
Institute of International Affairs. [When they pointed out that] for
example, al-Qaida spent $500,000 on the event, while America, in the
incident and its aftermath, lost - according to the lowest estimate - more
than $500 billion.

Meaning that every dollar of al-Qaida defeated a million dollars by the
permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs.

As for the size of the economic deficit, it has reached record
astronomical numbers estimated to total more than a trillion dollars.

And even more dangerous and bitter for America is that the mujahidin
recently forced Bush to resort to emergency funds to continue the fight in
Afghanistan and Iraq, which is evidence of the success of the
bleed-until-bankruptcy plan - with Allah's permission.

It is true that this shows that al-Qaida has gained, but on the other
hand, it shows that the Bush administration has also gained, something of
which anyone who looks at the size of the contracts acquired by the shady
Bush administration-linked mega-corporations, like Halliburton and its
kind, will be convinced. And it all shows that the real loser is ... you.

It is the American people and their economy. And for the record, we had
agreed with the Commander-General Muhammad Ataa, Allah have mercy on him,
that all the operations should be carried out within 20 minutes, before
Bush and his administration notice.

It never occurred to us that the commander-in-chief of the American armed
forces would abandon 50,000 of his citizens in the twin towers to face
those great horrors alone, the time when they most needed him.

But because it seemed to him that occupying himself by talking to the
little girl about the goat and its butting was more important than
occupying himself with the planes and their butting of the skyscrapers, we
were given three times the period required to execute the operations - all
praise is due to Allah.

And it's no secret to you that the thinkers and perceptive ones from among
the Americans warned Bush before the war and told him: "All that you want
for securing America and removing the weapons of mass destruction -
assuming they exist - is available to you, and the nations of the world
are with you in the inspections, and it is in the interest of America that
it not be thrust into an unjustified war with an unknown outcome."

But the darkness of the black gold blurred his vision and insight, and he
gave priority to private interests over the public interests of America.

So the war went ahead, the death toll rose, the American economy bled, and
Bush became embroiled in the swamps of Iraq that threaten his future. He
fits the saying "like the naughty she-goat who used her hoof to dig up a
knife from under the earth".

So I say to you, over 15,000 of our people have been killed and tens of
thousands injured, while more than a thousand of you have been killed and
more than 10,000 injured. And Bush's hands are stained with the blood of
all those killed from both sides, all for the sake of oil and keeping
their private companies in business.

Be aware that it is the nation who punishes the weak man when he causes
the killing of one of its citizens for money, while letting the powerful
one get off, when he causes the killing of more than 1000 of its sons,
also for money.

And the same goes for your allies in Palestine. They terrorise the women
and children, and kill and capture the men as they lie sleeping with their
families on the mattresses, that you may recall that for every action,
there is a reaction.

Finally, it behoves you to reflect on the last wills and testaments of the
thousands who left you on the 11th as they gestured in despair. They are
important testaments, which should be studied and researched.

Among the most important of what I read in them was some prose in their
gestures before the collapse, where they say: "How mistaken we were to
have allowed the White House to implement its aggressive foreign policies
against the weak without supervision."

It is as if they were telling you, the people of America: "Hold to account
those who have caused us to be killed, and happy is he who learns from
others' mistakes."

And among that which I read in their gestures is a verse of poetry.
"Injustice chases its people, and how unhealthy the bed of tyranny."

As has been said: "An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure."

And know that: "It is better to return to the truth than persist in
error." And that the wise man doesn't squander his security, wealth and
children for the sake of the liar in the White House.

In conclusion, I tell you in truth, that your security is not in the hands
of Kerry, nor Bush, nor al-Qaida. No.

Your security is in your own hands. And every state that doesn't play with
our security has automatically guaranteed its own security.

And Allah is our Guardian and Helper, while you have no Guardian or
Helper. All peace be upon he who follows the Guidance.

+Chicks

< > +Chicks
< > "+Dixie +Chicks
< > much Chicks
< > Chicks spent
< > as Chicks
< > couple Chicks
< > are Chicks
> +Chicks
> "+Dixie +Chicks
> much Chicks
> Chicks spent
> as Chicks
> couple Chicks
> are Chicks

ruling

ruling everywhere the three women determined our fates in the future
world. they were the dixie chicks and they were incredibly hot. they sang
and sang and the audiences were full of heart and sometimes they disagreed
but they held their ground. there were religious revivals and unbelievable
moments of ecstasy as amazing high notes were reached and held. what could
be more beautiful than to hear the incredible dixie chicks singing their
hearts out and the hostile audiences responding with care, love, and true
caress. i would love to be at their concert and would love to swoon in
front of the dixie chicks. i would be their slave forever, each of them
equal to the others, and none of them would be ahead of the others and i
would worship them equally.

my name is jennifer and i want to second this account of the love and
beauty of the dixie chicks and the ecstatic wonder and delight their
performance inspires in me. every performance has its own beauty and its
own wonder but every one of them is what i call weather-beauty because
just like the weather the beauty stays forever inside me.

i am nikuko and i can only agree and i do understand the many languages
that are sung and spoken by the dixie chicks and they do wonder-weather
me as well. someone said, well why don't you say something about the
dixie chicks and so i am saying it here, this beauty they inspire and the
religious revival they set in motion wherever they speak and sing.

i am jennifer again and they do speak and sing so well. and i am nikuko,
no this is really jennifer, i am having a wonder-fun with nikuko.

we are the dixie chicks and we inspire with our singing and our talking,
and our religious revival work which we do so well and full of heart and
our audiences are full of warmth and heart-felt caring and we love them so.

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