Why Flight 93 is to be Remembered

The Washington Post (4/25/06): Lone Lawmaker Blocks Flight 93 Monument in Pa. :

For emotional wallop, there are few rivals to the windswept, grassy field outside of Shanksville, Pa., where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed on Sept. 11, 2001.

But for three years, that field has made do with a makeshift monument while one member of Congress, Rep. Charles H. Taylor (R-N.C.), has blocked a $10 million request to buy the land for a permanent memorial to the 40 passengers and crew members who overpowered hijackers bent on crashing their jet into the Capitol or the White House.

This remembers me of something I decided to do in October 2001. The Flight 93 passengers did something that I consider the better alternative to all the Homeland bureaucracy, the illegal spying on citizens, the thunder of sophisticated war on innocent people in unrelated countries (Iraq), most of the policy changes that followed Sept. 11, 2001.
"Let's roll!", said one of the passengers, when, 30 minutes after the moment the three hijackers took over the command of the plane, they realized (by calling on mobile phones) that their plane was in the hands of the same kind of terrorists, who had just flown into the WTC towers. What they did (attacking the hijackers and trying to enter the cockpit) was forbidden and punishable at that moment. But they decided to act collectively. From a group of individual passengers, instantly a community was created. They took responsability for themselves and, the voice records of telephone conversations and the cabin-records witness that too, decided to take heavy risks to save the lives of other people, the people at the presumed target of the terrorists.
There was no precedent, no model, for their action. In fact, modern society discourages this kind of acting. And it still does. The main lesson from Flight 93 has not been learned.
That lesson is, that the only way to counter terrorism, and, better still, to prevent it, is to empower citizens. That means: to trust them. Which is the contrary to what happens in these times: secrecy, disarming, strict control, discouragement of community and collectivity and their self-management.

The Pennsylvania site where Flight 93 crashed (Wikipedia)

In my opinion, it is important to note, that the two instances we know of, that an Al Quaeda terrorist attack was prevented or made to fail, are this passengers revolt on Flight 93 on Sept. 11 (which prevented a second disaster in Washington, like the one at the Pentagon, and nearly saved most of the passengers and part of the crew), and another collective action on a plane, some months later, when vigilant passengers discovered the manipulations of the "shoe-bomber".
To me, that is the main reason, why Flight 93 should be remembered appropriately, visibly and with great respect. And that is why I suppose, that, perhaps unconsciously, the Republican Senator for North Carolina, Charles H. Taylor, shuns spending some money to honour people who acted as responsible, independent citizens. Not as sheep in Bush' or Taylor's flock. No, like the Americans, I admire.

Last Plame Ditch by Hitchens?

A desperate effort to generate at least some smokescreen around the Niger yellowcake hoax in Bush' running up to the Iraq war of 2003 appears in "Slate" Magazine, naturally and expectedly written by neocon fellowtraveller Christopher Hitchens.
Ranting about a diplomatic visit of a former Iraqi Vatican ambassador to several West-African countries (among them, Niger) in the year 1999 (!), not mentioned apparently by former ambassador Wilson in his book (why should he?), he implies that Wilson could have been hand-in-glove with Iraq, or utterly naive (being too pleased by the favour done to him "by his CIA-wife" Valerie Plame, choosing him for the fact-finding mission in 2002).
While everybody knows, that the Niger uranium digging is exclusively in French hands and while nobody supposes but a moment that the French would have sold nuclear material in 1999 to saddam Hussein, this last-ditch effort to protect Karl Rove and his boss, is lamentable.
The neocons and their stooges become caricatures of themselves, lately. Look for instance at the pityful articles in the Weekly about the so-called hidden revelations in the "Saddam Papers" that American forces took in 2003. Nothing new, boring as hell - even the Pentagon cannot make sausage of it.
That makes my task (self-imposed last year) easier. Too easy. So easy, that it is no challenge any more.
There is but one great challenge left: Democracy.
Neoconservatives "accept" democracy (as if that were a favor), and traditional conservatives do not (or do otherwise). That makes them special. It is the main reason, why for instance a French intellectoNut like Bernard-Henri Lévy sits at the feet of Perle and gets an "American Vertigo".
We are going to tare down that sole remaining Neocon entry-card to the civilized world soon. Promis-Juré.

Plame: Cheney under fire

From July 2005 on, I have been blogging on the Plame case. We could understand from the beginning, that is was a counterattack designed by the White House against a former ambassador who told the truth about supposed Iraqi efforts to obtain nuclear materials in Niger. At the same time, the CIA and the State Department were damaged, intentionally, I believe. And there may well be a link to a move to stop CIA monitoring of Turkish-Israeli nuclear activities (as Valerie Plame was leading the CIA front office doing so, in Istanbul).
All that has a distinct Cheney signature.
Now, a "court filing by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald for the first time places Bush and Vice President Cheney at the heart of what Libby testified was an exceptional and deliberate leak of material designed to buttress the administration's claim that Iraq was trying to obtain nuclear weapons. The information was contained in the National Intelligence Estimate, one of the most closely held CIA analyses of whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the war", says the Washington Post.
Cheney told Libby that president Bush had decided that the information in the report could be released. (Cheney just had obtained powers to do so himself. So why are Cheney and Libby implicating Bush in this?)
With these revelations, the moment for Cheney to step down as VP of the US, seems approaching.
Although the US trias politica prooves again that it is working, it is also working very slowly. The Iraq disaster is there. A complete disorganisation of the federal budget and vital services like the army, the CIA, the National Guard has been established.
Better too late than never: this executive has to be cleaned up asap.

Budapester Fehlermeister 3.4.06 [DE]

 Buda (Ofen) von Pest aus gesehen; Donauflut durch schmelzende Schnee, 2006-04-01 Budapest

Erste Veröffentlichung in: Huibs' UrbLogBudapest, einemillionsiebenhunderttausend Ungarn zwischen West und Ost, entweder bequem angesiedelt auf den grünen Hügeln Budas , oder, an der anderen, aber flachen, Donauufer, nervös herumgehend in einem frühindustriellen Museum, als ob mitten im 20. Jahrhundert ein chicagoähnliches Elan plötzlich gebrochen wäre.

 Wahlversammlung der Sozialistischen Partei in Distrikt 9, 2006-03-31

Fehlermeister

Auch hier bin ich zu Hause, ich, der europäischen Fehlermeister. Warum? Weil man hier immer den Eindruck hat, daß die Meisten der einemillionsiebenhunderttausend irgendwann, irgendwie, irgendwo, etwas verpaßt hätten. Wir sind unter uns, ich und die Budapester. Wir haben beiden etwas verfehlt, was wir nie ganz kennen werden.

Doch weil wir immerhin zum Leisten verurteilt sind, sind wir es zur Fehlleistung.

Rève8

Distrikt 8 und Distrikt 9, die wir gestern durchquerten, brauchen sehr eine solchen Nachhilfe. Gepflasterte Fassaden der bauten für Industrie, Werkstatt, Läden und Wohnen, sind verwundet. Die rotbraunen Backsteine ihrer Innern sind in weiten Flachen bloßgelegt: Schwörende Wunden.

Ein Ire und das versprochene Land

Die KollegInnen der Rev8, der Achttraum, diejenige die zu träumen wagten und den Albtraum abzuschütteln, zeigten, wie Fehler und Schwäche umgezaubert werden können in Stärke und Leistung: Wertlos gewordenes Land und Bauten sind billig und wenn es sich auch noch handelt um ghettoïsierte Gegende, Folge einer fehlerhafte aber hartnäckige Mentalität, dann blühen auf den Ruïnen die Blumen, die Schöpfung und - irisches Stierenblut.

„Irisches“? Ja, denn es war ein authentischer Ire, der seit fünfzehn Jahren mitten im „Ghetto“ der Rakócszi Platz einen Etterem (Restaurant) treibt, der den Glauben an diesen Vision Wörte gab, als er sagte daß ein Ghetto nur eine Gedanke ist, zwei einander ausgrenzende Bilder: Eines das die Einen (innerhalb) von den Andern (außerhalb) haben, und ein Zweites, das die Andern von den Einen hegen. Es dauert zwar lange, das zu durchbrechen, aber es wird geschehen. 

Die emanzipatorische Hausmeisterin

Und dann gab es noch die Hausmeisterin. In Distrikt 9 (Magdolna) gibt es eine „Vermietermaffia“, die, nach der Privatisation und Billigverkauf der Appartementen in 1990, unsolvente Käufer und Mieter terrorisieren. Folgen: Stagnation, Verluderung der Wohnungen und der Wohnumgebung, Spekulation und Streit. Eine administrativ unterlegte Frau hat sich spontan bereitgestellt als „syndic“, gewählte Hausmeisterin verschiedener Apppartementskomplexen. Sie hilft die Bewohner juristisch vorzugehen gegen den Spekulanten, sammelt öffentliche Unterstützungen für kollektive Sachen. Eigentlich ist sie eine Aufbau-Arbeiterin im Sinne des „Community Developments“. Notwendige Kollektivitäten werden aufgebaut – und das möchte eine Perspektive sein für eine Zukunft der Selbstverwaltung, auch in andern Sachen als Wohnen. Schon gibt es Kurse in Buchhaltung und Recht für Appartementsinhaber, zum Beispiel. Hier gab es „empowerment“ im Konkreten! Emanzipation der Bewohner fängt mit Empowerment an.

Kollektivraum eines Appartments-Kondominium mit Vereinsschild

Kraft durch Fehler

Fehler bei der übereilte Privatisation werden hier vielleicht zur Kraft, zur Anregung für einen eigenen Weg der Bewohner zur Emanzipation, weg aus der Hoffnungslosigkeit. Eine StadtReparaturWerkStatt, - eine Idee die der vorige Post hier („Maître des Échecs“) hervorgerufen hat -, eine SRWS also, ist hier am Platz. 

Der Fehlermeister ist auch hier zu Hause.

(Dieses Artikel wurde erstmals veröffentlicht am 3. April 2006 in: 'Huib's UrbLog @ e-urban Website)