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Opensewer 10 Jacksonville Discussion Summary

Wednesday, August 10, 2001, 7:00 PM at the Venny's Italian Restaurant, 9862 Old Baymeadows Road, Jacksonville, FL. Telephone: (904) 642-1161.

By Steven Anderson

One person showed up for my first ever venture into any kind of discussion group like this, and I vowed that I would fix that as best I could in future gatherings. That didn't stop the conversation from happening. In fact, it made it even more humorous to us, the meeting becoming an extension of a conversation that occurred when we worked in the same office.

We opened the discussion by talking about the mainstream media's role in presenting information as well as putting the attacks in some kind of context. Our conclusions were:

- A general sense of saturation that brought us to the point of not wanting to track the 9/11 coverage because there wasn't anything new--just the same points being hashed over and over again with the same slants.

- Few people heard real definitions of the key words thrown about in this media campaign. Words like "jihad," "crusade," "terrorist," "Islam," "fanatic" were quickly used in ways that had nothing to do with their literal definitions.

- A lack of opinion and a habit of beating the drums of war. All people who dissent are being categorized as "wrong," "pacifist," "un-American," "un-patriotic" at the very least, further perverting words and concepts we hold dear.

At this point, we started getting into interesting contradictions in what was being said and what was happening, like:

- The appearance that loss of life in another country, be it during peacetime or war, is somehow less significant that American loss of life.

- Atrocities that American military or diplomats commit are usually justified and all we have to say about it is "Oops, sorry," such as the pharmaceutical plant in the Sudan, blowing up the UN building in Afghanistan, etc.

- The importance of debate, a dissenting voice, and its sudden and deafening silence with hands slowly clenching around our much-cherished civil liberties.

As there were only two people who held mostly the same opinion, it sounded more like a venting session on the more hypocritical actions we've taken as it relates to this issue long-term: how our government has isolated itself in recent practices, but now that this act has occurred as well as some of the actors possibly having a legitimate grievance, now we're looking into how these things can be fixed. Heinous as these acts may be, we explored the idea of a twisted rationale that would need addressing if we as a world community wanted to fix the gaps and strife which could have angered a group of people this much.

Admittedly, most of the night we wished someone would jump into our conversation with a different opinion, we left having enjoyed a bit of critical thought and hoping the momentum would grow.

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