"Susan C. Strong" <sstrong@igc.org>
24 Sep 2001
Dear Friends of the Metaphor Project,
My second letter to the editor included below (already sent
to the New York
Times) contains the urgent message I believe we need to convey
at this point
to everyone, members of Congress, media outlets, opinion makers.
Please use
your own contact lists and forward this message as widely as possible,
use
the language suggested to write versions of the letter to your
own
newspapers and do whatever else you can do to spread it everywhere.
You will note that I am changing both the value story element language and
the
letter's dominant metaphor, as the focus of the issue moves toward
picking
from a range of strategies for a U.S. response. Already the word
"smart"
has been applied to choosing the right immigration strategy by
the San
Francisco Chronicle in their house op ed of today. Those of you
who have
studied The Metaphor Project's American
Story Elements List (original
version at www.metaphorproject.org) will recognize the value story element choices
I have made now. As for the new dominant metaphor, "game
plan," it fits with
the growing sense that we are dealing with very clever opponents
who have us
checkmated in several directions. Chess and other games of strategy
are not
played quickly nor won by simple displays of overwhelming force.
Although
the military engages in war games, and professional military people
think in
terms of strategic planning, the game metaphor is not usually
used by the
public or the media to describe actual military action.
The goal of today's sample letter is simply to push everyone,
public and
government, to stop, think, and reconsider the wisdom of hasty
and brutal
military action from a strategic point of view. Although I have
focused on
full-scale war in the first line, you may certainly add the phrase
"Bombing
or " to the beginning of the second sentence and be grammatical.
Because of
the time lag involved in this kind of work, I decided to emphasize
full-scale war, thinking that bombing might already have occurred
by the
time any of this sees print or airing. As for including references
to why
militant Muslims might be angry at the U.S., I think that wide
public
understanding of this point can only come after people cool off
and start
thinking again about their choice of strategies.
For more information about how to stimulate wider public dialogue
on these
crucial issues, you might like to consult Tom Atlee's web sites
at
www.co-intelligence.org
and www.democracyinnovations.org.
Local organizers
in Napa, California just had a big success holding a "Community
Conversation
from the Heart" at their community college. Everything was
donated, they
received good media coverage, and they helped counter the perception
that
those polls showing 85 percent of the American public in favor
of military
action have said it all.
To learn more about nonviolent strategies and tactics for fighting
off
agression, dictatorship, genocide and other kinds of oppression,
look at
eminent scholar Gene Sharp's list of 198 methods of nonviolent
action on the
Web at www.peacemagazine.org/198.htm,
and also check
www.peacemagazine.org/9709/sharp.htm,
www.peace.ca/genesharp.htm,
and
www.oneworld.org/ni/issue296/interview
.htm; Sharp's theory and tactics were
used with success in the Philippines in 1986, and Czechoslovakia
in 1989, in
Poland's Solidarity movement, by the newly independent Estonia,Latvia,
and
Lithuania in 1991 against the Soviet Union, and most recently
in Serbia to
stop and apprehend their own war criminal president. Another resource
is
Michael Nagler's Is There No Other Way? which argues that
spiritual means
must be added to these tactics to insure the best results.
Although the situation continues to be dire, I do not believe
war or even
bombing raids on Afganistan are inevitable. There is still time
to influence
the course of events, if we act quickly enough.
In hope,
Susan C. Strong
The Metaphor Project
www.metaphorproject.org
Dear Editor,
America needs smart, practical game plans, to counter terrorism.
Full-scale
war on an already destitute, landlocked Central Asian people is
not a smart
game plan. Labelling this proposal "Infinite Justice"
won't work. By its
very nature, modern warfare, with its enormous "collateral
damage," cannot
be just. And unjust war just breeds more terrorists.
Anger, like grief, has its stages. Let's stop now and think
twice before we
set the Earth on fire. Given our history and taste for "shoot
to solve it"
plots, it's natural that America's first reaction was a demand
for military
action. As time goes on though, that will change. Americans are
an
innovative people who expect success. We have just been radically
outsmarted, as well as attacked, and we know it. Repeating the
Vietnam
failure in Afghanistan will only play right into the terrorists'
hands. And
we'll lose all the global sympathy and goodwill we now have. As
a people and
a government, we must count to 10 or whatever it takes, reengage
our brains,
and start coming up with better ideas.
Susan C. Strong
8 La Madronal
Orinda, CA 94563
925-254-7198