We who claim to have a vision have a responsibility to be strong, to be clear, and, above all, to extend our compassion to all people, whether we agree with their politics, their apparent ignorance, or their fear. As we call for peace we also must address the criminal horror of September 11 and its demand for justice. If we call for peace simply because we are pacifists, that will not be enough. We who have found violence to be inappropriate for ourselves cannot simply insist that we are right and expect to make sense. We have to be clear that by "peace," we include justice, and need to articulate appropriate mechanisms for that justice. We've got to get beyond nonviolence as a moral issue and address it as a practical matter.

Those of us who are activists are more fortunate than many others in this terrible time. We have faced violence and fear together and learned to rely on our companions and associates in the midst of chaos and violence. We know what our work is, and have ideas of how we might be useful and how we can respond. We have networks to enable that response. We have a context for events that does not rely on statements from an absent president. We realize that the terror that has hit home is unusual in particular but not in kind, that this cycle of murder and grief goes on, often in our name. We have a vision of a world without terrorism from any quarter, without massive death and destruction in any country. We are warriors for peace in a world at war.

America in general is not so fortunate. For many, many Americans, the Pentagon is what defends them. They don't have another community they can trust, another context. The Pentagon, like the White House, is one of America's "talking buildings." It speaks words of strength and comfort on behalf of America.

For many Americans, the world they knew on Monday has been destroyed. Their sense of safety and security was not simply damaged, but completely obliterated.

My vision of America was not destroyed on September 11, because the America of my vision has not yet been born. The struggle toward that America began before I was born and will continue after my death.

The work feels harder now, I am more dispirited. I am afraid America's retribution will be indiscriminate, mis-targeted, and only perpetuate the cycle of violence. I am afraid of how our cynical leaders will use this incident to enhance their own benighted control, and that many Americans will be eager to surrender liberty in the name of a return to our insular safety.

But none of my fears are new. America is already deeply engaged in the cycle of terror. Authoritarians are always working to undermine America's foundation of freedom. This moment, in all its facets, was always seemingly inevitable. I am frightened, but my work hasn't changed. Whatever happens, I know where I stand. And I'm pretty sure that acting from fear will only feed the monster.

Activists normally distrust the media and know how little most of what big media says is based in reality. Perversely, we tend to give the media the benefit of the doubt when the report reinforces our paranoia. We should probably be especially skeptical of the news that most frightens us. Most certainly we should not let our fears fill in the gaps in information.

Within hours after the attacks on New York and the Pentagon, the media reported that rockets had exploded outside Kabul, the capitol of Afghanistan. I heard several times, including once from a speaker at a peace rally, that it was the result of a US response. As it turns out, it was an apparent rebel attack, the kind that happen regularly in Afghanistan, which is in the middle of a civil war.

Such attacks rarely make western media and when they do, they are usually buried. We all have a lot of self-education to do on a number of issues, including the political situation inside Afghanistan. We should be careful about making assertions about our government's actions, in any arena, before we have done that homework. We need to speak out, but we need to be informed before we do so. Otherwise, we risk joining those currently speaking out against mosques, Islam, and anyone perceived as Arab.

We need to think hard about legitimate security increases vs. unjustified curtailments of civil liberties. Sometimes good security is common sense and not all of it is designed by fascists.

The political and military leadership of the US is deeply compromised in all of this. They cannot afford much examination of their lapses, their encouragements, their compromises on behalf of profit and power, their cavalier use of lives in the "Great Game." Osama bin Laden, like Sadaam Hussein before him and Manuel Noriega before him, was once an asset of the US military/intelligence apparatus. Timothy McVeigh was a decorated Gulf War veteran. The policies and attitudes of that leadership are coming home.

Unable to find an outside villain, the nation's anger could turn on the political leadership as easily as any other party. That concern helps drive the government's plans for a military response, to assign guilt on convenient "others," and take telegenic action to provide a cathartic release. The political and economic leadership are themselves terrified. That makes them doubly dangerous. But they don't work so hard at oppression, propaganda, and violence because they are strong. They do it because they're weak. They don't have an answer; they only have weapons. When panicked, they will use them.

We have no weapons, we only have the strength of those around the world working for peaceful change. Global civil society stands with us and we with them. America is not immune from the world's pain, but neither are we isolated from the world's support. When we call for peace and for appropriate justice we are supported by the voices of countless individuals and even governments throughout the world. Those voices, in many ways, will be more persuasive than our own. We need to call upon that international community for its ideas and its support. We can't do it alone.