In memory: Rachel Corrie (1979 - 2003)

Bilal

Two years ago , An Israeli army bulldozer crushed Rachel Corrie as she tried to stop the demolition of a Palestinian home.

((Friday, March 18, 2005

Corrie family seeks answers at hearing

ELLYN FERGUSON

GANNETT NEWS SERVICE

WASHINGTON -- The family of Rachel Corrie continued Thursday to press for a more thorough investigation into the 2003 death of The Evergreen State College student in the Gaza Strip. ))

Website of Rachel

http://www.rachelcorrie.org/

last minutes before death of Rachel with pictures:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Corrie

Last emial of RACHEL:
((February 7 2003

Hi friends and family, and others,

I have been in Palestine for two weeks and one hour now, and I still have very few words to describe what I see. It is most difficult for me to think about what's going on here when I sit down to write back to the United States. Something about the virtual portal into luxury. I don't know if many of the children here have ever existed without tank-shell holes in their walls and the towers of an occupying army surveying them constantly from the near horizons. I think, although I'm not entirely sure, that even the smallest of these children understand that life is not like this everywhere. An eight-year-old was shot and killed by an Israeli tank two days before I got here, and many of the children murmur his name to me - Ali - or point at the posters of him on the walls. The children also love to get me to practice my limited Arabic by asking me, "Kaif Sharon?" "Kaif Bush?" and they laugh when I say, "Bush Majnoon", "Sharon Majnoon" back in my limited arabic. (How is Sharon? How is Bush? Bush is crazy. Sharon is crazy.) Of course this isn't quite what I believe, and some of the adults who have the English correct me: "Bush mish Majnoon" ... Bush is a businessman. Today I tried to learn to say, "Bush is a tool", but I don't think it translated quite right. But anyway, there are eight-year-olds here much more aware of the workings of the global power structure than I was just a few years ago. ))

Bilal

The Death of Rachel Corrie
David Rovics


When she sat down in the dirt
In front of your machine
A lovely woman dressed in red
You in military green
If you had met her in Jerusalem
You might have asked her on a date
But here you were in Gaza
Rolling towards the gate

As your foot went to the floor
Did you recall her eyes
Did her gaze remind you
That you've become what you despise
As you rolled on towards this woman
And ignored all the shouts to stop
Did you feel a shred of doubt
As you watched her body drop

And as your Caterpillar tracks
Upon her body pressed
With twenty tons of deadly force
Crushed the bones within her chest
Could you feel the contours of her face
As you took her life away
Did you serve your country well
On that cool spring day

And when you went back across the Green Line
Back to the open shore
Did you think that this was just another day
In a dirty war
And when you looked out on the water
Did you feel an empty void
Or was it just one more life you've taken
One more home destroyed

Created March, 2003
Copyright David Rovics 2003, all rights reserved

russ_watters

We've discussed this before: don't stand in front of a moving buldozer. Its inherrently dangerous.

Dayle Record

The real epiphany is, don't look for humanity where none exists. There is strength in numbers, fight the good fight, but make it count. The sum of your life's efforts can be great, if you persist, and live your life, and work for the good.

1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21

natural selection at work, people. don't stand infront of a very large moving vehicle unless you want to die. In the US the tank would have stopped because of lawyers, but israel is different.

compassion is worthless

Fibonacci

TRCSF

Well sure. You can also say, "don't piss off Roman governors, or they'll nail your *** to the tree," or "don't try to challenge two hundred years of racial segregation or some sniper will shoot your ***" or "don't work in a high rise office building that's already been hit once by terrorists, cause you know they're going to try again," or "don't wear a miniskirt if you don't want to get raped."

It's not like it's the victim's fault.

Hurkyl

One can also say "Don't jump off a cliff, 'cause landing hurts!", or "Don't run into moving traffic!"

Are those also not the victim's fault?

TRCSF

A more appropriate quote would be "don't stand next to a cliff, somebody will push you off" after somebody pushes a person of the cliff.

It's not like Rachel Corrie put the bulldoser in gear and then ran in front of the thing.

Hurkyl

She still ran out in front of it after it was moving.

TRCSF

So did the guy during the Tianamen square massacre. Fortunately the guy who was driving the tank decided not to commit murder.

FredGarvin

How in the hell is a suit filed against Catepillar going to solve anything? Stupid, stupid girl.

The Rev

Brilliant.

If only people with compassion could see those without it for what they are, without having to find out the hard way.

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The Rev

Pengwuino

Ah yes, throwing away your life for a cause you probably know little about. Wish people would cherish their own lives more then people like this girl do

TRCSF

On the contrary, I presume Rachel Corrie knew quite a bit about what the cause was. I wish people cared as much about other people as Rachel Corrie did.

klusener

exactly, she cared enough, loved those people so much, and believed in their cause with so much passion that she was willing to die for them...

russ_watters

That's a word that has a pretty specific legal definition: http://faculty.ncwc.edu/toconnor/293/293lect07.htm

Just to be clear: you are operating under the assumption that the driver purposefully killed her? Do you have any evidence of that?

A buddy of mine was not paying attention one day on a dock (he was in the Navy) and a crane operator lowered an outrigger onto his foot, crushing it. The difference between that and this case is that Rachel Corrie knowingly and purposefully put herself into a situation where her life was at risk, while my buddy just plain wasn't paying attention. Rachel Corrie had complete control over her level of risk and consciously chose to risk her life. Of that, we are certain.

What we don't know for sure is the intent and control of the situation that the driver of the buldozer had. However, in every legal system I'm aware of, until it can be proven that he intended to kill her (murder) or was willfully neglegent in avoiding her (that's not murder, that's homicide), we must assume he did not.

TRCSF

There's a number of eye witness accounts swearing that the driver was well aware that he was running her over.

So it's their stories versus the driver's.

Given there's no chance of prosecution, even if the guy did in fact murder her, there's no reason to wait for a trial.