US citizens are using e-mail to urge each other to buy stock when markets reopen next week, fly the flag or wear anything red, white and blue as a response to the terrorist attacks this week.
Similar expressions of support emerged in 1979 when US embassy workers in Iran became hostages and in 1991 when allied forces attacked Iraq after the invasion of Kuwait. With e-mail, a message urging a response to the attacks in New York and Washington can reach recipients quickly and individuals become better organized.
"Everybody was asked to wear red, white and blue [Saturday] or to fly a flag," said M. Trey Grayson III, a lawyer at the Cincinnati law firm Keating, Muething & Klekamp. "It's a message to the terrorists but it's also to our leaders that we're willing to do the things that are needed. We are willing to change our lifestyles if need be."
Other e-mail senders want to help prevent a drop in the US stock market when it opens after the longest trading halt in at least 68 years. They urged each person to buy a share of stock when the New York Stock Exchange reopens, set for today.
"If all of us can do this to show those cowards that they will not win, it's worth it," wrote Kieran Daly, an Arlington, Virginia-based graphic designer, in an e-mail to friends.
"Consider how much faith in our country such a purchase would signify to the world."
US stock markets closed after the attacks, which destroyed the American Stock Exchange trading floor and forced evacuation of the financial district and most of lower Manhattan. Trading will resume after computers and communications networks are tested.
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