A note on September 11th and its exploitation...

[armyowalgreens]

I just finished watching the documentary "102 minutes that Change America" for the 2nd time. And I'm absolutely beside myself.

I think that, for many, each year that passes dulls the reality of the attacks. At some point in the future, what happened on that day will seem like some terrible dream. Some horrible nightmare that accidentally made it into the history books.

It doesn't seem that way for me. It has taken me 8 years to fully understand the magnitude of that day. And I'm still not sure that I can wrap my mind around what happened. But each year that passes brings the attacks closer to me; it makes them tangible.

I was a 10 year old kid playing hooky on a Tuesday so I could stay home and watch cartoons. It was 6 something in the morning and I was sitting on the couch in Gilbert, Arizona. I was flipping through the channels when I came across a news story saying that airplanes had crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I had no clue what the World Trade Center was and had only the faintest idea about the Pentagon. I sat there and watched both towers fall. I listened to Bush address the people.

My mom came home early and we watched news commentary talking about retaliation.

But most of those memories are distant. While it seemed that what I was watching was significant in some way, a 10 year old can barely keep track of his own world, let alone a world 2500 miles away. And so 9/11 started out as a strange TV show that played out one early morning as I ate oatmeal in my underwear.


Each anniversary passed and I grew older and more aware of the world. The families of victims would go on the news and read off the names of the love ones they lost.

In 2004, I went on a 2 week junior high graduation trip to Washington DC and New York City. On the final day of the trip, the group visited ground zero. It was a giant hole in the ground with various forms of trucks driving in and out of it. I remember seeing a building next door that was covered in a giant sheet of some kind and was in the process of being demolished one floor at a time. I took some photos and we left. The only part of the WTC that I have ever seen in person is "The Sphere" in Battery Park.



It wasn't until my junior or senior year in high school that I began to wonder just how terrible that day must have been for all those people in NYC. To have loved ones in or around those buildings. Watching a part of their lives fall from the sky. Their world must have felt destroyed.

I watched "102 minutes…" in sheer terror. I don't know how many times I have seen the towers fall; hundreds, probably. So it wasn't necessarily the physical attacks themselves that disturbed me. It was watching and hearing the people.

It was watching someone hang out a window 1500 feet above the ground trying to catch a breath of fresh air so that they can live a few minutes longer. It was watching that person give up hope and jump. It was hearing the screams of pure agony coming from the sobbing observers as 110 stories of human life plummeted towards earth.

I never want to hear or see such things ever again.

And so brings me to the main point of all my ramblings.

I am filled with so much indescribable rage right now because the American people have been subjected to such gross propaganda for the last 8 years.

How can these people live with themselves?

Is it not horrific enough that 2995 people lost theirs lives that day?

This is how our government and media honored the victims of 9/11...

The Bush Administration made a scary color coded terror alert system that lets us know how paranoid we should be on a day to day basis.

And the "War on Terror" has cost the lives of more than 30,000 soldiers and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of civilians

We have detained and tortured thousands of potentially and likely innocent people. We fly people, chained and muzzled like dogs, to other countries so foreign authorities can do things to "terrorists" that even our own guys won't do.

And we "accidentally" bomb villages in far off places, killing innocent men, women and children.

Fox News tells us all how close we are to another attack. Our lives are filled with ticking time bomb scenarios. We MUST get to these dirty muslims before they attack us again. Don't you pussy liberals understand that? DON'T YOU LOVE AMERICA?!

We've thrown out our own rights as American citizens because some talking head convinced us that security is of the utmost importance. Desperate times call for desperate measures.



And so, I look back on what I have learned over the past 2940 days. It makes me sick to my stomach. The US government remembers so many lives lost by killing and torturing so many more.

Yes, those 19 hijackers destroyed countless lives that Tuesday morning. If there is an after life, they deserve whatever hell they currently suffer in.

But what about our own terrorists? What justice have they received?

Our will as a people was tested on September 11th 2001. But the true test of ourselves is whether or not we are willing to seek out justice for the terrorism our own government has wrought on humanity.

I fear that we have truly lost our way as a country. But I still hold out hope, no matter how small, that we have leaders somewhere willing to do whats rights.


We must stop the exploitation. We must bring the true terrorists to justice.


-----------------------------------

If this doesn't make sense, I apologize. I realize that the anniversary was almost a month ago. I was just so angry over this entire situation that I had to write down my thoughts. I feel like we should be talking about this every day until something is done.

[bridgit]

1. Even with this being 9/29 I remember, I remember losing friends in the towers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ396LZZu3k

[Diclotican]

2. armyowalgreens

armyowalgreens

Thank you for your post here, it was a good writing.

It is 8 year since 11 sept 2001, and where are we today?. The world are still not together where it once was, and specially the US have changed more than most want it to be i Guess... In 2001, when the attack on World Trade Center happened It was not 6 in the morning, but 5 in the evening where I am, and I was looking at BBC World when the first report of a plane hitting one of the towers came in. I believed it to be a rather tasteless typical movie history, like many other movies who have used New York as their backdrop for a rather bad action movie. But it was no movie at all, it was true, and as I was seeing it on tv, I realized it was happening, right in front of me.. And in the hours following it, I saw how the two buildings was falling to the ground, and the big smoke of dust cowering most of Manhatten was clearly to all to se.. And I also remember the "clown in chief" telling the world that payback time was there..

I also remember the wall of sympathy the US was getting from all over the world, even from parts of the world, who have no good feeing for the US at past and present. Even there the government in more than one way was sorry for the sadness this attack was given the american public, and specially the victims of the attack... I also remember the old NATO alliance, who Rumsfelds dismissed as "Old europe" a couple of year after activated article 5 in the Alliance, and that even Norwegian Fighter jets, was patrolling US border, and even was stationed and flying over US city's as part of the alliance pledged to defend each other when attacted... I also remember that most americans after 11 sept 2001 must have known that your friends was behind you, and that we would have been there if your fight was true and just..

But I also remember who arrogant your republican Administration and President was, who they was standing there and more or less DEMAND that either you are with us or against ut. Thats say no time to even discuss what to do next. I also remember when US was pushing hard for the Iraq war where a lot of lies was making the way, for what the Administration of mr Cheney og mr Bush jr was trying to sell as just war. Even when one of the top men at Foreign Office, Collin Powell was wisting The UN, and was telling the biggest lie of them all, the world at large was not buying into the story of WMD. Even that country like Germany and France also was telling the world, that if sufficient evidence was given they might support a war against Iraq. No such evidence never materialized, and both French and Germany refused to be part of that war... Either did most of the Alliance.. And both China and Russia, who also have VETO in Security Council was treating to VETO a US request to give them blanco to attack Iraq.

Today 8 year later the US are still stuck in Iraq, thousands of american soldiers, in your own age is dead or maimed for the rest of their life. Ten of thousands, maybe in the hundred of thousands of Iraqis is also killed, more than 5 millions are not in their home longer, but on the run inside the country, and more than 5 millions is no longer inside Iraq but refugees in nabouring country, like Syria, Iran Lebanon Jordan Sandi-Arabia. For the most part no iraqi who have had to flee their country have ever managed to get tot he shores of US to claim refugee to this day..

And the sadest part, is that most americans still dosent understand why the rest of the world have not given the US the benefit of the dbout about Iraq yet... Even if the rest of the world clearly is seeing it somewhat different most americans just not get the informtion THEY need to understand why most was against the war in Iraq...

But it is allways a hope, and I would say you is a hope in change in the US. thank you:)

Diclotican

[Ghost Dog]

3. But you didn't see those towers 'fall', did you?

You saw them turn to dust.

[armyowalgreens]

5. I'm not understanding your point...

And if it has anything to do with controlled demolition, I'd like it if you stopped here.

[AntiFascist]

6. When he says "what about our own terrorists"....

he's referring to the terror brought against the people of Iraq and the people who were tortured, not to mention the terror caused in the US by all of the WMD fearmongering, etc. Let's keep this thread from getting moved to the dungeon.

[armyowalgreens]

7. I really hope this isn't sent to the dungeon.

[Bolo Boffin]

4. Excellent post. Thank you. n/t

[armyowalgreens]

8. A bump before I go to bed.

Goodnight folks.

[intheflow]

9. armyofwalgreens, you are way wiser than I was at your age.

This thoughtful post, your justifiable rage, and your eloquence expressing yourself here give me hope for the future. One of the hardest parts of justice work is finding healthy ways to transform anger into positive change. Writing/publishing is one way, legislative action is another, participating in political rallies are another, and there are a million more. Your writing this is a good start.

We WILL overcome the legacies of the Bush era, but you may still be fighting in antoher 30 years when you're my age. In the meantime, may you always have the heart ot wrestle these "big picture" matters, and may you come to know peace through living your beliefs and understanding (as MLK said), "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."