Seer666

I was in my baracks room in Japan play Wild Arms on the play station when one of the guys i work with ran into my room yelling at me to put the TV on. I turned to the news just in time to watch the second plane hit. Rest of the night was glued to the news with some of my buddies and 4 coffee pots going. Never forget the sense of rage I felt. Very few times in my life have I been that angery.

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Bad spellers of the world untie!!!

I am the one you warned me of

I seem to have misplaced the bullet with your name on it, but I have a whole box addressed to occupant.

dlish

sadly i cant say that even though australia is in the very corner of one side of the world, that ive been immune to what you speak of.

she-lish has been abused in the street and on public transport for being an arab, for being muslim. she was forced off the train because of some guys threats. she fled the train in tears. a man threatening a helpless female university student who had no connection to the events that day, except that she shared the same religion as a few nutters.

That day, people forgot that innocents weren't legal fodder. That day, all sides forgot what was right and what was just. From that day onwards people lost their innocence and treated everyone with suspicion and caution. i remember walking through sydney and it was a ghost town. people would look at me like an alien. i wasnt anglosaxon, therefore i was a possible enemy.

i would never forget that day. i remember going into work and listening to talk back radio. the pure hate and vengeance that would come from peoples mouths was pure fanaticism. i remember listening and disbelieving that some of these things were not only being said, but being allowed on the airwaves. That day incitement became order of the day, and anything foreign became fairgame.

i am sad for those innocent lives lost. i am sad for those sad mothers and fathers, those brothers and sisters, uncles, neices, nephews, friends and for strangers who perished as a result of 9/11. I am sad for the innocent lives lost in the 9/11 attacks. all 3000 of them.

But, i am saddened at the innocents lost in afghanistan and iraq. The infamous wedding celebration that was bombed, the infrastructure that was destroyed, the daisycutters used that would kill and maime all in its path, the brute force used was unparallel against one of the poorest nations in the world. My heart yearns not only for the justice for the 3000 on that day, but also for the tens of thousands, if not more, of innocent lives that have gone by the wayside unnoticed. for every death, a whole family would vow to avenge that death. Nobody has a right to take innocent lives. NOBODY!

its saddens me more that people to this day still have not tried to understood 'the other'. we are not the enemy! we are as much human as you are. we all yearn for peace, happiness, off spring and security. we all have feelings, we all live, breath and eat, we are not robots programmed to detonate on demand. it really does sadden me that some still think that we are fair game and that the lives of arabs or muslims are somewhat less important or less significant that those of american lives. it saddens me that the voice of vengeance is still alive and well today, no matter what side you are on. it saddens me that people like jorgelito lost family, and that innocent children lay limbless in hospitals as a result of a few nutjobs.

That day set a chain of events that will never be forgiven. ever.

During my time on TFP (and especially the past year and a half) ive tried to introduce to the wider audience my life in the middle east. There are plenty of good things that come from the middle east. i try and highlight these things. im an optimist and i hope that you have taken some of this away from reading my post and spread it amongst others. the worst voice is the voice of ignorance, and if i have highlighted something that wasnt apparent to the TFP audience then my job has been done.

in saying that, i am also a realist. i do realise that theres a lot of work to be done in the middle east, and i do hope that in time that things will change. it may take a generation. maybe more, maybe less, but the change is imminent.

This day in history changed the course of history and the lives of billions forever.

[edit: was writing this at an ungodly hour and got the number of people killed wrong. it was 3000 not 1400]

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An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere

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Grancey

I don't get angry at those that dismiss this time in our country's history. I have to accept that for some reason or another some people are unable to comprehend the full impact that this has had on our country and our people. I believe that Willravel and LoganSnake are probably too young to understand. They were teenagers when this happened. My niece is 18, and she dismisses similar events in the same way. Youth is not an excuse, but I can get beyond that. To the rest of you, and those who have lost family and friends, I am with you today.

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Quiet, mild-mannered souls might just turn out to be roaring lions of two-fisted cool.

Troublebot

I was sitting right here, in my office, when someone interupted the interview the radio folks were having with some ladies from the YMCA to say that a plane had hit the WTC. My first thought was of the bobmer that hit the Empire State Building during WWII. I stopped thinking about that when the second plane hit.

My Dad typically asks why I'm calling him (we both hate the phone) but he didn't ask that day. He seemed anxious to talk.

I remember laying in bed that night, hearing a plane flying overhead and realizing that it had to be a military flight. It made me feel very sad and lonely.

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Howard Moon: The wind is my only friend.
Wind: [whistling] I hate you.

abaya

Don't forget the impact on the rest of the world--which was perhaps even more significant. Hear, hear. Right in this very thread... so much hatred, anger, desire for retribution...

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And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

Spartanx9

Where was I?

I was heading to class that day in 7th grade. I woke up and went into the living room to hear about it, my dad was talking about something, but I don't remember what it was. All i remember is seeing one of the towers on fire. I left for school and on the bus to school, a few more students got on and mentioned that the second tower just got it.

Kinda wowed that day, and it takes a lot to do that to me.

annie1

I was in college, in class. I remember after class walking outside and seeing EVERYONE on a cell phone (before EVERYONE used them ALL the time) Right then, I knew something was not right.

roachboy

o i think there's a pretty accurate understanding abroad here of which aspect of this history is being dismissed and which is not.

what's being dismissed is not the events 7 years ago themselves, but the ways in which they came to function as the origin myth for a shabby, racist narrative that was in turn an origin story for the imposition of a kind of neo-fascist period in american public life that i suspect will be a source of bewilderment for those who come to write the history of it later---except perhaps for conservative americanists who seem to be able to rationalize anything.

i don't see *anyone* dismissing the event itself--but i see *alot* of folk across the age range whose ability to make these basic distinctions between what happened and what was manufactured about what happened. that this substitution of reactionary mythology for the events was already happening on the afternoon of 11 september 2001--right before your eyes--is a part of what people remember. i don't forget.

you seem to want to tell folk what they should remember.

but i don't get angry at those who seem unable to make basic separations, who imagine History is a single process, everywhere the same. i have to accept that such mythological understandings of history lead perfectly reasonable folk to make arbitrary assessments of events and of people---hell, we have a 7 year demonstration of the Problems this can generate--or we do if you choose to look. but i understand that's no fun, and so the preference for mythology, which is possible at any age.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Willravel

I'm not one to get rallied by sympathy when it contradicts reason. The whole "in solemn remembrance" thing was done again and again and again. People died, many of them were brave. That's horrible, but it happens every day. What doesn't happen every day is people losing all perspective and being led around by their sympathy and fear. As soon as 9/11 was used as a rally cry for selfish gain it ceased being some amazing moment in the history of the world and just became another useless and meaningless loss that was capitalized on by very bad people.

I can't tell you how often this 25 year old has to remind people much older than myself that Pearl Harbor caused the US to stop Japanese (and by extension German) imperialism, saving millions or even billions of people from tyranny. 9/11 has been the opposite. It's inspired fear, which has allowed tyranny. I don't dismiss things like Pearl Harbor. I don't dismiss Paul Revere's ride or the battles of Lexington and Concord. I'm aware of moments in US history to be proud of. 9/11 isn't one of them.

Romanticizing an attack into some patriotic rallying point is what has gotten us to where we are today, and I refuse to be a part of that.

Edit: and what RB said above.

jewels

I don't think many romanticize it, or that many even see it as a "patriotic rallying point". I do think that most view it as a remembrance of those who lost their lives. Period.

__________________
We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.
Mark Twain

Willravel

But people die every day. 45 murders a day in the US, which means an average of over 100,000 murders since 9/11. The fact that these people don't get a remembrance and those that died on 9/11 do means that 9/11 was significant. I don't see it as significant. It could have been, but it's not.

jewels

I get what you're saying, but many of those others do receive remembrances. We see flowers and vigils everywhere, survivors related to murder victims often work to pass bills or educate others, etc.

The families of those that died on 9/11 can't do that. They're one in a sea of thousands and their families share this common bond. No sympathy, Will, just a little empathy, huh?

As for the date becoming a political bandwagon, hell yeah. I agree, the politicians should stay out of it.

__________________
We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.
Mark Twain

Willravel

What I'm saying is that they had my empathy and sympathy. I was one of those that sent thoughts and donations and letters. In 2001. Now? It's 2008 and basically anything that their deaths could have stood for has been besmirched. I'm not interested in acting like it's still 2001 and the wounds are still fresh and the opportunity for justice is still there. They're not.

Maybe I should clarify something. Those 100,000+ murders I mentioned garner my sadness and sympathy, just like the 3,000 on 9/11. What I'm against is insisting that 9/11 was somehow more sad or more terrible than all of the other murders. It may have been an unconventional and spectacular (in a bad way, of course) method, but it's murder.

jewels

In a bad way, of course???

More sad, no. More terrible, I'm not sure.

Maybe it's semantics, but at that time the risks involved in everyday life were clear cut. We knew that we could get hit by a car, or die in a plane crash and yes, raped and even murdered. But at that time, had anyone even considered what happened even in the realm of possibility? That's what makes it so horrendous, at least from where I sit.

Doesn't that make any difference?

jorgelito

Wow, just wow.

Thanks for calling my grief and mourning a "fetish". This has to be the most insensitive post you have ever written.

Thanks for politicizing a thread that was clearly in General Discussion as an outlet for remembrance, sharing, and paying respects.

Thanks for implying my aunt had it coming. Chickens coming home to roost? Who are you? Fred Phelps? You couldn't take your disrespectful comments to another thread? Would you have shown up at my aunts funeral and said these same things?

Thanks for calling us stupid. Those of us who wanted information in the aftermath and turned to tv, newspapers, radio etc.

Thanks for cheapening my grief.

This is a new low for you roachboy.
-----Added 11/9/2008 at 08 : 28 : 23-----
Thanks for your honesty. My brother and mother were caught abroad when it went down. My brother had to scramble and find a way to get back stateside for school.

Just a gentle reminder: students who go abroad are not necessarily liberal. they are a diverse bunch including conservatives, moderates, girls, boys, fat, thin, Jews, Muslims, etc. I'm on my 3rd passport and have been to nearly 35 countries in the past 10 years. I spend on average, 6 months of the year overseas and my experience has been as such.

I don't get the anti-flag waving attitude. I think it was a very natural reaction. Almost all nations flag wave. And that was a good and appropriate time for it too. Other countries even got in on the action and waved our flag in solidarity. It was a very touching time. All that sympathy and support. I for one appreciated it.
-----Added 11/9/2008 at 08 : 29 : 14-----
It is very much a big deal to many of us.
-----Added 11/9/2008 at 08 : 31 : 39-----
Thank you Abaya for your kind words. It was an intense and emotional time. This is the first I have spoken of it since. Still very hard despite the time passed. We could open up another thread to explore the experience/issues. It may be a bit difficult, but in the right forum/venue, I would be willing to give it a shot.
-----Added 11/9/2008 at 08 : 33 : 11-----
I agree. This is a tragedy. The treatment and near-zealous frenzy. To George Bush's credit, he came out on TV and announced that Muslim-Americans were not to blame and for people not to take it out on them. Even UsTwo went out of his way to defend his Arab/Muslim freidns during that time.
-----Added 11/9/2008 at 08 : 34 : 36-----
Thanks for sharing your story ktsp. I'm glad you have been treated reasonably well since then. Hopefully, we can all work together to ensure the proper treatment of all, by all.
-----Added 11/9/2008 at 08 : 36 : 24-----
Why? We have moved on. What's wrong with commemorating a major event? Why does it offend you so? Should we stop commemorating MLK Day? Can we move on? Should we stop commemorating July 4th? Can we move on? Should we stop commemorating Memorial Day? Can we move on?.....
....
....
-----Added 11/9/2008 at 08 : 38 : 45-----
Wow, great post D. Thanks for sharing. I didn't relize that happened in Australia. I am very shocked and surprised as Aussies are usually open minded and laid back. I'm sorry to hear of all the ignorance and violence that happened there. I am an optimist too. We will continue to work together man. Don't stop believing.
-----Added 11/9/2008 at 08 : 40 : 49-----
Yes, the 3,000 people who perished were from 90 different countries. Don't forget that. It wasn't just us expendable Americans. Lost of innocent folks from around the world were murdered that day too. This wasn't just an American event. It was a global event. Abaya, we need to address that anger, hatred, retribution. I'm with you.

__________________
"The race is not always to the swift, nor battle to the strong, but
to the one that endures to the end."

"Demand more from yourself, more than anyone else could ever ask!"

- My recruiter

roachboy

you didn't read the post, jorgelito.
i'd apologize, but i am not responsible for your choices in terms of selective reading.

1. i made a clear distinction between the events themselves and the grief of those who lost people, and the way the events--and by extension that grief--has been stepped on in the construction of this miserable, racist narrative at the center of the "war on terror"--and i meant it.

2. the post was about *my* experience that day, and there is nothing you can say, no claim that you can make, and no level of misreading you can manage that makes *my* experience of that day any more or less meaningful than your own.

3. as a human being, i'm sorry about your loss--maybe i should have put that in--but it was early in the morning and i just wrote what i remembered--and i'm sorry for that omission.

4. but the world is like that, jorgelito--not everything, not everyone's memory, is connected to an event like the attacks in nyc in the same way. the fact that there are differences in perspective does not mean that one overrides the other. we are long past that point.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

jorgelito

Yes, exactly. Agreed.
-----Added 11/9/2008 at 08 : 45 : 12-----
Don't patronize me pal, I did read your post. Multiple times. Obviously you feel the way you do and yes it is your experience. It doesn't make your response any less abhorrent and despicable. I am simply responding to your post with the way I feel. Maybe you should read my posts again.

__________________
"The race is not always to the swift, nor battle to the strong, but
to the one that endures to the end."

"Demand more from yourself, more than anyone else could ever ask!"

- My recruiter

Push-Pull

I'm a bit disappointed in how this thread turned out. It saddens me how political discussion has tarnished such a noble intent. :-(

As for the original question, I had just gotten to the trailhead for my daily hike when the news had mentioned that "a small plane" had hit. I did my hike, and when I got back, the news was much more dire. I got home in time to see the 2nd plane hit. I did go to work, but I was very late, and not much got done.

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"No laws, no matter how rigidly enforced, can protect a person from their own stupidity." -Me-

"Some people are like Slinkies..... They are not really good for anything, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs." -Unknown-

DAMMIT! -Jack Bauer-

Baraka_Guru

I'm both disappointed and saddened that roachboy's post is being misinterpreted when instead it should perhaps be labelled unsuitably placed. I guess there are certain contexts where emotions and cultural criticisms don't mingle well.

Perhaps this should have been a thread offshoot.

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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Charlatan

I agree Baraka... I don't see rochboy's post as hateful at all. It is a genuine remembrance of that day from his eyes and how that day has shaped his thoughts today. It is what this thread is about and I don't think it was unsuitably placed.

I think this last line in the thread is the most important one.

That last, "it isn't easy" is underscored by the later response of others to his post.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

roachboy

......................

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Baraka_Guru

Charlatan, one reason why it could be deemed unsuitably placed is because of the tone set by the OP.

Personally, I didn't find the post out of place, but I can see how it was misinterpreted.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

filtherton

I was working at a grocery store. I though it was stupid that people continued to shop during the entire affair.

I didn't have any sort of personal connection to anyone in those buildings. I was more concerned with America's reaction than with the towers falling.

Willravel

That was a good instinct.

sapiens

I was standing in my living room brushing my teeth. I saw the newsfeed on CNN and called to my wife in the other room. The world was suddenly a very small place. It was upsetting and somehow exhilarating at the same time. The feeling eventually wore off.

ItWasMe

I live on the west coast, USA. So it was very early morning here. My husband's mother woke us with a phone call. We flipped on the kitchen tv and made coffee. I thought the first crash was horrible and sad. When we saw the second, I said "OMG that wasn't an accident." We saw the towers fall in real time. I thought the first boom was a bomb. And the second. And the third. Then hubby said they were not bombs; the building was collapsing. I kept thinking, "no more floors, no more floors, stop falling..." But it didn't stop. And I watched many, many people die all at once, in real time. I was sick when the second building started to fall. Because I knew it wouldn't stop. I thought, "not them, too" But it was. It was later we saw what was left of the Pentagon.

I had to work that night, in a grocery store. We live in a very diverse area. I noticed that there were not many of our customers from the middle east. Those who did come in appeared very nervous. They scanned the crowds constantly, walked quickly, bought only a few items. Some of them looked their surroundings so much, like they were expecting something to happen, it put me on edge a bit. But I did try to be extra nice to them, and to call them by name if I knew their name. This went on for weeks, even months (although not as severe).

I didn't lose anyone that day. What I did lose was my ability to watch scary, violent movies. If you knew me at all, you would know that that was a big deal. I watched Halloween and Friday the 13th movies without batting an eye. I had become desensitized, I think, to alot of violence against people. Now, I struggle with the opposite. I cannot stand seeing people do things that hurt other people. Whether it be physical violence or verbal/emotional abuse. I can't keep my eyes open. I just can't hack it. Not since that day I saw so many people die at once in real life.

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. . . . . . . . . . . . . .


"Ok, no more truth-or-dare until somebody returns my underwear" ~ George Lopez

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The Faba

You can move on.

I have a large degree of empathy for the victims. People killed because they live in a society that gives equal opportunity to all poeple, races, and genders. Killed because their society isn't run by Islamic extremists. Coldly murdered because their schools did not teach them to hate and coldly murder those people overseas first. I empathize with those victims because they went about their business, and were killed because some group thousands of miles away didn't like how their government works. I empathize with them because a small group of cowards decided they had the right to judge thousands, and then run and hide in the mountains when the obvious reaction cam about. I empathize with the people in those towers because I know that the highjackers were almost certainly brainwashed, like most suicide bombers, by the group who wanted them to do it. I empathize with the victims because it was a stupid reason for a stupid loss of life.

I find it a 'big deal' because I choose to remember those crimes.


I find these thoughts phrased more eloquently than I could.

Live life man. Life isn’t what you think it’s supposed to be. You’re supposed to Carpe Diem. How do you know that by the way, even though the Latin language hasn’t been spoken in hundreds of years? You know that you’re not supposed to go gently into that good night when that bell tolls for thee. We know this, yet we allow ourselves not to laugh, to be retentive, to hold everything in even though we have the freedoms that other people don’t have. Our women don’t get shot in the head when they don’t believe anything. Our women wear miniskirts that are literally this short, and when they go to nightclubs they look at guys like me and go “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU LOOKING AT?!” “Your Va-gin-a!”

See, you got to laugh while you can. And see here’s the fun part, people at home, laughing their asses off, loving it - because we want to pretend. See, at home it’s cool, ninety percent of the, wait no, sixty to eighty percent of the people who watch Def Jam were white. But when you go see Def Jam Live or you go see the Kings of Comedy you will see almost no white people there - which truly tells me that you love laughing at the brother jokes, but you don’t love laughing at brother jokes when the brothers can look at you laugh because you feel uncomfortable. So when you’re at home you love it and you’re like – “Haha! Those niggers are funny, ha ha ha!” But when you’re there you’re like “That’s wrong! What he said is wrong!”

And you can’t do that. You got to understand what makes life beautiful is the essence of the fact that it can go away. So you don’t want to live like that. You don’t want to be the person, do you? That had a fight, an inconsequential insignificant stupid fight with your spouse. About who’s supposed to open, or close, or turn off the light at that bedtime. So you did it, but you were pissed. And you stayed pissed with your wife, not ‘cause it was real, but “Hell, we’ll make up later, and nothin’ better than make up sex, is there?” And in the morning you woke up and things were still bad, but you kept at it. ‘Cause “Hey, I’m gonna come back, and we’re gonna do it!” And then what happened? You went to your building and you were… saddened on that ninetieth floor. And that happened. And your ass is never going to go back home again. And the best you can do is call your woman or man and say “I love you” and you miss that last night. Why? Because you thought that it would last forever.

See, every comedy show you’ve ever been to ends with a big joke, because that’s what you need. I end with a big joke, you laugh, I say goodnight, and that’s how it’s supposed to be. But that ain’t life my friends. If you learn anything from me, learn one thing. That sometimes… sometimes.

*Walks off stage*

- Carlos Mencia