Remembering 9/11

[Lois]

Let us be the adults in the room,
The ones who know and feel our fears—
Who know too well the horror of intolerance, mobs, violence.
Who don’t allow our fear to fester into bitterness.
Who will never name hate as our final answer.

Let us be the adults in the room,
The ones who don’t call names,
Who don’t simplify or turn people into caricatures.
Who don’t paint with broad brushes and sneers.
Who don’t dismiss complex people with simple judgments.

Let us be the adults in the room,
The ones who step in the way of the bullying.
Who don’t allow name-calling.
Who don’t allow others to turn people into caricatures.
Who stand on the side of love.

Let us be the adults in the room,
The ones who ask questions, who reason.
Who know that truth sets people free.
Who understand when to speak and when to listen.
Who study history’s cruelty and vow, “Never again.”

Let us be the adults in the room,
The ones who know the Holy is too big to name.
Who make room for the wisdom of Allah, Moses,
Who celebrate the life of Krishna, Jesus,
Who glean sacred text from science and nature.

Let us be the adults in the room.
The ones who know that diversity makes us stronger.
Who search for multiple wisdoms,
Who speak many languages,
Who are willing to admit that we need one another.

http://www.standingonthesideoflove.org/blog/a-prayer-for-strength-in-fearful-times/

[Donnie]

I remember.

http://www.kristensboard.com/forums/index.php?topic=7174.0

[Bexy]

Beautiful, thank you Emily.

[insatiable]

Read this from in another board:

I wasn't impacted, not directly. Let me explain.

I was a freshman at NYU. I walked out to go to one of my first ever early morning discussion sections and the World Trade Center, clearly visible from Washington Square Park, was billowing smoke. I went back into my dorm and asked one of my friends what had happened, and he told me that a plane had hit the World Trade Center.

"What an idiot!"

We both laughed. How in the hell could some idiot pilot hit a giant building like that? It was a ridiculous notion. We just assumed the pilot had become disoriented in the fog or something.

So I stood out in the street, watching as the view became all clogged up with smoke, and then another damn plane hits the World Trade Center.

The idea that this was some sort of attack was completely preposterous to me. I just thought, seriously, that maybe some sort of routing error at an airport tower had caused this malarkey. From where I was watching, the planes didn't look that big. I thought they were little prop planes or something, and one of them had hit the WTC in the early morning fog, and then the other had been disoriented by the smoke and whatever coked out air traffic controller was guiding these things.

I just sort of figured it was one of those weird days, probably one I'd remember for awhile, but certainly not a lifechanging event. I hurried to class, pissed off at myself that I was going to be late.

Class was cancelled, so I went back to the dorm, called some of my friends to wake them up. Stuff was pretty calm for awhile, but as people woke up and the word started to come in that terrorists were claiming these attacks, people started to get a little more panicked.

When the buildings went down, we watched it on TV like everyone else in America. The sky was far too smoky to see the buildings from where we were. People were shocked, but I don't think anybody cried.

After the buildings went down, my friends and I tried to walk to a local hospital to give blood, but they had so many people donating blood that we were turned away. We tried to go to another hospital, but gave up when we figured how far we'd have to walk, and were told by other people that they weren't accepting blood donations there either.

So I went back to my dorm with my friends. When we went back south of 14th street, the cops told us that if we went down there, we wouldn't be able to come back up, because they were putting up a cordon, but all our stuff was down there, so whatever.

So I went back, talked to my parents on AIM. They were more freaked out than I was, and booked me a Greyhound bus ticket back to my home city of Rochester, NY for the next day.

I woke up the next morning and it was pretty smoky out. There was a massive cloud of dust and debris outside, making it hard to see very far. I packed up my backpack, put a bandanna over my mouth, and set out for the subway.

No problems on the subway, and I got to the Greyhound alright. The trip took a little while because the bus driver was new and took the wrong route, but I got home fine.

A few days later, I was back in school. The dust had cleared away. A few kids had quit and gone home or transferred, but all my friends were still there.

I knew hundreds of students, and I don't think that any of us knew anyone who lost anybody at the WTC. A few thousand people died, but America is a country of over 300,000,000. Despite the exaggerated claims you heard, the chances of knowing anyone who died are kinda low.

So we went on with our lives. I'm sad those people died, sure. It was needless, and horrible. But there are worse disasters happening all the time, all over the globe. People die, constantly, all over the place.

So here I am. I finished school. I founded a successful web company. Now I'm in grad school, getting my masters. I'm happily married. I have a great wife and an awesome cat. I have good friends. I have a big TV.

Was I impacted? Sure, I guess. In a lame, light, emotional way. I saw the damn thing happen. I was a mile away. But I don't feel like my life was changed. Except.

Except for one big fucking thing. I feel like 9/11 gave a horde of money-hungry maniacs all the fuel they needed to embark on a decade of hate- and terror-mongering through the media, and I think that's sad, and it's getting worrisome.

So yeah, I feel like I AM impacted, but not directly by the terrorists who flew those planes into those towers. No, I feel like I'm negatively impacted by Fox News, and Sarah Palin, and Glenn Beck, and whoever those ignorant clowns are who put up the billboards showing Obama wearing a king's crown and tearing up the constitution. It makes me sick to teach an undergrad course and realize that these kids were in THIRD GRADE when this shit went down, and all they've known about America since then has been puffed up rhetoric, lies, fear, and hate, always so much hate.

This is not the America I grew up with, even though I'm only a little bit older than these kids. It makes me sick to think that THIS is how we've been "impacted." 9/11 was only ever just the right excuse America needed to fucking eat itself.

And this one too:

Maxine Greene, a philosopher of education, found that because of the persistent footage of 9-11 small children believed that people jumped out of buildings and that towers fell everyday. I know teach those children. On Monday I'll ask something like what we're doing here, "What do you remember?" Most kids tell me that they knew someone who lost a loved one. A handful of them will tell me they lost a loved one (we're a high school in lower Manhattan). This year I'm not sure what I'll hear. My youngest students were 5 years old when it happened. Are these the kids that Maxine writes about? And what will happen 3 years from now when none of the freshmen remember being in the city but only the media's interpretation? How are school's supposed to bring up 9-11 without being tacky and while being aware of the trauma in our kids? I'm lucky to work at a very progressive public school but my situation is rare. Anyway these are some thoughts that are coming up for me.

[goldfish]

I was talking to a business associate when the first plane hit.  He was on the floor that it hit.  He did not see it coming.

A very sad day.

That job only lasted another week.  I had been on the job for 13 years.

[toeinh20]

Memory eternal.

[Gina Marie]

[gomez38555]

This is the one that touched me the most.
How desperate were these people to feel that jumping was the only option left?

[Katiebee]

Burning alive is not a pleasant way to die. By fire or by falling, neither is a death I contemplate as good alternatives, though I would not want drowning or burning as the way to die.

[TinyDancer]

Memory eternal.

Those are the only two words that need be said.

[joe_and_michelle]

I had three friends there that day.

One passed away.   They believe in the collapse of building 1, but are not sure.  He was never found.

A second was in building 4.   She was a friend in high school and wrote of her and a strangers escape from the area and overall experience from that day.   I actually cried when I read it.   I wish I still had it, but it was in an old yahoo mail account.

A third friend was in the financial district.   The area was being evacuated, and as he was walking away looking up at the first building burning, he witnessed the 2nd plane hit.   At a Xmas gathering we had the next December, he and I were alone and he described his experience that day.   He had two friends pass away in the towers.   He was never the same after that day and even as recently as a few years ago was still attending counseling sessions a few times a year.

One of the saddest days in my life.     I'll never forget.

[MissBarbara]

I know I brought this up last year, and living in NYC this aspect is strongly emphasized, but what I find painful and off-putting about the annual commemoration of 9/11 is the hyper-emphasis on death, dismemberment, and destruction. Even the annual "reading of the names" contributes to this aggressive morbidity. I've gotten to the point where I dread the arrival of this annual anniversary.

Do we really need to see -- again! -- the Twin Towers in flames and collapsing to the ground, desperate people twisting in the mid-air as they descend toward instant death, and blood and destruction everywhere?

9/11 is undeniably a day that should be commemorated and memorialized. It is a day for remembering, empathizing, understanding, and learning. It is also a day for hope and renewal. Let's focus on that, rather than death. 

[Well Behaved Lady]

What a thought provoking post MissB.

We will never forget, but as with all loss we need to move forward.

I could post about my brother and his story but he is here and alive and awaiting the arrival of his 2nd child, that's what his focus is on, not what could have been.

[watcher1]

I think the most fitting tribute would have been to rebuild the twin towers exactly as they appeared on 09/10/2001.  Then to place a small brass plaque by the front doors that read "Fuck You Bin Laden."

Nice idea, Toe.  But we gave Bin Laden the best FUCK YOU ever. Now onto other radicals who want to destroy America.

[MissBarbara]

Fixation on the event, and its victims, only plays into the agenda of the terrorists who perpetrated it.  And perhaps inspires another generation of terrorists who might seek similar notoriety.

Don't forget what it's used to justify too. I think that is far more likely to "inspire" a new generation of terrorists.

As long as I've already politicized this thread, it's also an occasion to ponder why the attacks were carried out in the first place and -- rejecting simplistic answers and patriotic mythologizing -- to question whether we could/should have done anything differently to that might have kept the attacks from happening at all.

[Katiebee]

In all, Bin Laden was miffed because the Saudi royals asked the U.S. to provide military support against the Iraqi incursion into Kuwait. Infidels on holy Saudi ground.

Stupid assholes are going to be stupid regardless. He was an ego-centric asshole. That's why it all happened.

[rivet]

We here in the U.S. haven't seen the end of such attempts.  Not until the Middle East is without conflict brought on by the terrible imbalance of wealth and lack of human dignity, such fierce resentment of the wealthy and the influence of powerful Western cultures will cause us to have to repel attempts to destroy our way of life.  We are treating the symptoms, not the causes with our attempts to fight, disrupt and kill the heirs to the anti-western resentment without equal or greater regard to raising the standards of living to something that is tolerable.  And we have to do that without imposing our own lifestyles upon them.  Now, if you have an idea as to how to do all this, you have a job!

[Katiebee]

Doesn't take away from a basic understanding of his motives.

[joan1984]

It really does not matter WHY terrorists hate us.

We need to employ self protection. We need to enforce our current Immigration laws, and stop illegal immigration at our borders, for a start, where right now we are doing anything but stopping anyone who wishes from entering.

When we can kill terrorists, we should do so with great dispatch. Our support of true allies in this matter is important, and needs to be strong enough to end these folks from living long enough to challenge our borders by any means.

Internally, we need to take action. Enforce our immigration laws, now and into the future, for those who have broken the law and entered, or broken the law and overstayed their Visas, and those individuals need to be removed. Start with Guantanimo, but get them out of here forthwith, and find a nice place away from U.S. State soil to store them until they can be dealt with, via repatriation to their homeland, no matter which homeland that may be. If we give any money to that homeland, stop giving that money, all of it, until they agree to take back their own, so we need not deal further with them.

Raise immigration violations to Felony levels forthwith. Enforce the law and deport felons, dont house them, no benefits, no nothing. Fix the 'anchor babies' portion of whatever laws are being interpreted to say children born to their parents, who are not legal residents at the time of their birth, are NOT entitled to American citizenship. Period, as Barack Obama would say, when speaking about 'you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan'.

Employers of any who are not currently citizens must be required to prove that no U.S. Citizen will do that work, at the rate (legal rate) the employer wishes to pay. Further, they Employer must document the legal status of every employee who is not a proven American citizen. Levy huge fines by the day, per employee, for every day the Employer is not in full compliance.

There is no reason we should tolerate those who enter without prior permission, or those who overstay their Visas after entering legally, being within our border now, or any time in the future. Citizens yes, non-citizens, not without extraordinary documentation. Children, aged, whatever, gotta get right with the law, and/or get out now.

[MissBarbara]

It really does not matter WHY terrorists hate us.

I think it is absolutely VITAL that we understand why terrorists hate us. This matters more than just about anything else.