Invitation for comment

[pseydtonne]

I was watching a special about the Twin Towers -- how they were built, how a Frenchman walked across the gap on a tightrope and how another scaled the taller one with climbing gear he designed himself, how they were home to their own zip code (10048) and one of the largest transit concourses in the nation.

The documentary interviewed the director of the World Trade Center. He hired the architect, he ran day-to-day operations from an office on the 63rd floor of one tower, he savored each opportunity to give new facets to the career of his buildings. He was all smiles, but some part of him seemed very sad to see his life's duty destroyed within his lifetime.

chaggalagirl noticed how into this program I was. "Of all the people I've talked to, you're the most into what happened." I hadn't thought of it that way.

I don't think the nation has really discussed what happened. We went into shock, formed a phrase for the event, got angry and killed others. We've lost civil rights, got angrier, built elaborate conspiracy theories, waffled about how to straighten everything out. We've just never said what really requires retribution.

It's amazing how people from America's heartland got pissed about a financial office being destroyed in New York, a city loathed above all for being full of panty-waists and lefties. There is a lot of forward movement away from the event, but very little investigation in how it all happened. How did people get through security? Was there an inside job? Were any traffic controllers involved?

"Oh, shut the flying fuck up!" That's what you're saying, right?

Why do we all still feel like there's a hole in the nation that started around November 2000 that got a lot worse in September of 2001? Why doesn't anything seem to be solved? Why does the economy keep getting worse?

Because we haven't confronted our ghosts. Until we do, we'll only maintain delusions and not heal.

Am I full of shit? Prove me wrong. Yell at me.

Comments

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

They got through security because the guards at Logan were loafing off pretty bad.

The ATC had a bead on them for some time but couldn't do anything about them. THey figured that they were flying a hijacked plane headed for Newark (or *maybe* La Guardia) and that it was Someone Else's Problem once they landed.

And the answer to the rest of your questions can be summed up in four letters: Bush. The WTC disaster highlighted all that was wrong with our foreign policy, and so he twisted it as best he could into doing whatever the fuck he wanted with our country. This pissed off a lot of people, not the least the people who had lost folks in the disaster.

Hey, whatever happened to the $500 gazillion that folks donated to the Red Cross afterward? My survivor friends haven't seen their chunk of that yet...and no one ever answered for the mishandling of the funds in the first part, or the attempted misappropriation of it.

You leftie, wanting *history*. Don't you understand we create history now, by controlling the present? 9/11 was a plot by Saddam Hussein to kill the President for the righteous and liberating Gulf Police Action (remember, all Kuwaitees are happy in their new democracy now!), and we killed him righteously and justly in Desert Slaughter or whatever the NewSpeak for this past non-War was called.

Keep yelling. We need more yellers. (not old yellers, mind you)

TMH

[rednikki.livejournal.com]

I have to agree with this about security, and not just at Logan. You have no idea how much illegal not-supposed-to-be-on-planes crap I've gotten through airport security with. I'd gone through many, many times with handcuffs ON MY JACKET, just for starters, which even before 9/11 was a big no-no. Only one place ever stopped me: Pittsburgh. Everyone else let me through - and it's not like I was hiding them.

Remember, their "weapons" were entirely legitimate to take on a plane before 9/11, unlike my handcuffs.

I'm probably going to get a lot of flack for posting this...

[graciana.livejournal.com]

Are you full of shit? I don't think you are. I really want to prove you wrong too, but all stances in America prove otherwise.

Nothing seems to be solved, because nothing really is. Through the guise of Homeland Security, we've just created more protocol and red tape - a mere band aid over gaping wound. The foreign policy stances that provided justification for the terrorists are still continuing, or more reinforced now. America is still the same, perhaps more "Americanized" than ever now. Yet nothing is said because the maintenance of the American Dream still needs to continue. Meanwhile, the debris is still silently being sorted out on Staten Island for evidence and a shred of DNA to help identify those still unaccounted for.

I was talking about this with a friend in Europe. I think he put it best when he said, "You think something like this would have humbled a nation, but instead, it's made it more aggressive than ever." Personally, I don't think national humility should come at the loss of so many lives [I still remember Paul], but one has got to be scared of any semblance of truth behind his statement. I know it triggers some contemplation for me.

Because I have done the peripatetic so many times around the former WTC...

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

"Yer mother dresses you funny!"

OK, I yelled at you :-)

What little I've seen so far of estimates as to why things went wrong on 9/11 have suggested that in part the White House is to blame for ignoring evidence that Intel already had, simply because ObL was a "Clinton" issue and Bush wanted nothing to do with those.

Of course, Bush has been an opportunistic asshole in the meantime, building his asshole new world on 3,000 dead people, but hey...