The Sheila Variations

Great post Sheila, I feel the same way... much like that "Stop the Police Rally" last week to which no police actually showed up, I am continually wowed by the obliviousness and idiocy of so many people.

I think I told you this Sheila - but when the towers fell Andre (age 8) was immediately distressed because in the movie of Godspell, Judas and Jesus danced on top of the towers during "All for the Best" - human connections...

Betsy: Andre! That story kills me.

Kids always get things on such a profound level.

Cashel did too. Maria, or Brendan, said to him, "Member when we saw that TV special about the plane flying into the Empire State building in the olden days?" Cashel nodded.

"Well, this is sort of like that. Except that that time, nobody got hurt."

Cashel said, "So ... people got hurt this time?"

"Yes, honey. People got hurt."

Cashel buried his face in the couch pillows.

Some of his classmates had lost parents, and he asked Brendan if those kids could come and live with them.

"They don't have a mom or a daddy anymore," Cashel informed Brendan, who had to leave the room to cry.

Unbelievable.

Sheila,

Extremely articulate and moving piece. Perhaps things like this will show Americans how valuable memory really is. In Auschwitz there are two memorials if I recall correctly. The Polish one says "Never Again" but the Jewish one says simply "Zakat" (remember). If we do not remember, no amount of good and happy feelings will prevent recurrence of these horrors.

Sheila,

You say you are "splutteringly inarticulate," but this time you absolutely nailed it. Fantastic posting. What never ceases to amaze me is the number of people who refuse/don't see how right you are. Are they stupid, or brainwashed, or what?

Agreed that the PBS documentary sucked, except for the architect, and the high-wire guy. They actual had EMOTION about 9/11.

Probably a better set of shows was the trio on Sunday night on Discovery. One show about the WTC, one about the Pentagon, and a final one on the Liebskind project. One of the guys they interviewed that works in the Pentagon, his 14yo son was on the plane that hit the Pentagon. UNBELIEVABLY sad story.

I was watching the first two shows, and getting weepy and angry at the same time. I hadn't really seen the collapse video since last year's anniversary. It hurt. It made me angry. I need my anger. We all need to remember.

Brilliantly done, Sheila. Absolutely brilliant.

It's important to ask: *who* are the people who respond to such a horrible thing in such cold-hearted and even inhuman ways? What is the common thread here?

I am concerned that there are aspects of our educational system--particularly graduate education in what were once called the "humanities"--that tend to create this kind of thinking. Thoughts would be very welcome.

Thanks for your blog, Sheila! I turned the documentary off near the end, when Cuomo was mumbling about religion.

I found the emphasis on globalization to be very, very lopsided, since I don't think world economic problems alone can explain what happened. In general, I found the conceptual base of the documentary pretty worthless. (In fact, it reminds me of the film by the French brothers, who retained their story line about the "Probie" (the probationer, the new fireman) Becoming A Man. They sandwiched the entire disaster with their stupid initial concept of watching a fireman become accepted in his new firehouse. GAWD. Yes, wasn't it heartening that on the day 3,000 people died, the Probie Became A Man!)

Disregarding the globalization stuff as much as I could, I found actual facts about the origins of the WTC, the Rockefellers, etc., fascinating. I had not known them.

Mainly, I feasted my eyes on the many, many shots of the towers at all hours of the day and night. The filmmakers go it right that people are hungry to see them again. And, far more sadly, I couldn't tear my eyes off the shots of the planes. I know some people get on their high horses about how *tacky* it is to LOOK, but God, we're human beings, looking is how we struggle to understand what's happening. And listening, smelling, tasting, sure, but looking is a big part of it.

Your commentary expands my ideas about the documentary. Thanks for taking the time to write it.

Nancy:

I completely understand your point about being hungry while looking at those terrible images ... The images which have disappeared off the face of the planet. The planes, the towers, the sheer ... awfulness of it all. I just added a post at the top of the page, a link to an article in Esquire, about "the falling man" photograph. it is an unbelievable piece of writing, very upsetting. But Jesus, being upset these days is appropriate! It's all about bearing witness, the power of LOOKING. How the first photographs which came out of the concentration camps was the only way we had to bear witness - to let the entire world know what had happened. And everybody looked. Everybody looked. Perhaps some looked with ghoulish interest, with insensitivity -- but we cannot control that. The power of seeing something with your own eyes, and making up your own mind about how you feel, what you think, is one of the marks of a civilized society.

Anyway: the article itself is astonishing. It truly is. Check it out.

And thanks for all the comments, people.

Some points from someone who saw the 9/11 part of the program:

William Langewiesche is the guy who accused NYFD men of stealing jeans from a WTC store. This was in his Atlantic article (later a book) about 9/11.

I saw nothing wrong with showing those poor people (not bodies!) falling from the tower. That horror has been suppressed by too many in the media. Because it makes us angry?

Hammill was okay until he said President Bush "couldn't be found" that day. I didn't know Hammill had been looking for Mr. Bush.

The Secret Service took extreme action at a time when no one (not even smarmy NYC journalists) knew when the attack would stop. They followed their contingency drill and removed the President from DC.

The good news: because of Hammill's comment I flipped off the program and missed the odious Mario Cuomo.

Astonishing, Sheila. You'll be blogrolled duly. Awesome post.

Whoa, there. I watched the same thing, and had precisely the opposite reaction.

http://firefive.com/blog?year=2003&month=9&day=9&hour=8&minute=15

You are totally exagerating.

Look, search the transcript yourself. The word "hubris" occurs only three times, all during the discussion of the buildings' design way back in the mid-1960's. These were discussions of the architectural design, as well as the decision to build such a large building where the real estate market didn't support it.

I'll admit (and I pointed it out in my post) that the term "globalization" (and related terms) occur an awful lot in the transcript, but the commentary clearly indicates that the attacks were completely unjustified. Much of the discussion of "globalization" is in the sense that the building had absurdly become symbols to crazy people.

I'm sorry, I think you are exagerating. How can you say that when the transcript includes this:

"A side of me was not believing it. It was a very strange blend of feelings. One was the sorrow, the horror at witnessing human life being obliterated for no reason like that. And I felt something beyond words. I felt almost an alive part of me being squeezed to nothing, being extracted, an evisceration almost."

and this:

"I was totally devastated by the fact that all those people were in there and this building that I had designed was perhaps falling on them. The buildings were not so important to me. I-I'm good at buildings, but people are another matter. It was a terrible event. Absolutely terrible."

and this:

"there was the mayor down at the site helping solve the way to think about it. When he was asked about how many casualties there would be, he said, "More than any of us can bear." That was the most important sentence by a public figure, because it put sorrow into the story, not just empty rage, not just, let's go kill somebody back, which a lot of people felt, including me."

Mike:

Perhaps, again, like I said, I was hearing a subtext of hubris throughout the documentary, which made it seem like it occurred more than it did. Like the "as if in" phenomenon. I found much to be moved by, in the special ... those quotes which you printed were some of them (as I discussed in my post.)

And just a reminder: this is my blog, so obviously it's just my opinion (duh) - and of course i am only speaking from my opinion, my immediate reaction to watching the thing. I am not shocked and horrified that others may have watched the special and had different or opposite responses. So the first sentence of your comment: "Whoa, there. I watched the same thing, and had precisely the opposite reaction" seems self-explanatory to me, indicative of the human condition. So what that we had opposite reactions? My friend Allison, who I watched the special with, agreed with every single comment that pissed me off. The fact of this did not blow my mind, or send me into a tailspin. My opinion is my opinion, her opinion is hers. This is my blog, so OBVIOUSLY I am just stating my own opinion. I am only my own mouthpiece, nobody else's.

Ditto, in the sense that my post is also "just my blog". I had kids to round up and put in bed, so I may have missed (or been distracted from) a lot of "globalization" references. (When I searched the transcript just now (it wasn't on-line when I originally posted) I was surprised by the number of references; that would have made a better drinking game.)

As I said in my post, I was impressed by how much unflinching footage they included of the attacks. I think, considering "a picture being worth a thousand words", that can excuse a certain amount of nonsense. Much of the commentary, also, seemed quite straight.

I agree about the footage. I don't have a problem with showing that footage, although Jeff Jarvis did. Or perhaps it was just the context Jarvis didn't like. I think that bearing witness to horrors, as mentioned in many of the comments above, is one of the most important ways that we can fight back, or try to understand.

I actually felt ... like Nancy said in one of the comments above ... that: Hm. How to put this.

I saw the footage of the burning towers, the planes going in, etc. Now, obviously, I saw the whole thing with my own eyes on that actual day ... which gives me the perspective that the footage does not do the event justice. Or, does not capture the reality of seeing it in real-time. That's the nature of photography.

My sister was downtown and had to run from the collapse, and said to me, "Sheila ... I saw it on TV later. And ... you just can't believe what it actually looked like ... This dust chasing you down the street."

But anyway. I feel now like: LOOKING at this horror, and not shuffling the images away, is an important part of this whole process. To SEE, and to talk about what you see.

Esquire has a phenomenal article about the importance of seeing, and images, and photographs, in connection with Sept. 11, which I linked to at the top of the page. That writer says it way better than I ever could.

i'm sure you are all aware as to why the networks are downplaying 9.11
simply if it makes americans mad again, it will be good for bush and bad for the left.
the news organizations are always hungry for news, you can tell be the crap they cover as news, so to ignore 9.11 is strictly a political move.

Nice post. I also am quite irritated by the "the WTC is a symbol of __________" response. Perhaps it's a symbol of homicidal hatred but not much else.

I think some people force themselves into these rationalizations as a way to distance themselves from reality--it's a fundamentally weak and childish response.

As for the 2nd year 9/11 "tributes" in the media and elsewhere, I'm happy that they'll be more low-key this year, as I thought last year's were mawkish and beside the point.

As a New Yorker whose son was born a few minutes after midnight on Sept 12, the day is etched indelibly into my memory. It's simply impossible to put aside or not remember.

Thinking about all the flyers, the gaping steaming pile of rubble, the smell of it all over the city, I don't want to reconcile my "feelings"---I want to steel myself with resolve for the long fight ahead against the dangerous and terrible enemy that perpetrated this mass slaughter.

Some of us who weren't eyewitnesses can use our imaginations in this way:

I have walked among the skyscrapers of downtown Chicago, near the Sears Tower, looked up, and tried to imagine what it would be like if it collapsed like the WTC did.

Like a giant coming down at you...

Word would fail.

Great post. Thank you.
As we aussies say. 'stuff 'em". To hell with the super-clever rationalising and weepy docos.
Those Islamofascist bastards killed our people and over the coming years more and more of them will pay for it.
Anger, not weeping.
Revenge, not sorrow.

Very moving and right on target. Though I live in Australia, I'd been in NYC just a few months before, had walked near the towers..just imaging the poor people there, imagining the fear, the horror..unbelievable. As you say, incomprehensible. When we heard, we all felt the most tremendous shock--for myself a feeling of being jarred from moorings, of floating outside my body..It was an act of such cold-blooded evil, by people who are after the negation of all others, by people who, as a tearful Indonesian muslim friend told me the day after, 'just worship death.' Before Sept 11, I had been aware of Islamist terrorism in places such as Algeria, Israel, Indonesia, France, but it had not made sense, as a concerted effort to destroy all that is good and beautiful and kind and ordinary..Sept 11 made all that fall into place. And I knew, I just knew who our enemy was. Since that terrible day, I've been immersing myself in reading about both September 11 and the mindset of those dreadful people who carried it out and supported it; I've learnt a lot about Islam too. But as you say, Sheila, understanding and knowing doesn;'t make you forgiving or excusing--it only clarifies anger, makes you more formidable because you understand. The optimistic thing in all this is that our enemies do NOT try to understand; they prefer to live with the sordid, self-regarding, self-pitying, hatefilled myths that has led them to think that by wiping out thousands of innocents in an act of vicious mass murder, they will attain Paradise, and destroy us. They understand certain things, sure: they are in a nexus with the kinds of people in the West who always blame the US for everything; but those people are in a minority. Though we hear their voices all the time in the media, they have no power. Their bleatings are the ones of ignorance, annoyance at their wold view having been proved so wrong, and complacent foolishness. Plus there's a strong whiff of racism there--so obsessed are they by their slogans of America being to blame for everything, they fail to see that by doing so, they rob other people of their own agency. They fail to understand the enemies of the West--because in their heart of hearts, they don't believe in the true, full, evil-and-good humanity of the other people on this planet.

i knoow how your sister felt, sheila. i remember looking up liberty street as the towers collapsed and seeing this khaki colored tidal wave come roaring down between the fed and chase...

There is of course a contingent of people who believe that we should look at the "root causes" leading to 911, and address those issues. I tend to agree. The root causes of 911 are that there are subhuman filth who would finance, plan, and implement such plans against us, as well as dancing in the streets after it happened. The obvious solution is to identify the individuals in question and kill them with the same degree of mercy and consideration that was shown to the people who died in the twin towers. None. Not one bit.

We do need to work on the root causes. And all of them have names.

Excellent essay.

I'd second one idea: the problem with the current coverage is that they don't seem to acknowledge that 1. we have enemies 2. those enemies did something really evil to us on September 11th, and demonstrated something fundamental about their character on that date 3. We are justified in our anger with them.

Beautiful. Thank you for putting it into words.

I watched the special and confess feeling more like Mike Smith. Yes, a few of the folks interviewed allowed their own bias to show through -- Mr. Hammill and Mr. Cuomo could safely have been omitted. But this special wasn't about the words, even when the words were moving and precisely on point.

It was about the images. The towers. The beauty. The times in which they were built, the people who built them and worked in them, the people who walked the streets below and ate in the Windows on the World, the art, the Statue of Liberty in the near distance, the Hudson and East Rivers in the view, the surrounding buildings, the Empire State building standing to the north.

The planes striking the towers. The ash. The paper. The debris. Bodies, oh the bodies, coming down, flailing, waving, hitting the plaza. The people hanging outside the windows holding on to each other trying to breathe. The people crying on the streets. The black smoke against the blue sky. The crushed fire engines. Firefighters running into the towers. The pile.

I could have turned the sound off and still would have cried at the times that I cried watching the images.

I confess, Sheila, that at times I really didn't listen much to the words because the words were inadequate. People have to say something, it seems, and at times they say things that just don't work. Mr. Cuomo felt some need (apparently) to remind us of his intellect by quoting obscure references. Sure, fine, whatever.

But the images stayed with me the whole next day; I found myself coming back to them in my mind at quiet moments while I worked. I work in Chicago, I was heading east on the Eisenhower expressway that morning listening to the radio, looking at the Sears Tower and the Hancock Building and wondering if -- when -- they too would be struck. There's a view from my office that lets me see both buildings silhouetted against the sky; I went to that window numerous times in the next several days to reassure myself that these buildings still stood.

If there was hubris in the building of the WTC, good. If there was hubris in making the WTC a symbol of American life, good. We are a great people -- not the only great people of the world to be sure, but we do great things, and we stand for great things, and by George I'm proud of that. If that is hubris on my part, convict me.

Thanks for your thoughts Sheila.

Mass slaughter is not an opening gambit to dialogue; it is a declaration of war.

People for whom 9/11 is the chance to talk about root causes are really pathetic; they think they are being deep or profound in some way. They lack self knowledge to see how really stupid and vain they are.

I came to the same conclusions for slightly different reasons.

Pete Hamill almost saved the entire film, IMO, when he acknowledged that he was filled with rage to raise the sword on 9.11. But his honesty falls well short of giving reason to watch this failure of a film a second time.

Ric Burns did the same thing here as he did with "Baseball". He filled it with sentimental mush, and chose to let the script be dominated by mush-headed commentators who overintellectualize matters beyond recognition.

Specificaly about the 9.11 film, if there were no PICTURES, one could not have understood what had happened, simply by listening to those mushheads. Pictures at least show concrete events. When I was standing on lower Bway on 9.11 there was no intellectual voice-over explaining to me what was really happening, after all, you see? It was clear enough.

Most of the commentators Burns chose intellectualized the very life out of those events. My guess is, that's exactly as he intended it.

That was a fantastic post. This has been my first time here, but I'll be back.
Talk of American hubris and globalization in light of the horror and brutality of 9/11 really shows a lack of humanity. This was, quite possibly, the worst day in American history. The filmmakers seem to have shown only the tiniest glimmer of empathy.
Oh, and to John Fembup: Ken Burns made "Baseball." Different guy entirely.

Sheila, AWESOME.
This is why I blog...
You make me proud to be a blogger and a fellow American.
If only you could present this on PBS--"as if in" mockery of their idiotarianism.
You are the Woman!

Didn't see the PBS documentary but remember an excellent show on the History Channel about the WTC that was shown in the months after the attacks. It had been filmed as part of their "Modern Marvels" series about engineering triumphs before 9/11. It had not aired yet when the attack happened.

This put them in a bit of a spot, and in the end they decided to run the show without commercials. They only changes they made were to note people interviewed in the show that had died on 9/11. To see people who worked in and loved those buildings talking about them with a graphic underneath noting that they had died spoke far better than any narrator could.

If this is what is running on Discovery as noted by someone above it will outline the history of the buildings, the politics behind them, and what they came to mean to people before everyone tried to squint at them through the lense of 9/11.

Linda and i in Melboune Australia, would like you to know that you have touched our hearts.
Love.

Is Sheila hot? Cause she writes like she is. I like that.

Sheila, great commentary. But what gets me about the documentary (which I haven't seen, just read the transcript) is the obsession with the physical buildings, and nothing about the people. I could not care any less about the buildings themselves. OK, so they were big buildings, sure. But isn't the important thing about the event the loss of over 2900 lives? Big buildings get dropped all the time it seems, but they are empty. These two held over 2900 people, and directly affected the lives of millions in New York. Focusing on the loss of the buildings completely misses the event, right? Great commentary on Leslie Robertson. Like you, I can identify with him. My first thoughts were for the people involved, not the physical buildings. These jokers at PBS missed the boat completely.

If the WTC was a symbol of hubris, which begged for destruction, then what are we to make of the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia? They are even taller than the WTC, so presumably more hubristic and worthy of destruction.
Could someone be judging the USA by a different standard than they apply to the rest of the world? And if so, why? Discuss.

On Sept. 11, 2001, as I watch from the rooftop of my building the falling of the Towers, I said this is war.

Two years later I still say THIS IS WAR.

Give thanks and support to our troops and our Commander-in-Chief for standing strong, never forget that America was attacked and that we are at war!

My anger is ferocious and relentless.

thanks, sheila.

Did noone else notice the glaring non-inclusion of the Republican President, Governor and Mayor of NYC who were ACTUALLY SERVING as Pres., Gov. and Mayor AT THE TIME of the tragedy? Cold-soul Cuomo with his characteristic, self-flagellating moral equivalizing and Ed Koch with his pointless "Senator Clinton" references combined for 15 of the last crucial minutes of the piece. Koch at least had a touching anecdote, but why on God's green earth would you put Cuomo in a piece of any (attempted) substance? I had waited anxiously to see this show, mistakenly believing it was a "Ken Burns" production. I called friends and family to alert them to watch it. It was an absolute disgrace and an embarrassment. How "defining", for PBS . . .

-Greene

Wow ... all of you, all the readers and commenters, blow me away. It's all been very thought-provoking.

Sheila, what a great post! Left me with a mix of feelings...
I don't think I saw the special but it just so happened that today I thought about the very same thing - how images of the tragedy vanish and blur in our minds and become some kind of a bad dream to forget. Except it was no dream and we must remember.

The WTC towers were built to be an symbol of global influence. Some people hated them when they were built; they thought they were ugly and obnoxious. Some people loved the sense of power and influence they presented.

Doesn't it make sense, then, to analyze WHY those buildings were selected by terrorists? Perhaps BECAUSE they held such emotional sway with people? The WTC symbol was large and exaggerated; those who hated it did so in ways that were large and exaggerated; those who loved it did the same.

Historical context is important. Even though everything changed after September 11, we need to look to what happened BEFORE it, and see how people felt about the WTC. Discussing how the WTC was perceived as global hubris is not smirking, it's giving some insight as to WHY and HOW those towers were selected as targets. Globalization may not be a bad thing from your opinion, but it clearly was for the people who planned the attacks. So doesn't it make sense, then, to try to see how such a gigantic symbol was perceived by others? Particulary by others who would do violence?

Of course those deaths were horrible and tragic. But the point of the program was to discuss the place that the WTC took in the global (gah! I said global! Take a drink!) consciousness. To get annoyed because the program did just that is to miss the whole point.

AS: Of course. And I did mention that I was particularly fascinated by the history of the Port Authority, and the building of the towers. That, to me, was stuff I did not know, and which was riveting. The disappearance of what used to be in lower Manhattan, the old neighborhoods, the protests against the financial district moving downtown, all of that. It was great. I learned a lot.

But I maintain my point: It was the tone of the piece. It was the tone of the piece. It is rather intangible, and, of course, quite subjective ... as we have discussed here in the comments.

The buildings showed our hubris, and hubris is always and necessarily punished. (This is what I felt the theme of the special was.) If that is what they intended, if that was the point of the special, then yes, of course they succeeded. They succeeded. But it still infuriated me.

I enjoy the other commenters and posters who have said that if "hubris" can put a man on the moon, if "hubris" can invent a skyscraper - then perhaps hubris needs to be embraced. The US is a country of major and INSANE innovations. Like Jim Lovell talking about the decision to ramp up the space program and put a man on the moon ... Lovell said something like: "We weren't 'ready' to go into space. We just decided to go."

There is a hubris in that. Definitely. And thank goodness.

The tone of the special cannot be measured or quantified. I was pissed off by the tone. Enraged. My friend Allison, as I mentioned, was not. And there you have it.

And of course I understand how those buildings were symbols to those who took them down. Jesus, I have to hear it every single day of my life. Another point I will reiterate: Understanding changes nothing. (Or, at least, in this case it does not.) I understand that many in the world saw those buildings as symbols of hubris and globalization. I understand why many were happy that they disappeared, why Palestinians danced in the streets. Understanding does not change my contempt for those who hold those views.

Dear AS,

Thanks for your thoughtful commentary, but I fear it is you who missed the point. Two years on, we can say with some conclusiveness that "globalisation" was not the reason the WTC was in fact hit. Bin Laden mistakenly believed all of our ephemeral "power" was economic, and that it would collapse if you drove a dagger into its heart - Lower Manhattan. He wanted to destroy American power because (like Israel) we'd "humiliated" and "butchered" an Arab army - and sin-of-all-sin - not only stationed infidel troops on the prophet's sacred soil, but left them there. The Palestinians and Arabs' failed attempts at modernity were all grafted on later, just as PBS dependably hitched an anti-capitalist message to the calamity. The posters on this site were already annoyed, but when our tax-payer funded PBS co-opts the dispicable act for their dispicable (and generally harmless, latent anti-capitalism) agenda - we become , er, well . . . livid. When they conveniently ignored all the Kodak-moments of Bush and Giuliani and American tirumphalism and resolve in favor of flaccid Cuomo-equivalence, and Langewiesche-an navel-gazing, I felt downright sick, and apologised to my neighbors and friends for encouraging them to watch it. That francophones and globo-socialists have drafted islamo-terrorism into their camp merely reveals the horrifying moral repugnance of both. That is all one need understand.

An attack on globalization would have started with a car bomb at MTV.

You are more than adequately articulate...thanks for putting into words the absolute outrage most of us do feel....and all of us SHOULD.

I've started a small collection. I have the Newsweek issue published the day of the attacks. I have a copy of Tony Blair's speech he made to Congress about the Iraq war. I keep these so I don't forget. I keep these so that when my resolve weakens, when I'm tempted to go back to Sept. 10 and the big party many of us were having in the 1990s, that I remember. And I especially want to remember the feeling I had sitting on the freeway on the way to work when I heard the news on NPR. I first thought, like so many others, that it was an accident, a pilot's error. Then, when the full horror of it became real to me, I called my husband still at home. I told him to turn on the news, like so many of us did that day. As he turned on the TV, I thought of my sons and my brothers and sisters, and the next sentence to my husband was, "Oh my God. This means war. We are at war."

I don't know if this was a uniquely American response. But one of my thoughts in the first 5 minutes of the horror of Sept. 11 sinking in was of war. Not in an angry way, but in a "We cannot let this stand" way. And I know I understood in my heart the price we would pay for that war. But I also knew it was a price we must pay.

Thank you for helping me remember. I've printed off your post and added it to my collection.

Ann

Understanding does not change my contempt for those who hold those views.

Then I suggest you reserve your contempt for those who actually hold those views, not those who attempt to explain how those views were fostered.

There is a Titanic-like irony in the fall of the towers. They were huge, magnificent, and seemingly indestructible. Yes, that's hubris, and it shouldn't have brought planes full of victims to destroy it. I don't think anybody is suggesting that it was deserved or inevitable, more that is was tragically ironic.

[aside to Greene] It's dEspicable, not dIspicable. Ironically (yeah, that again), taxpayer-funded PBS teaches spelling skills. Go figure. [ /aside ]

11 September 2003

Sheila:

I agree with you that we ought to be angry about what happened, and punish those responsible. I liked the film, both for the emphasis on the building before September 11th, as well as its place and effect on the City of New York. I don't know if you would still consider it, but the film is an added chapter to a series on the history of New York, and it is worth watching the whole thing.

I am not a New Yorker, but I know many who are and mostly they are very clear about the relative importance of New York versus any other city in the world. The other chapters refer to this theme of "hubris" of the WTC throughout the history of the city in other episodes, especially the ones dealing with Robert Moses, the master builder. I think the film is less about one site among others that were attacked in America that day, more about the way New Yorkers changed in how they see themselves reflected in the towers, their construction and destruction, and the city's role as the capital of the world.

I lament the losses at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania that day, but I think most people think mostly of the WTC, not only because it was where the greatest loss of life occured, but also because it happened in that exceptional city of cities, New York City. If you live there or know someone who does, you know what I mean: Chicago or Baltimore or Washington just aren't the same.

And yet, for a while, that annoying, arrogant--dare I say it?--hubris that most non-New Yorkers can't stand, became appealing. We looked again at that exceptional city. Many of us made a point to go there to see it again, and even rooted for the (hated?) Yankees in the World Series.

I am an American but not a New Yorker, and that distinction remains important. For me the film reflected what the WTC and 9/11 meant to people who clearly love their city in a way that we who don't live there can come close to but never really comprehend.

I thought about themes not necessarily in the film but provoked by them in me after it ended, and I can't help but extend the metaphor to the rest of my countrymen: just as many New Yorkers feel 9/11 matters more because it was New York, not Chicago or San Francisco, that was attacked, I think most Americans naturally are more outraged that the United States was attacked than if France, Russia or China were. Many of these countries have endured such outrages for years, and I would guess they hoped that the United States would finally wake up and see the world for what it is, and accept that the U.S. is not apart from it.

I don't believe the WTC or the people in it "had it coming"; the attackers were hardly mentioned at all in the film and certainly not shown in any way; their humanity was clearly, rightfully absent.

I remember the days after 9/11, the ceremonies marking important turning points in clearing the site and honoring the dead. I remember feeling for the first time that great promise of my country, that we didn't deserve this, and that the world was with us, ready to honor the principles that make this the greatest country ever. The world said in many languages "we are all Americans." Since then, the U.S. government told the world "you don't understand, stay out of our way, we'll handle this ourselves." But I was especially proud of New York.

In New York, as Hamill points out, Mayor Giuliani showed leadership very rare in these times, and his city opened itself to the world's condolences and support. My wife and I went there for a few nights and, except down by City Hall where the work continued, there was little hint among the people in the city that anything terrible had happened. What grace! New Yorkers responded with grit and determination, not bravado. Most of what I read and heard about New Yorkers views of the wars since then make me more impressed. More "how do we prevent this from happening again" than "who do we attack?" I would hope that the Mayor of my city--Baltimore--could provide such leadership as Giuliani did. By comparison, however, for our country the President and Congress have been a terrible disappointment.

I urge you to watch other chapters of the series on New York, and if you are a New Yorker, see if you still dislike the part about the WTC.

As Americans, we have acted out of rage, recklessly, against an undeserved attack, turning away the world's support and poorly serving our best interests.

Would that we had followed Giuliani's example, and acted as New Yorkers instead. As proud as I am of Baltimore, I have to concede that in refusing to wallow in its tragedy, New York remains the exception among other cities, and the rest of the country.

Michael Lester
Baltimore

Oh gimme a break.

You just proved my point. I'm sick of irony. I'm sick of having an ironic or "sad poetic" spin put onto an event of horror.

And that was why i wrote this post. It's my opinion. My response. That's all.

Michael Lester:

Thank you for a beautiful and articulate comment.

I actually did see the whole thing (albeit before anyone else did, cause my friend Allison got her hand on all the tapes. She's connected)

I did find the stories about how these buildings were erected, what forces were in play, NJ vs. NY, the changing role of the Port Authority, all that, intensely fascinating. As I said.

The quotes that I mentioned here were what set off this post. This does not X out the value of some of the rest of the other sections of the special. I started off my post with a disclaimer: "Parts of it was quite fascinating and informative. I did not know the full history of the Port Authority, and its switch of priorities, when it got itself into the real estate business. All very interesting." because I wanted to make sure I made myself clear on that.

Ann:

I have a similar collection. I didn't know why I was keeping everything at the time, and I certainly don't sit around and browse through them casually, but ... to have them ... to have them as reminders ... as evidence ... feels so important to me.

I am honored to be added to your collection.

Thanks so much for writing

Thank you. this is exactly what I needed. I needed to know that others feel the same anger that I do.

I nearly fell out of my chair when I heard hubris used as an explaination of the WTT attack. I could not believe it.

The history behind the building of it was interesting. Also interesting was how they condemed all those buisnesses to make room for it. (For those interested in eminent domain abuse check out www.castlecoalition.org/ )

Mario Cuomo was sickening. What was all that rambling about religion and humanism? You would have thought they would have included more from Giuliani than what they did. And I don't recall anything by President Bush. (oh yea, PBS)

Thanks Shelia.

Thanks AS, for the spell-check. You've shot my argument to hell. I promise not to type so fast next time.

Neither hubris nor irony is the salient feature of 9/11. The Titanic would be the right analogy if it had been sunk by German U-boats. Why is it so hard to cleave self-loathing from the self-doubting?

It is very clear that they chose the WTC in 1993 and again in 2001 for symbolic reasons. We can bury our red heads in the sand if we like, but the reality is they chose the Pentagon (those poor people are a footnote in New York's self-centered ponderings) and they chose the WTC. They did not choose MTV or Disneyland or the Statue of Liberty.

'I wanted to bludgeon a couple of them, especially Mr. Smirking "We paid for our hubris" architect.'

this is a little OT but

Have you ever read / seen "A Room With A View"? (e. m. forster)

Mr. Architect, the way you have quoted him, reminds me a GREAT deal of Cecil. The 'villan' of the piece, if that word can be applied. "That is the man all over - playing tricks on people, on the most sacred form of life that he can find."

The people that will rave over this special are the very same people who watch a merchant/ivory film and know that Cecil is a villan. A cold-fish who delights in having intellectual prowess over emotion. And who delights in trying to control others' opinions. Yes, he's a clear-cut loser in a book.

But in real life, he's an expert to be quoted and deferred to.

sheesh.

Hey Black, thanks for the reminder.

I know all that. I know why those buildings were chosen. I understand the reasoning of the murderers. And yet, I still condemn them.

As I said in the post, which was a personal post, after all, just a personal response to the special: The buildings were not symbols to me. And what happened that day was inexcusable.

Bird Woman:

What a perfect comparison. it actually made me smile at my desk, on this day when I haven't smiled that much. Perfect!! I hadn't even thought of Cecil.

Thanks for that.

Thus we see illustrated the "hubris" of moral relativism.

There are absolutes. There are absolute wrongs. And murdering innocent people, in their own country, going about their own private concerns, was, is and always be an absolute wrong.

The majority of Americans know this. And they know, deep in their hearts, that the kind of bloody handed attack we have suffered requires the same kind of response, and the same kind of commitment, as shown by our parents and grandparents during World War II.

The real problem is that, facing another nation state is easy, while trying to hunt down and kill the mass murders of a belief system that has no fixed geographical location, that hasn't the simple courage in their beliefs and convictions to stand up and say "Here we are!", is very new, and very difficult. We'll have to learn as we go. We'll make mistakes. Thank God we have an administration that considers it just par for the course to make mistakes, learn from them, come up with a better plan, then try again (the short hand term for that is "commitment").

In the end, though, remember another absolute: Those who haven't the simple courage, the moral rectitude to put on a uniform, stand out well away from the uninvolved, the innocent bystanders, and defend their belief systems in an honorable way are nothing better than evil, immoral cowards.

Have at 'em Sheila. Your emotions speak to the truth. Don't let the relativists get you down.

Right on the money, Sheila. Bravo!

Remember 9/11- all of it. Never forget!

Sheila,

A very compelling post. Thank you.

I was a fan of the original "New York: A Documentary Film" and was very interested to see how they would treat the WTC and 9.11.

What really stuck in my throat was the filmmakers' often and oft-handed invocation of "globalization" (not "hubris") as a cause of 9.11.

Certainly, the World Trade Center was a symbol of the global marketplace, and thus a symbol of American power and the central place of the United States in the world economy.

But, globalization as an explantion for 9.11 falls a little flat. Globalization is, just that, global. Everyone all over the world was and is affected by it. But, the men who committed the crimes on 9.11 were not global in their backgrounds.

If 9.11 was only a product of globalization then why were not Nepalese herdsmen, Michigan autoworkers, German pensioners, Argentinian bankers, and Pennsylvania steelworkers - all adversely affected by globalization - among the 9.11 hijackers?

The answer is that globalization is not the answer to why 9.11 happened.

It was certainly the "how" - the technology of globalization allowed 9.11 to happen - but it is, at best, only part of the "why". Globalization may have been one of the sources of the discontent motivating the hijackers. But without the caustic hatred-fueled political/religious ideology of the hijackers, their leaders, and their financiers, 9.11 would never have happened. Globalization has helped many people and hurt some, but only one group of people - from a particular region of the world and sharing a particular outlook - chose to respond to globalization through suicide and mass murder.

That was what was so disconcerting about Mario Cuomo's closing comments. Gee, if we all were more tolerant, then things like this wouldn't happen, seemed to be the tone of his comments. C'mon!

New York was attacked because it is perhaps the most tolerant and open-minded place on Earth. (That's the ultimate point of "New York: A Documentary Film" - New York was born diverse and has always been so.) Frankly, we can be more tolerant and more non-judgemental all we want. It's not going to stop the kind of people that attacked the United States on September 11, 2001.

Tolerance of others; respect for different ethnicities, nationalities; respect and equality of both sexes and of sexual minorities; tolerance of all religious faiths; a willingness to entertain new thoughts and ideas; freedom of expression and imagination - this is why New York and the United States were attacked two years ago.

I really don't understand those who think they understand the motivations of the terrorists - that the terrorists have legitimate grievances. If only we in the United States were more open-minded and understanding of other, this wouldn't have happened to us.

It's so frustrating. We were not attacked because we were intolerant and closed-minded, we were attacked because were are tolerant and open-minded.

That open-mindedness - free minds, free spirits, free markets, free elections - is why the United States, and the other nations that follow down that path are so vital and alive. The close-minded nations that reject that path are dead and dying. That is why we were attacked. It's so sad that so many have quickly forgotten all that.

Sheila, thanks for starting such an interesting conversation.

Sheila:
After watching this segment, of the now-extended "New York" documentary, I had the very disturbing feeling of the presence of an underlying "message." Unlike the earlier segments that told the story of New York from the perspective developed after a long passage of time, this was framed as a parent's lecture to their child, "see, I told you so, but you didn't learn."

Hubris and globalization--that started in New Amsterdam with Dutch settlers and the trans-Atlantic trade they developed.

Other than Kenneth Jackson and Michael Wallace, two historians used throughout the New York documentary, many of those interviewed had axes to grind. Ada Louise Huxtable was a famous critic of the project from the outset--as was the NYTimes. Langewiesche accused firemen of stealing blue jeans during 9/11, so he's got an agenda--at least to polish his credibility. Lipton and Glanz, from the Times, provide what context--the twin towers were built in their youth. And what was Koch and Cuomo doing in this segment, they were in office in the '80s, a period of no significance what so ever to the story of the WTC.

The left-wing, post-modern, politically correct "seeds of destruction" theme was present throughout.

Your observations are on target for many Americans, even those comments offering some critique, are mostly splitting hairs of nuance.

Excellent, EXCELLLENT Post!

Didn't see the documentary. I am stationed oversees. But as an example of the reality disconnect of some people, I offer my uncle Ashok.

He works across from the WTC. That morning he had a front row seat to all the events. He saw the bodies impact not more than 50 ft from him. He saw the second impact while looking straight up. He ran that day from the caollapse, and the smoke. So you can imagine my utter, utter shock, my disgust and my total collapse of any respect for the man; when the last time I was home on leave he looked me straight in the face and said to me "Bush was responsible for the attack" and later on "It was all because of the Jews". I wanted to scream at him, punch him, and cry at the same time.
This man was bigger than life for me when I was growing up. One of the smartest, best educated men I personally know. An MBA from Columbia for crist sakes!!!!! A high-level executive at his company.
I knew he was a liberal, I respected his thoughts and views. But this, this was beyond anything I could ever wrap my mind around. The total, TOTAL rejection of reality in favor of some political veiw.
I can not express to you the way that conversation has changed the way I look at people who try to play down 9/11, or who try to politicize it in any way.

The word "hubris" is used too much. Several months ago, some thoughtless newswoman at the CBC used it to refer to the shuttle Columbia accident and then, and now, there are too many people who like to score political points on 9/11.

PBS wasn't always like that. When 9/11 happened, I was a skyscraper buff. Before 9/11, PBS once did a 5-part special on the building of a small skyscraper in midtown Manhattan ("Skyscraper"), including some very frank discussion about the finances and feasibility of these types of buildings. The last part of the series covered the construction of the WTC and the future of tall buildings.

There was no "irony" in this series. There wasn't anyone on camera proclaiming the WTC to be a "hubristic monument". The people portrayed in that series obviously loved what they were doing even as they acknowledged the often-difficult balancing of different interests that a large (enormous, in the case of the WTC) construction project entails.

The show and accompanying book was fascinating and informative and I never knew I was "supposed" to mourn for the oppressed peoples, hurt by that little skyscraper in Midtown and the two big ones at the WTC.

Even after 9/11, "Nova" did an informative and very sensitive episode on the WTC ("Why The Towers Fell"). I believe Leslie Robertson was interviewed in that show as well; he was obviously still very distraught. It was the only 9/11 documentary I could ever stand to watch.

I haven't watched the Ric Burns piece and I don't want to see it. I don't want condescending people explaining that the WTC was hubris and we're all fallen, just as I don't want to see falling bodies, the WTC imploding, Challenger or Columbia.

Never forget, never again,

Dave

World Class Post. Thank you.

Shiela,

I must have had my PBS filter on, because I came away from the special moved to tears but reinvigorated for the long haul ahead and madder than ever. I came into it about 1/3 of the way, and so did not have the slow buildup of rage that you did by hearing it over and over, but I still was impressed by the things they DID say, that many writers and TV specials leave out of it. I WAS put off at the paper comment, and because I hadn't picked up on the hammering on globalization, I couldn't put my finger on why. Thanks for articulating (yes! articulating!) why for me. I shrugged off the references that I did pick up on, and my take on it was "it's not as PC as most PBS offerings", even at the end with the pointless Cuomo blatherings.

Cuomo succeeded in making himself look pompous and self referential (again) so maybe that isn't all bad. I was struck by the abscence of an interview of anyone of substance (Guiliani, Bush), in favor of a former governor who was irrelevant to the day, but maybe his betters were approached and wisely turned it down when they found out it would be on PBS.

I heard things about the buildings and the construction process I had never heard before, which I found fascinating, as is anything to do with the WTC. An image of those buildings is arresting in its beauty and its poignancy. I am glad to read here than I am not the only one whose eyes can't help but seek out the WTC in old movies and TV shows and photos, and skylines of other cities even. I was once again impressed by Rudy's grace and ability to articulate the moment. The engineer, Mr. Robertson, was especially moving to me also, I wanted to touch him and say "It's OK, you did well to think as far out there as you did, because look how many people survived the impact." He looked so lost. I hope that he can think back to those first awful days, that in buildings that regularly had 100,000 people in them we thought the losses would be in the tens of thousands. It was so awful, but it could have been so much worse.

Overall I thought it was an effective piece, which gave an inkling of what the place meant to New Yorkers and refreshed in our minds what we lost.

By the end I was so proud of New Yorkers as a microcosm of the US. The clip of the construction worker determinedly making his way down there that first night with his hardhat and tools, along with thousands of others, without being called up or otherwise "officially" notified, because he KNEW his expertise would be needed - that is so essentially American.

It is interesting that the meanings of words almost always trend toward the negative. Hubris? Cowboy? Brash? Those didn't start out as negative words. The effete, apologist appeasers among us are always bowing and scraping, embarrassed by our forthright belief that this is the best place in the world to live (what will France think if they overhear us saying that??), and unfortunately they too often are writing or anchoring our news. But this day was too big for spin, and all of America saw it and absorbed it together. And now it clearly divides those who cringe at hubris and those who celebrate it.

I disagree completely about showing the falling bodies, and I know that it has been much debated. But I believe that those TV stations who prettied up their TV coverage that day made it easier to see the disaster as buildings falling than people dying. Without those poor people tumbling through the sky, you don't get a sense of how awful it was for all those helpless humans trapped above the impact zones.

I work in heating/air/controls design in commercial construction, and I love big buildings and work with them every day. People in a building and the daily fluctuations of coming and going make a huge difference in the environment of it, so I am immersed in the effect of people in a buidling. People in construction are maybe more aware than most that a building is full of people, that it isn't just the stone and steel. Even so I still needed to be confronted with the smaller scale of a single human being hurtling down to the street, and then an ever increasing rain of them, rather than just the building itself folding gently on itself. Watching those bodies for those endless seconds you can hardly help but put yourself in their place and pray for and wonder about their last seconds, and you can hardly think of it as buildings, but people.

And I think the world needs more of that.

And what's this crap about inarticulate? My God, woman, that was wonderful.

Beautifully said, Sheila. I did not see the special to which you allude, but your emotions about the day and its events match mine. I too am sick of the fatuous "intellectualization" of 9/11. It was not a statement for or against anything. It was what it was, and what it was was mass slaughter. And let's call it what it was, shall we: evil. It's not terribly hip to acknowledge things like evil, but like it or not, it exists, and one might as well call it by its name.

And I hear this argument a lot where I work (at a school):

>>As Americans, we have acted out of rage, recklessly, against an undeserved attack, turning away the world's support and poorly serving our best interests.

All I have to say to this is, if the price of the world's support, such as it ever was, is the blood of more than 3,000 men and women, I say that price is too high.

Thank you, Sheila, for voicing feelings that I have found very hard to articulate.

Laurie K.

They built up this portrayal of hubris, and dehumanization slowly; first by framing it
as a 50 year conspiracy, introducing the
Rockefellers, and their 'destroying of the
port jobs,'the corporate boondoggle that
caused them to bleed money, the reason why
so many offices including the PA's was there;
and a reference to a junior secretary. Lee
Janney who suggested the extra floors, making
the plight of those who would be trapped on the
upper floors, the result of capricous insensitivity. All and all, a work, that would
not been out of place on Al Jazeera

Excellent post, Sheila.

Who here claimed the US had "squandered the world's sympathy"?

Whoever you are, you're confusing "sympathy" with "support". The world "sympathised" with the besieged citizens of Sarajevo, but did NOTHING to lift the siege (that is, until the US mobilized NATO to intervene). Just as the world "sympathised" with Biafran Ibo and Rwandan Tutsis, but did NOTHING to stop the genocides.

Thanks, France, but no thanks.

And, of course, there can't be "sympathy" with "victims", and we all know the "root causes" crowd wallows in and celebrates victimhood.

It's when the "victims" decide to fight back that the "root causes" crowd turns all nasty and condescending. After all, the shtetl Zhid shuffling meekly into the cattle car is so much more appealing a poster child than the Sabra sergeant hunting Hamas animals in Jenin.

Just read aloud on KVI radio (570AM, Seattle, WA), by host Kirby Wilbur, Friday, September 12, 2003, 0555PDT:

“Seeing those images again made me outraged at those of us who chide others to get over it. I am stunned that anyone could ever look at the carnage on that footage (and I saw the whole damn thing with my actual eyes) - and somehow ... not be changed. Get OVER IT? What? Are you out of your goddamned freaking mind? What is the MATTER with you?” – Sheila O’Malley

Too right.

Thank you, Sheila. I had friends of mine who, right after 9/11, were asking what had we done to make them so angry with us, y'know, Disney, Hollywood, McDonald's. It's insane! I copied your post from Taranto and sent it to many of them. Thank you for writing this.

I've just returned from several days away from my computer am chatching up with opinionjournal.com and linked to your post. Thank you from all of us other "sputteringly inarticulate freaks" out here for expressing what we all feel so well.

Your piece came to me umpteenth hand but all I can say is, RIGHT ON! After Pentagon, WTC, USS Cole, Khobar, and embassy bombings we are finally kicking ass and taking names. If we stop before the job is done, we're nothing.

AS. The "WTC towers were built to be an symbol of global influence." Excuse me, but what an idiotic sentiment. Tell you what, draw up a bunch of plans for a building that will be "a symbol of global influence" and go around and try and get somebody to back you. See what happens in the real world. I'm sure your comment would resonate in college sociology class, but its crap in the real world and the WTC towers were real world and those poor people weren't symbolic of anything but innocence and a damn good work ethic.

And oh, as regards PBS' hubris. We got your hubris. Saddam's boys got some of our hubris. We still got some more waiting for Pa and OSB.

I enjoyed Michael's post, though unlike him I support the war in Iraq. His reflections on NYC were on target.

As a New Yorker, I've never been prouder of my city than I was in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Few histrionics, almost no immigrant-bashing, a collective determination that really was quite extraordinary.

And if you lived through it close up, Giuliani's leadership was impeccable and very moving. He acutely felt the gravity and horror of the event, but never resorted to cheap theatrics or easy rhetoric about it.

To me, it says something important that NYC is a place where Jews and Muslims, Turks and Kurds, Pakistanis and Indians, far from wanting to murder each other, often frequent the same shops and restaurants, the same neighborhoods, with only a minimum of friction. All one has to do is listen to the list of those killed to put the lie to the canard that the U.S. is an exclusionary and intolerant place--every ethnicity, every religion, people from all over the world perished there.

12 September 2003

Furious and Laurie:

Clearly we have different estimates of the world's realtive worth when it comes to contributing to the mission. I concede that the U.N. and the Europeans have a lackluster track record. I'm not confident in ours either, and so when I look out skeptically over the next ten or twenty years I simply wonder how working with the Europeans could make it any worse.

September 11th was more than just an attack on New York, it was the gauntlet thrown down on an unsettling question over the fate of America: are we prepared to go all the way in securing our way of life, or will we continue to pretend to be surprised when we leave ourselves vulnerable to events like this?

Presumably our leaders in Congress and the White House believe that right now we Americans would rather risk another 9/11 than raise a much larger army and the taxes to equip it so we can finish what we've started. If Mr. Rumsfeld is overruled and we go asking the countries we spurned to do their part, we'll still be largely responsible for making sure it works, as in Bosnia. If they turn us down, or we choose to continue to do it on our own, our kids are going to take on the Iranians, the North Koreans, perhaps even the Chinese. How are we going to pay for it? With more tax cuts? Will Mr. Bush send his daughters into harm's way? How many of Congress's children will serve?

Of course 9/11 was evil. But why then does Mr. Bush call for such a modest, ambiguous "sacrifice" to address it? Why does our Congress hide under their desks rather than assert their proper authority to declare a war? With different leaders, maybe we would be more confident of success and be willing to risk our treasury and young people to get the job done.

I believe we don't because we don't trust our leaders, and we know they don't know what they are doing. They are either liars or incompetents or both. We still don't have a good explanation of why New York was so defenseless that day (or even the Pentagon itself). Has anyone lost their job over it?

My anger at the senselessness of the death and destruction of the WTC finds no solace in providing comfort to the terrorists as some would make of my skepticism. Rather, I'm angry because we still haven't woken up. September 11th was a reminder of our impractical view of ourselves and our place in the world. The kind of view that led us to Kuwait and Iraq 13 years ago, only to hesitate and turn back. The terrorists believe we want to enjoy our prosperity without accepting the responsibility that goes with it. The terrorists claim they are emboldened from our presence in Saudi Arabia--why are we not enraged that it was Saudis on the planes, and Saudi money that paid their way? Our mission is clear--we need to let the terrorists and anyone who supports them know that they'd better get used to Americans in their midst. They're wasting their time coming after us here because we're not leaving the Middle East.

The mission in Iraq is a sham--our commitment of forces there now is smaller than it was in Desert Shield. It will do nothing to protect us from another attack. We will have endured the tinkerings by Mr. Ashcroft with our Constitution for nothing. If we are serious about protecting our way of life, why do we need a UN or NATO? Why do we need Israel as our proxy in the Middle East?

Why is there no debate over the obvious question: shouldn't we just go ahead and permanently take over the Middle East, and settle it as we did the American West? It's time to seriously consider American protectorates from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean. The mission would be clear, our enemies would be forced to take the field, the oil would definitely be ours, and those who resisted would go the way of the Indians. If we don't have the stomach for this, then we have no business being there in the first place.

In twenty years, the outcome of all of this will be plain. Perhaps Mr. Burns will have another opportunity to add a few chapters to his history of New York. I will be an old man, and my daughter will live with the consequences of my country's choices now. Will we give her generation good schools, a clear mission, or merely prepare them for the worst, and only hold out the hope that they might find the honorable calling of the firefighter, putting out the fires their parents let get out of control? Perhaps we will have no money even for that, and the only opportunity left will be in our tattered military.

I would rather have my daughter run up the stairs of the next set of towers to help than serve this fool's errand in Iraq, the G.I. Bill notwithstanding.

If we continue to take half-measures with regard to our vision of our security and our prosperity, my daughter and her generation will rightly condemn all of us as fools for leaving them nothing but more fires to put out.

Michael Lester
Baltimore

Black,

You "We-did-this-to-ourselves" crowd are sticking your heads in the sand with regard to what hit us, why they hit us, and where they hit us. They hit the towers because the kill-potential was greater than any other 16 acres in N America at 9AM. They hit the Pentagon, and would probably have hit the White House with Flt. 93 to show what vulnerable, paper tigers we are after all. (Rise up, Muslims of faith!) Read the Al Qaeda manual. Read Atta's rantings. Listen to the words of UBL himself. Learn Zawahiri's biography. They are not sending us a message concerning the ubiquitousness of McDonald's cheeseburgers. They are sending us a message that their religion and culture is superior to all others, (no hubris here) that they're lemmings in a vainglorious death-cult whose suicides urge more lemmings to yet greater acts of suicide and murder, that they hate us blindly, that they're inhuman, and finally - that THEY DON'T CARE WHAT WE THINK OR DO, and that they will immolate themselves along with 3,000 strangers on their way to work - to hammer the point home. (Let's recall that the potential destruction of American life on 9/11 was 50,000 +)

The plan was bold beyond imagination (surprise attacks generally are) - to deal death blows to the nation's economy and military. Only they miscalculated, because they're not very familiar with either, and they're not too insightful in any case. If they'd chosen an NFL game though (and they may yet), you guys would still be chanting your hubris mantra. The WTC was what - the 3rd or 4th tallest structure in 2001? Japan buys almost as much oil from the same places, sells them more cars than anyone else. And provides the same dEspicable regimes with diplomatic and financial support (as does the EU, and worse). The destruction of the WTC represents hubris only to YOU PEOPLE: the envious without, and the masochists within.
Nevertheless, if we proceed along your faulty line of reasoning, what precautions would you reccomend therefore? Height limits for the NYC skyline? No unclad women on MTV? Flag-flying zones, days and times? Ban Viagra sales to Yemen?
"Discussion"? "Engagement"? "Dialogue"?

PRAYTELL.

A crescent moon super-imposed onto our flag might defang some that "anger" at our "hubris". What do you think?

Beautifully written, as always. "Splutteringly inarticulate"? What are you talking about? You're stunning.

Rock on.

This just in . . . (very topical)

Japan's Mori Co., Which is building the "WORLD FINANCIAL CENTER" , (also known as the GLOBAL FINANCIAL CENTER) in SHANGHAI, CHINA is set to surpass the PETRONAS TOWERS (in KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA) as the world's tallest building at 1,614 ft when it is completed. It's just down the road from the Jin Mao building, currently the World no. 4.

Look closely (in the near future), ye hubris-fetishists, for threats against the WORLD FINANCIAL CENTER, as China:

1) Supports political and economic liberty precisely nowhere.

2) ditto for inviolable individual rights.

They won't materialize, as China:

1) Isn't so tactful with dissent.
2) Oppresses their muslims in the West, bars others.
3) Isn't exactly an "immigrant nation".

Call 9/11 the price of winning the beauty contest.
Call it the price of idealism.
Call it madness (my preference).
But don't call it hubris.

Sheila, don't worry so much about being "articulate". Trust us.
This is what your clarity is providing some needed contrast with:

Breathe in firemen and rubble.
Breathe out whole buildings and flocks of red-wing blackbirds.

Breathe in terrorists
Breathe out sleeping children and fresh mown fields...

Think of chaos as dancing raspberries.
Imagine grief
as the outbreak of beauty or gesture of fish.

Make soup.

From that "other" kind of remembrance of September 11th.

http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/02.09/0925judyhill_wagepeace.htm
----------------
Alfred E. Neuman (What, Me Worry?) eats Raspberry soup and gestures at a fish for peace.
Lovely remembrance, huh?

Lord have mercy,
Christ have mercy
Lord have mercy

Your eyes are clear, you speak what you see quite articulately.
Thanks for sharing it.

For those interested:
The Department of Labor produced- and is giving away a- DVD about the New York construction workers who helped in the rescue, recovery, and clean-up efforts at Ground Zero.
http://www.dol.gov/index.htm

order it free here http://www.dol.gov/opa/dvd/combined_form2.htm

sheila, powerful essay, well written and to the point. it showed strength, logic and righteous anger. blind the well paid scoundrels and liers with the light of truth. shine on, sister, shine on. you inspire me and i thank you. p.s. you should do this for a living, you're very good.

Who is surprised regarding the PBS "liberal-left" bias? Apparently, you were born yesterday. It is a waste of time to discuss "PBS" in any other context. Pro-left. Anti-right. Never-centered.

To anthropomorphize the towers is often romantic - but to say that their desctruction is anything less than a personal attack on the entire USA is denial.

These people hate us. There are people _in_ this Country that hate a large part of our population, our leadership, our Bill of Rights, and our respect for Freedom. They are particularly interested in targeting our freedom of Religion (or the choice to be without one.)

Sheila, your emotions are "right on target." Whether we count the references to "hubris" correctly or not doesn't weaken the argument - PBS severely biased, often against the very things we hold dear to our existence in this country. They are not alone. And it is a war we are fighting. It will be a very personal battle. And it will involve each of us. Eventually, we will all have to face the fact that there are choices to be made and "actions" to be taken.

It will be difficult.

Cheers to all.

Jim

Beautifully written entreaty, Sheila. Wow. Your writing always boggles my mind with its clarity and fluidity.

I did not see the PBS special. But I can gather the gist of it, from your writing and the subsequent commentary.

It is interesting because though I feel the same as you do about the emotional impact of the day two years ago when I felt the horror of what war is personally--though just a taste--it changed me forever ( I cry every time I see anything about it) I also feel that there is so much more going on behind the events of that day then we now know--or may ever know. And I do feel that it is imperative that we acknowledge--that we simply don't know ALL the facts.

So absolutely--let that day never become a sterile "symbol." of anything. We must never forget that real lives--truly innocent ones, all of them valuable and precious, were ended without reason, and in such a cruel way. But at the same time when we start using words like "thugs" in reference to those who carried out the acts--we are showing our lack of sophistication and our lack of interest in finding out what really caused those lives to be taken.

I loved your words, your exquisite writing—up to that point—and then you made may stomach hurt a bit.

Sheila, with all due respect—you don’t know with absolute certainty who was behind the attack on our country. You can’t. No average person can. We simply don’t have all the facts. And it may be years, decades, and centuries even before we know all the details about who did this. Maybe what we are being told--by a painfully secretive administration, is the truth—but the truth is also---we, you and I, don’t know if it is in fact the truth, or it isn’t.

And there is plenty of reason for us to ask a lot of questions about what we are being told. I’m not suggesting that we stand around doing nothing because of this—but I think our lack of full understanding of these issues should make us a bit more cautious. Words like “thug” however good they may feel to use—can, I feel actually encourage ignorance and blind hate. That tiny four letter word casts a dark vague shadow—on some vaguely understood shadowy characters—who are what? Muslim? Fanatics? Irrational individuals with no real goal other than savagery?

I don’t think that what has happened in the last two years is simply the pay back for American “hubris.” But equally over simplified is the portrayal in the American media of those accused of being behind all this as a race of people who have nothing better to do than kill--to keep people from being "free".

We don't know for a FACT who the actual hijackers of those planes were. In stating that I am actually not going down the road of conspiracy theorists—even though at first it may seem that I am. I have a voracious appetitive for all things having to do with forensic science. Though this situation was dramatically more complicated then the usual crime against an individual person—there are similarities in how one would go about finding out who was responsible, at every stage of the planning and execution of the hijacking.

The fact of the matter is that there is absolutely no scientific proof as to the identities of the individuals on that plane. (We have had many incidences since of false ID’s in these matters.) No DNA identification was possible. ALL witnesses to the actual hijacking are dead. And so we are shown ATM footage that could frankly be from anywhere, taken at any time of two men said to be involved, and we are being told that there is sensitive, now de-classified information verifying all the identities of these individuals. This “de-classified” information has been given to us by an extremely questionable administration. In addiont to this, those who have put forward the widely accepted version of the events of 9/11 have already proven themselves to be capable of less than the whole truth (and nothing but).

And, hey, OK... maybe what we are being told is the truth. Maybe, even an administration with close, almost incestuous ties to oil companies and weapons manufacturers is capable of telling the truth about these catastrophic events—events that are playing out, as the dust clears after 9/11—to give these same companies profits in the billions of dollars (have you checked out Carlyle Group recently?).

But what if we aren’t being told the truth? And even if most of what we are being told is true, what if there is a whole lot of other, relevant stuff, we aren’t being told? Stuff that we of a free society--we need to know? Stuff that could make another 9/11, or something like it not only possible but inevitable—because we don’t know.

For me one of the greatest travesties of recent events is the sense of impotence that many feel about what is happening right now. But I do believe that collectively we are very powerful—and that we do need to KNOW what is really going on. So that we can make more informed decisions.

—and also--what if it isn’t as simple as that there are these crazed religious fanatics—mere"thugs",out there just waiting to kill us—what if it’s a bit more complicated than that?

I would agree with you though—that all that is happening appears to be a lot more complicated than: Americans are getting pay back for their hubris. Most Americans, I believe, just want to have good lives, take care of their families, and have a reasonable attaché of personal possessions. I don’t have a lot of personal experience to base this next statement on—but I would imagine that this is true of most Afghanis, Iraqis, the citizens of Azberjian, of China,of Liberia, of South and North Korea—and on, and on…

We must never forget the tragedy of what happened to NY on that disarmingly warm, clear September day---but as world citizens shouldn’t we also always take note of---always remember--what has happened in all the countries that our own bombs have devastated? September 11th in essence, in experience, is happening somewhere in the world right now, at every moment, as I write this. Shouldn’t all human life be viewed as precious, as sacred?

I don’t have even a smidgeon of the answers I require to make a truly informed opinion on all the carnage that is has occurred in the last two years—and I do read a lot of news. But I also feel pretty certain that, other than those who are truly "in the know"—whoever THEY may be—just about everyone else on the planet is in as deep a fog, or deeper than the one I find myself in.

That doesn’t mean that we should do nothing—but instead of cavalierly using words like THUGS in reference to anyone involved with this. Words that I feel actually encourage ignorance rather than insight and investigation into all that is happening to and around us—maybe we as educated, well fed, “free” people should be a bit more careful with our language.

We, at this time, have the luxury of choosing our words carefully—bombs are not falling with regularity on us here in our own country, as they are on the citizens of at least two of the countries our military has entered into in the name of 9/11.

Thee best bloggg