I Remember (12:01am on September 11)

[WilliamPitt]

I remember being at school. It was the first day of classes, and I was getting used to my position as Dean. It was an A day, so I had the first two periods off before I had to go teach my journalism class. I was in my office, perusing DU, and happened across Latest Breaking News:

"Plane Crashes into World Trade Center Building ON CNN NOW"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=3984&forum=DCForumID5&archive=yes

Nothing, but nothing, has been the same since.

I went up and told the Headmaster. I got the TVs going in the library (and a wretched side note: We pulled the TVs out for Powell's 2/5 UN speech, and the students freaked, because TVs in school = terrible attack). I watched and watched and watched. I taught my class unable to speak. I ran into a student in the hall and told her what happened. She turned pale and said, "My father works there." Five hours later she found out he was OK.

I remember the sound of fighter jets racetracking the sky above my school. I wonder, now, where they were for the two hours those for commercial planes were in the air.

I remember feeling like, whatever happens, we can take this Bush fucker down. The headlines for September 10 were uniformly anti-Bush en masse, and Newsweek had just kicked the 200 Selection in the groin on the front cover.

I remember thinking that was all gone, all that truth was over, and that Bush had just legitimized his residency in blood.

I remember being angry, wanting to kill someone.

I remember America. What it was before this happened. I will tell you flat out: September 11 was terrible, but the way this administration has reacted is far, far worse. An attack is an attack, horrible and wretched as it may be. The response - destruction of the constitution, making fear the coin of the realm, making wars based on lies, the beat-down that our minority/Muslim citizens have taken, the looting of the Treasury, the debasement of the nation before the world - is worse. I remember America.

I remember one last thing.

These Bush boys did this to us. Depending upon what you believe, they either:

1. Were directly involved;
2. Knew it was coming and let it happen;
3. Made dozens of policy decisions that opened it up to happen, and failed to stop it because of those decisions.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what you believe. The fact that there would be two towers in Washington, thousands still alive in New York and Washington, tens of thousands still alive in Iraq and Afghanistan, hundreds of US troops still alive, thousands more still un wounded, if there had never been a George W. Bush administration, is as clear as day.

Remember this, finally, as we enjoy our kick-each-others-asses on this board. Remember that none of our candidates did this. None of them had the hand in 9/11 that this administration did. That makes them Gods by comparison to George W. Bush.

I remember.

[TheYellowDog]

1. Will, as sad as 9/11 was,

Bush was not involved in the 9/11 attacks. Maybe it was his incompetence that let 9/11 happen, but he was not involved in the planning. There is absolutely no proof that he was involved in that way.

[WilliamPitt]

2. So that's #3

Look up "John O'Neill FBI" on Google.

[billbuckhead]

14. The Bush family and Saudi Arabia go back 50yrs

15 of 19 of the highjackers were from Saudi Arabia. The Bin Laden family and Bush family had investments together. Saudi US ambassador Prince Bandar is known as Bandar Bush.

[IkeWarnedUs]

31. Please read this TheYellowDog

It was in the Guardian a few days ago. The author was a Brittish MP until last June.

Read Mr. Meacher's arguments and then let us know if you still think the Bush administration did not (at least) allow 9/11 to happen.

This war on terrorism is bogus
The 9/11 attacks gave the US an ideal pretext to use force to secure its global domination

by Michael Meecher, British Parliament Environment Minister
September 6, 2003

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/comment/0,12956,1036687,00.html

[newsguyatl]

3. oh man

kphedra was RIGHT ON TARGET with her comment back then, even right there during all the commotion:


"I can't beleive that footage
Why did this have to happen under shurb? This is going to lead to a crackdown"


if we ONLY knew then just how much kphedra's comments would come true...


thanks for posting this will...

[arcane1]

4. indeed... and bravo on the last paragraph...

going through that old thread was strange... but there are things in there that jumped out

posted by enki23:
i seem to remember rummy making hints of something big coming
i wonder how much of this the assholes knew in advance, and how much of a surprise it actually is.

:wtf:

anyone know what these Rummy hints were??

Enki are ya out there?

[newsguyatl]

5. he'd made a comment

earlier that day about a major event happening and how we must be prepared...

i'll see if i can find a link

[Khephra]

6. Except for misspelling "Shrub", I was hip to what would happen

khephra (35840 posts)
Sep-11-01, 09:15 AM (ET)
11. holy shit
I can't beleive that footage
Why did this have to happen under shurb? This is going to lead to a crackdown

[newsguyatl]

8. AND

you misspelled believe.. hehe

but hey, you were RIGHT ON anyway

[ramblin_dave]

9. AND

two towers in Washington?

You meant New York.

[Khephra]

12. Sheesh...pick on a guy

I was one of the mods for Breaking News that day. I was more than a little distracted. Freeper attacks started up soon after the second plane hit and people were freaking out. Spelling and geography were the last things on my mind.

I was up for the next three days straight fighting off the freepers from without and the DUers who went over to the dark side too.

[newsguyatl]

13. khephra, you're a guy?

i always pictured you as a female! funny,,,

no, i wasn't picking on you, i think you were RIGHT ON target that day.. who coulda known how true your comments would have become... i was just giving you a hard time about the "beleive" just to be funny,... not sure what the other poster is talking about...

[Khephra]

19. Many people think that...it's so common that it's no biggie

The sad thing is it happens in every electronic medium. People hear my voice on the phone and they think I'm a woman.

Good thing I'm not a macho guy.

;-)

[ramblin_dave]

23. I was talking about "two towers in Washington" in Will's post

I thought this side thread was about typos in his post not khephra's. Obviously Will meant two towers in New York.

[WilliamPitt]

26. He did

:(

[ewagner]

25. Fighting off freepers?

I can't imagine how they would have been thinking about anything but what was still unfolding in NY that day.

I'm a late comer to DU (April or May of this year) so I hope you don't mind me reading and absorbing the thoughts of people who were here on 9/11.

[Nomad559]

7. Video of First Plane

Hitting the WTC ;(

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/nomad559/tower.mpeg

[blondeatlast]

10. I knew something was in the air when the Northern Alliance leader

was assassinated (my husband is from India). I knew this was the beginning of something, though I had no idea what it was.

I don't know which of the three is the worst, but I believe #3 is the truth.

My husband called me in to watch CNN replay the first plane, so I was there as the second one crashed, live. My then precious 4 year old asked me "Mommy, why are you crying and praying?" I couldn't really tell him, I just knew that things were becoming very dark.

[markses]

18. Wrong: No way you saw the first plane "replay" before the second plane

live. They didn't show the video of the first plane hitting until that afternoon.

This is a strange phenomenon, however. You are not alone. Many people report REMEMBERING seeing a video of the first plane hit before they saw the second plane hit live. Impossible. A strange thing.

The only people who saw the first plane hit before the second were people who were there (like me, BTW).

[blondeatlast]

24. You are correct.

In retrospect, I saw the report of the first plane, they then switched to a live feed as the second plane hit.

I stand corrected.

[Old and In the Way]

36. George Bush for 1

"I saw the 1st plane hit the WTC.....I thought man, what a bad pilot"

On the otherhand, maybe he did see the crash....

[prolesunited]

11. God that was hard to read that thread

In retrospect, some of the insights there were so spot on it's chilling. Thanks for the reminder who the enemy is.

[angka]

15. chilling.

reading through this archived thread freaks me out.

on the morning of 9/11/01, i was late getting out the door to school and hadn't turned on the TV. before i got to the car, a neighbor of mine walked up and asked me what i thought about the 'world trade center.' he started to tell me the story and i was sure he was bullshitting me. then another neighbor walked up and told the same story, which sent me running back into the house.

i did eventually make it to school for my last class, only because i was scheduled to participate in a debate on the morality of the hiroshima bombing—an interesting coincidence.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

16. Someday I'd like to see you write a compelling piece about the people

in the second tower that were told to return to their offices and name names of all the people dead in the second tower.

I do believe that NO MATTER what was known about the attacks themselves, people were told to return to their offices in the second tower while the White House fully knew this was a terrorist attack and did NOT inform the Port Authority of such...one plane hit the first tower...people who MIGHT have lived were told it was OK to return to the second tower...and all the while somebody KNEW IT WAS an attack and knew another plane was headed to New York.

In EVERY account I have read of ALL security lapses and EVERY hearing...why has no one stated the OBVIOUS?

[blondeatlast]

20. Sending people back into the second tower was shameful.

No matter what the reasons for the violence were, that was clearly putting them in harm's way.

The HR person in my husband's office was on the phone to HQ when the first plane hit.

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/memorial/people/3451.html

No one at Alliance survived. I believe there were 75 people in the office that day.

Edit: More on Larry (a great guy, met him once briefly).
http://www.legacy.com/LegacyTribute/Sept11.asp?Page=TributeStory&PersonId=147304

[sistersofmercy]

17. Well put!! My mother called me, I typically don't watch tv in the

morning, said an explosion or something happened to one of the trade buildings and a plane flew into the other. It was some sort of accident she said, I asked her to repeat what she had just said. Then I responded, "Mom, that's no accident!" It was I think 8:10 my time. I will never forget or forgive but will always remember.

[symbolman]

21. This is how I remember

I don't have the way with words that Will does (or the time actually) so I do my best with what I'm best at and that would be this:

"Bush Knew - An American Requiem" http://www.takebackthemedia.com/true911.html

May God have mercy on all their souls.

[sistersofmercy]

27. Very powerful. Well, we know why Cheney won't be making an

appearance at WTC site tomorrow. Security my foot! Security from the masses who will protest him being there including families of the victims.

[maggrwaggr]

22. My 1st thought was: we're going to turn into Rome

I realized we were going to invade, well, whoever the hell we felt like after this. I realized we were going to become extremely imperialistic. And that nobody was going to be able to stop us. That was my first thought.

We're Rome now.

[sistersofmercy]

30. I could only think, how could nobody think this wouldn't happen?

AF base near mecca, Oklahoma, trade center 93, lebanon, I mean the list goes on and on. We've been targets yet blissfully unware. Then there was, oh my, how did this happen? How was this allowed to happen?

[sham]

28. God, reading that old thread is hell.

I wish this post by kskiska had turned out to be true...

"If it turns out Shrub knew anything or this is mismanaged, it could be curtains for Bush II. The investigations will be endless."

I wish we had had endless investigations. I wish this had been investigated until my fucking head exploded. The victims deserved it. We all deserved it. Instead, we got "investigations" that were cursory at best. Such a fucking disgrace....

[Terwilliger]

29. I have a short record if you like

This was my first news from a bunch of folks I know in an IRC channel


<snip>

**<08:02> <Terwilliger> just woke up...wtf is going on
<08:03> <MB420> so far England, Germany, Canada, and few other countries are sharing their greif with us
<08:03> <Jona82> World War 3, Terwilliger
<08:03> <Pinko_Commie> whats going on? someones been dropping planes onto the US
<08:03> <MB420> I believe it is time for the US to once and for all deal with terrorist
<08:03> <Jona82> what i can't beleive
<08:03> <Terwilliger> holy fuck
<08:03> <MB420> with Heavy heavy artillary
<08:03> <Jona82> they blew up the south side of the pentagon
<08:03> <Jona82> the pentagon!
<08:03> <dozr> both of the word trade center towers are gone
<08:03> <Jona82> as well as removing the trade centers from existence
<08:03> <MB420> the petagon, the world trade center...
<08:04> <dozr> the south side of the pentagon is gone
<08:04> <dozr> state deptpartment is car bombed
<08:04> <MB420> evacuating all fed buildings across the US
<08:04> <MB420> air traffic has halted
<08:04> <MB420> in the US
<08:04> <Jona82> air force all scrambled
<08:04> <Jona82> ie, the lot
<08:04> <MB420> My GOD....I have friends all over these cites
<08:04> <MB420> MY GOD
<08:05> <MB420> I gotta go for a bit
<08:05> <Jona82> insomniac
<08:05> <Jona82> insomniac
<08:05> <Jona82> insomniac
<08:05> <Jona82> insomniac
<08:05> <Pinko_Commie> they've been evacuating the financial centres of the UK
<08:05> <Jona82> hope your mum's ok man
<08:05> <Pinko_Commie> coz if its Iraq, we're next over here
<08:05> <Jona82> exactly
<08:05> <Jona82> thank fuck i live in the middle of nowhere
<08:05> <Pinko_Commie> apparantly the stock exchange has been on alert for the last 5 days!
<08:06> <Jona82> they never expected this...
<08:06> <Jona82> maybe a car bomb
<08:06> <Jona82> not 8 planes
<08:06> <Pinko_Commie> nah
<08:06> <Sha0lin> only 6 so far
<08:06> <Sha0lin> and a car bomb
<08:07> <Jona82> 747
<08:07> <Jona82> in pittsbug
<08:07> <Jona82> 747!
<08:07> <Pinko_Commie> 767
<08:07> <Pinko_Commie> not 747
<08:07> <Jona82> nope
<08:07> <Jona82> that was nyc
<08:07> <Jona82> that's a jumbo
<08:07> <Pinko_Commie> bbc reckons pitsburg was 767 as well
<08:08> <Jona82> just said 747, dunno tho
<08:08> *** SpiralMix has joined #adp
<08:08> <Terwilliger> I hope they dont find this is all Bin Laden...the US will just wipe out the middle east
<08:08> <Jona82> exactly
<08:08> <Pinko_Commie> 4 more planes unaccounted for
<08:08> <Jona82> EEK
<08:08> <Jona82> 4?
<08:08> <SpiralMix> Anyone see the new legislatin released yesterday? It removes all federal taxes. Does this have anything to do with it?
<08:08> <Jona82> hmm
<08:09> <Pinko_Commie> shit, now, rather than the Iraquis they reckon its war, they don't know who yet
<08:09> <Jona82> ...
<08:09> <Jona82> oh fuck
<08:09> <Pinko_Commie> you were right, was 747 in pitts
<08:09> *** Jona82 sets mode: +o SpiralMix
<08:09> <Jona82> really, it was so nice to know you guys
<08:10> <Jona82> attacking the US is not the best of ideas
<08:10> <Jona82> if this was in the 70's we'd be dead by now
<08:10> <MB420> attacking the US has it's consequences

<snip>

[sistersofmercy]

33. Where are the ppl from? Just curious. Funny they mention Iraq!

[Terwilliger]

34. several are Britons

two of the folks online in channel were in NYC :scared:

[sistersofmercy]

35. Oh my, thanks for sharing!

[kayleybeth]

32. Thank you Will Pitt

Your insights are inspiring. I think you are one the best essayists of our time.

Good on ya for posting this.

Kayeleigh & family

[sistersofmercy]

37. I do know this, I will do best to not see the face of the worst president

everrrrrr, all day tomorrow!

[diamondsoul]

38. Thank you, Will.

I think I needed this sort of real tribute to what happened. I can't watch television on Sept. 11th anymore because I know what to expect. I get sick with rage, and it's just too much for me. So I shut everything down for a day and go into hiding, not from the truth but from the onslaught of lies.

And I mourn. Sometimes I remember the moments when the horror drove me to, what felt like, the very brink of insanity. There is something truly horrifying about having been confronted with the barrage of images and words from that morning while holding and nursing a tiny fragile newborn infant. The shock was bad, but the abject mind-numbing fear for that baby's future didn't take long to follow it up.

Shock like that makes you think of the strangest things. First I thought maybe I should give the baby a bottle, worried about what my incredible upset might do to her, and then I decided I needed to nurse her anyway. I needed the reassurance that the world, the whole of existance wasn't finished with us yet.

So I sat down, sobbed uncontrollably, watched the death of thousands of people and my country as I knew it, all while I nursed this new tiny girl. I remember not wanting to put her down when she fell asleep because I was so afraid that I'd never hold her again. Somewhere in my totally numbed mind was the thought that putting that baby down would bring about the end of the world. I sent my older kids to play in their rooms or watch cartoons in my room as they wandered in because I just had to see the facts come out.

They never did, and I remember that as the day I started to hate for only the second time in my life. I remember putting the baby into her bed, finally, just so I could go back to the sickening images on that screen and scream "Where the FUCK were the G-Damned fighters, you bastards!?!", and I knew even while I watched what we were seeing, even though they wouldn't tell us the truth of it all. I knew, and it's good to know I wasn't alone. I felt like I was for a long time.

Until the next Bush diversion, the attack on Iraq, and Dennis Kucinich, and then DU. Thank God for DU, or I might still feel that alone.

And thank God for you, Will, because I needed to mourn again, only I couldn't do it with lies, pretend compassion, phony patriotism and deliberate fear-mongering that I know will be facing everyone today. I needed a real, honest reminder of what I saw that day so I could cry with some respect, honor and dignity. Thank you for that.