Re: 911 Censorship or "Disapproval." (a bit rambling)

[Mike 03]

Last night I noticed something that I suppose I had noticed before but had remained in the back of my mind for these past seven years.

From that horrible day onward, I never really saw footage of that catastrophe again, on the news, or anywhere. It was almost like it was verboten to show it. It was permissable to mourn, remember, and so forth. But the images of the event vanished from sight.

Last night I wanted to look up a synopsis of Don Delillo's novel about 9-11, and it's called "Falling Man."

I Googled "Falling Man" and what is apparently a famous picture turned up. It was a picture I had never seen, and it is a photograph called "Falling Man." I followed a link to an article about the history of the image, and it explained how offended some people were by seeing it.

It even said that if I were to Google on the question, "how many people jumped from the wtc on 9-11," I would be transported to a website calling me all sorts of bad things for wanting an answer to this question.

Eventually, I started to think about 9-11, and I followed a link to You Tube, where there is quite a bit of footage I have never seen. But it is footage that deserves to be seen, at least by anyone who wishes to see it.

I watches some of the raw video of what happened that day, and on one of the clips (and I don't know how hackers do this), I received a message saying, approximately, "All this 9-11 conspiracy stuff should be removed from the internet (or You Tube)."

At that point I realized the intense emotions involved in the archival aspect of 9-11. I find it personally horrifying and extremely offensive that there is a movement out there that wants to keep me and others from seeing any images at all from what was the most horrific, nightmarish, arguably important event to happen in my lifetime.

So, for the first time, I got a taste of what some people who are studying 9-11 go up against. You are called all sorts of things if you want to see what happened that day.

It's very unfair. I'm not a pervert. I don't get off on seeing people leap to their deaths or buildings collapse. But that is a major day of my life. It changed everything.

On that day, I was in such a state of shock that I don't remember much of what I saw, and I DO want to see it now, expecially with some distance and perspective behind me.

There's not really a point to my post. I'm not telling you anything you probably don't already know. I was just very sad and shocked to discover this intense, amorphous--almost a thing you can't speak about--antipathy towards anyone who wants to see footage from that day.

I don't really understand the defensiveness, or why it makes me a "sick person" or "morbid" to want to see that footage again. It was a huge, history-turning event, and my memory of it is vague.

What are they--whoever they are--afraid of? Why do they not want us to look back on that day?
Sorry for the aimless rant.

[wildbilln864]

1. welcome to the DUngeon! nt

:hi:

[Mike 03]

2. Thank you.

Enough time has passed that I do want to know more about that day. My father would have been in WTC that day had his schedule been slightly different. He lost colleages in the floor (I think) above Kantor Fitzgerald (sp?).

I'm also very interested in the health consequences for those who worked at Ground Zero. My father has a blood cancer that apparently is more common with people exposed to the 9-11 debris.

I'm not so much into the conspiracy aspect. I still haven't gotten over the just plain horror. I avoided it by simply not thinking about it. But that has passed.

[greyl]

3. I hope these links help to put your mind at ease:

http://www.mininova.org/tor/892944
http://www.history.com/genericContent.do?id=60326
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/sept11/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wtc/

[Bolo Boffin]

4. No one who seeks out these pictures with an intent to respect the victims

and process what happened that day should be ashamed of seeking out those pictures. That's how I feel about it.

[seemslikeadream]

5. most people don't like looking at victims of the illegal Iraq war either

[Bolo Boffin]

10. Please don't change the subject.

Please leave your silly games to another thread.

[greyl]

11. SLAD must have thought you meant the opposite of what you said.

Her reply doesn't make sense otherwise.

[Mike 03]

6. I do respect the victims

People I had met died that day. And my father would have died on that day if his weekly schedule had been off by one week. And he lost people he knew, and that made me even sadder, that my own father could hardly speak of what happened.

I revere the victims.

But I blocked out a lot of what happened, and enough time is passed now that I want to see it with my own eyes. That was a hideous time and thing for me, and for many millions of others I'm sure. I can't be the only one who blocked it out and wants to go back and see what happened.

[Mike 03]

7. Thanks for the understanding

I feel very naive for not realizing that tensions ran so high on even viewing what happened. I was well aware there were battles among people with differing points of view about the cause of what happened, but to me it was just THE EVENT. I never wanted to see it again but for some reason I am ready to see it now.

[greyl]

8. You're quite welcome. nt

[Mike 03]

9. Just want you to know, I bookmarked every single one of your links.

With great gratitude and appreciation.

Thanks.

[HamdenRice]

12. Another interesting aspect: Most New Yorkers could not see what was going on

My recollections of the day are fading already after seven years, but I was in lower Manhattan and walked home to Brooklyn, having actually to go closer to the site before I could get away from it.

One of the most peculiar aspects of the day in New York was that the transmission antennas for most local tv and radio were in the north tower. When the tower collapsed, most radio and tv went dead in the NYC metro area. It was very strange.

When we tried to get information about what was happening, most of the radio stations we normally listen to -- WNYC and WBAI specifically I recall -- there was only static. I don't recall ever seeing the towers collapse that day on tv (at my job, they had set up a tv showing the towers burning, but I wasn't watching when the south tower collapsed). Maybe I did, because I had cable. I'm pretty sure that by the time I got home, there was nothing on tv to see on most stations.

It was only months, maybe years later that I actually saw lots of video of the towers collapse on the internet.

Another really interesting thing was that the next morning, 9/12/01, I had the radio tuned to dead air and suddenly, WBAI (Pacifica) came back on. WBAI had its studio on Wall Street, very close to the WTC, and when they came back on the air, the on-air host was very secretive saying that they had had to sneak past the security cordon to rig up an improptu studio, that he could not disclose where he was broadcasting from, and that they had rigged some sort of connection to the antenna on the Empire State Building.

I was way out in Brooklyn, but there were troops on every intersection of the major streets. I had not seen anything like that kind of military lock down since I had lived in third world countries, which was of course understandable, but the fact that they continued having troops with M16s on the subways for about a year after just made it seem like the lockdown was as much aimed at the public as at the "terrorists."

[anigbrowl]

13. I think hostile comments on Youtube etc.

are not so much directed at people with historical interest, but those who push those videos in pursuit of a buck. Some 'conspiracy theorists' are honest researchers who are honestly skeptical of the official narrative, others really don't care much but have noticed there's a steady market of people hungry for more information who can be marketed to. In much the same way, I think a lot of UFO stuff is cheerfully marketed by people who've realized there's easy money to be made out of curiosity and/or paranoia coupled with a well-known mystery.

Every so often TV channels will run a documentary titled 'The REAL story about (anything)', knowing full well that they're guaranteed an audience.