My hometown's ignorance (concerning Flight 93 movie)

[jdelullo]

In central Pennsylvania, Republicans outnumber Democrats probably 8:1. I constantly have to undergo ridicule just because I am open about my feelings that Bush is an idiot, we shouldn't be in Iraq, etc. However, most of the time I can pose a decent argument and for the most part I either get along with my conservative bretheran, or we just lay off politics altogether. But this time, I feel the need to give out an award. CONGRATULATIONS WILLIAMSPORT, PENNSYLVANIA! YOU OFFICIALLY HAVE NO GODDAMN IDEA WHAT GOES ON IN THE WORLD!!!!!

Allow me to explain. On the front page of the Williamsport Sun-Gazette is a story about the new movie Flight 93 which chronicles the last hours onboard the plane that crashed in Shankesville, PA, about 3.5 hours to the southwest of Williamsport. I haven't seen the movie, and I do not plan on it. I don't need a movie to remind me what happened on September 11. I can see it when I close my eyes and think.

Now, my problem with the story is simple. The paper interviewed several people leaving the first showing of the movie yesterday at around 1pm. Some of the things people said include "Every American adult should see it. For all those who think we shouldn't be at war, it's a must-see," and "That's why we are at war. It's not weapons of mass destruction. It's September 11th."

Kinda makes you want to strangle a puppy right? Do these people live under a damn rock? These people still live in a world where the hunt for Osama bin Laden and the War in Iraq are somehow connected. I will give anyone $1 million if they can find a link between the two. Considering the CIA is having a hard time linking them, good luck. I particularly enjoy the line saying we are not at war because of weapons of mass destruction. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Wasn't that Bush's chief reason for going to Iraq? Yeah, thought so.

I understood the war on terror. It made sense. They attacked us. We attack them. We win. However, if Iraq had nothing to do with it, why the hell did we attack them? Could it have been we were misled by the thought that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction? Maybe. I love how the people I live around are so uninformed that not only do they have the wrong reason for going to war, but they're not even talking about the same war.

Also, I was actaully insulted by the woman who said everyone should see this movie who is anti-war. I am insulted by the fact that people think I and liberal folk like me would change our minds about the war because of a 90 minute movie. Humans are fickle, sure. But that's just plain insulting. If you are so stupid that your political ideas can be influenced by a movie, I've got a friend named Michael Moore I think you should meet.

The great George Carlin once said (paraphrase) "Pennsylvania is odd. It has Philadelphia in the east, Pittsburgh in the west, and Alabama right in the middle." Oh how right he was. (No offense to Alabama :))

[BooScout]

1. I'm not surprised.....

Brian Williams ended the NBC nightly news the other night with a review of Flight 93 and reminded his entire national audience that flight 93 was why we were fighting the war. When I bitched about it here I had one person who agreed with him....yup right here on DU some just don't seem to EVER freaking get it.

It just isn't your hometown's ignorance. It's all across America.

[theophilus]

2. You're right, BooScout, it's all across America. How sad! n/t

[slaveplanet]

3. no they're purposely

cherry-picking those types of comments and propagandizing them.
And it's not just happening in Pennsylvania, It's all over.

This is a time tested routine the media engages in.

On other matters there can be 100 people that oppose an issue big Gov is catapulting, and they'll find 2 or 3 for it. Guess which ones get their mug on the evening news?
And then, when they do include an opposing reaction for so-called balance, It will be only the most inarticulate and boneheaded examples.

They engage in this practice all the time to demoralize the real opposition.

[Junkdrawer]

4. I grew up in Johnstown, PA so I know where you're coming from...

I remember when the first store that sold bell-bottoms opened in 1969. The Tribune Democrat ran a full page of pictures with the caption "HIPPIES INVADE JOHNSTOWN!!"...

Look, what happened is that we're not economically competitive any more (hard to compete against slave wages), but we still have the world's most powerful military. So the guys who control the lion's share of the international oil trade grabbed control of our government and are using it to gain hegemony over the world's largest remaining oil reserves. The irony is that, although the Saudis are a big part of this game, they're using the general hatred of Semitic peoples of all nations to whip the masses into a frenzy.

War on Terrorism, riiiight...

[Bunny]

6. Jeans? Are you talking about LA Jeans?

Heh, I grew up in J-town, too. ;)

[Junkdrawer]

7. It was a little store on the street between Penn Traffic and Glosser Bros

Across from where the Act II later opened...

[Bunny]

8. I don't remember exactly where LA Jeans was, but I think it was

around the corner from Glossers. Sort of catty-corner from the Post Office? :shrug: It's been so long, I can barely remember where things were.

[Junkdrawer]

9. Betcha that's the place. I went back recently when my aunt was in...

Lee Hospital. All the mills are shut down and I think only a few stores are still open downtown.

Kinda sad. :(

[femmocrat]

10. OMG! I grew up in Johnstown, too!!!

I remember the first Earth Day in Central Park. They arrested the long-haired kids wearing beads and sandals.

BTW, Johnstown is very near the crash site of United 93. I remember that the J-town airport was on alert that day and jets were scrambled from somewhere nearby. They originally said the plane was headed to Camp David. I live about a half-hour from Somerset now... about an hour from Johnstown. I watched WJAC coverage on Sept. 11. They were the first on the scene. Sorry to sound like a conspiracy nut, but I remember that the debris was scattered for miles and I still think the plane was shot down. I don't believe the Hollywood version for a second and refuse to go to the movie and sit through that propaganda.

[Junkdrawer]

11. According to the "official" story, Cheney gave a shoot down order...

but the passengers caused a crash before the order could be carried out...

...


In the White House bunker, a military aide approached the vice president.

"There is a plane 80 miles out," he said. "There is a fighter in the area. Should we engage?"

"Yes," Cheney replied without hesitation.

Around the vice president, Rice, deputy White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's chief of staff, tensed as the military aide repeated the question, this time with even more urgency. The plane was now 60 miles out. "Should we engage?" Cheney was asked.

"Yes," he replied again.

As the plane came closer, the aide repeated the question. Does the order still stand?

"Of course it does," Cheney snapped.

The vice president said later that it had seemed "painful, but nonetheless clear-cut. And I didn't
agonize over it."

It was, "obviously, a very significant action," Cheney said in an interview. "You're asking American pilots to fire on a commercial airliner full of civilians. On the other hand, you had directly in front of me what had happened to the World Trade Center, and a clear understanding that once the plane was hijacked, it was a weapon."

Within minutes, there was a report that a plane had crashed in southwestern Pennsylvania-what turned out to be United Flight 93, a Boeing 757 that had been hijacked after leaving Newark International Airport. Many of those in the PEOC feared that Cheney's order had brought down a civilian aircraft. Rice demanded that someone check with the Pentagon.

On Air Force One, Bush inquired, "Did we shoot it down or did it crash?"

It took the Pentagon almost two hours to confirm that the plane had not been shot down, an enormous relief. "I think an act of heroism occurred on board that plane," Cheney said. Later, reports of cell phone conversations before the plane crashed indicated that some passengers had fought with the hijackers.

....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A42754-2002Jan26

[Bunny]

13. The Marine Corps Reserve Center is adjacent to the

airport in Johnstown. It's a helicopter facility. I don't think any jets were scrambled from there, although who really knows?

They evacuated the Galleria Mall, which is also next to the airport on that day. It was a scary day, wasn't it?

[Whoa_Nelly]

5. Send your excellent rant in to the editor of the paper :-)

Maybe rewritten a little to make for an effective LTTE, but speak out! :thumbsup:

[treestar]

12. Exaclty. It's a movie. It's entertainment. It's using a national

tragedy for entertainment of the masses.

It's not the only source of information on Flight 93, either.

[Disturbed]

14. This film will stir up the anger against the enemy.

Who is that enemy? To many Americans it is those terrorists in Iraq. Busholini and his Neo Fascists love this film and will milk it to further their Wars as they have with the 911 Attacks.

[readmoreoften]

15. As a filmmaker, there is no way I'll see this movie.

First of all, it purports to be fiction, then behaves like a documentary. Or, it has the veneer of a documentary, but is actually fiction. We do not need to muddy the water between truth and fiction at this point of our national discourse.

Some people will say, "Get over it! It's only a movie! It's fiction!" To them, I would say, why would a filmmaker create a fantastic, fictional document so soon after a terrorist attack, when the official version is highly disputed (and the official version is the source of the "historical truth" in the film? For entertainment? Is it supposed to be scary? Is it supposed to make us "feel good." As fiction, it is in bad taste or it is propaganda or both.

Others will say. "It's a documentary, visual record of what *actually* happened! We need to remember these people! This is a memorial!" To them I say, no one knows what happened on that plane. A few phone calls do not a coherent explanation make. Is it okay to "make stuff up"? What if the person who plays Todd Beamer pretends to be brave and full of religious fervor, when in actually, Todd Beamer was sad and felt abandoned by his God? Or vice-versa? What if they play down the "gayness" of Mark Bingham so that it will play well in Peoria? You can say that it was "approved by the families". What if the families "approve" an inaccurate portrayal because they want his gayness minimized. (Mark Bingham helped set up my friend's rugby team. I know a people who knew him well. He was pretty "out".)

This is a BAD IDEA. I reeks of propaganda. I don't care how "good" or "moving" the film is. I won't see it. Because to see it is to see something that isn't false, can't be true, and cannot take the imaginatively leaps that is necessary in all good fiction. This is a glorified Lifetime Network Movie of the Week. And, like those movies, they are created to capitalize on the fear and pure emotionalism of the audience.

I'm sure Rove is lovin' it.

[KoKo]

16. Kick and Recommend....because this is what we are up against with

this movie based on disinformation by the Bushies. They are hoping all America will go see it and suddenly see the "error" of their ways...if one has doubts about the Bushies finding no WMD....

I won't see it...because I understand the "intent." And, like you it's burned in my mind since I was in a doctors office getting a Mammogram when everyone was watching the attack and collapse of the towers on CNN and I had a double dose of "radiation" that morning because the whole staff including the radiologist who read my mamogram were so freaked out along with their patients that the place was a MESS!

No...I will never forget the morning of "9/11" I was there when it was being shown on CNN and I didn't understand where NORAD was and WHERE OUR GOVERNMENT WAS...as physicians, nurses, radiologists and patients were glued to one TV in a "Waiting Room" yet they tried to function for those who had appointments like me...and instead I got two doses of radiation because everyone was so freaked out that no one was functioning.

It was an awful day and I don't want to watch some "hokey heroism" about Flight 93 when we don't know what the hell happened on that flight. :-(