How did the attacks of 9/11 change your life?
Posted at 5:00 AM on September 9, 2011
by Eric Ringham
(56 Comments)
Filed under: International affairs, Security
Thousands lost their lives and many more lost family and friends, but the terrorist attacks of 9/11 affected people all over the world in different ways. Today's Question: How did the attacks of 9/11 change your life?
Comments (56)
To be honest it didn't effect me at first. Later, I joined the National Guard and leaned a military specific skill. Without this skill, I would be another guy in Mpls looking to find a job to feed my family... and not finding it.
"For example, a muslim hyjacking an airplane and flying it into a building."
That 19 radical islamists (calling them muslims is an insult to actual muslims) could hijack airliners and fly them into buildings, and that the buildings would fail to perform as the engineers envisioned they would if planes hit them, is way more believable than that thousands of secret government agents could stage an elaborate deception that would look like that's what happened. And the idea that it could be done with no one blowing the whistle on such a treasonous act of mass murder is absurd. To believe otherwise is what's naive. Have you ever known any government endeavor to work so flawlessly well? Conspiricists pride themselves on being skeptical of the "official" version of things, but then fail to be adequately skeptical of "alternative" versions. The fact that there are a few anomalies that don't fit the standard explanation is not by itself evidence that any given alternative is correct. Skepticism is good, but only if you're consistently skeptical.
The Bush administration deserves lots of blame for lots of things. Staging the 9/11 attacks is not one of them; misusing them as an excuse to restrict civil liberties, violate human rights of detainees, and invade a country that never attacked us is.
"Conspiracy theories like this only distract people from addressing real issues."
...like your naivety?
The best and most successful Con jobs-these days- are orchestrated through the wackiest schemes an individual could ever imagine so that no one would ever belive that it would happen.
For example, a muslim hyjacking an airplane and flying it into a building.
"Conspiracy theories like this only distract people from addressing real issues."
...like your naivety?
The best and most successful Con jobs-these days- are orchestrated through the wackiest schemes an individual could ever imagine so that no one would ever belive that it would happen.
For example, a muslim hyjacking an airplane and flying it into a building.
The main way in which my life was changes was being robbed of freedoms and money by an administration that took advantage of a disaster to push through a very un-American agenda.
I am appalled by the coverage of the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks... specifically the "national response." This came to a head for me yesterday while I was in the car, listening to MPR; a stay-at-home mom was discussing how the attacks changed her life. She remembered that "I just had to go over to a friend's house, I just had to be with someone" and "afterwards my life changed because I didn't watch 'All My Children' anymore because I was scared of what was going to be said during the commercial breaks." This was offensive beyond belief. People in PA, NY and DC have the right to remember and mourn all they want; many of them were touched personally by the attacks. Flight attendants, rescue workers, policemen.... all affected. Stay-at-home moms in Minnesota reducing soap opera intake.... NOT AFFECTED. What right do we have to claim to be in mourning? We are more likely to know someone who was touched by the civil wars in Ethiopia and Somalia, or the new Ethiopian famine, than the 9/11 attacks. What we have been touched by is fake patriotism, product placement and disproportionate media response after the attacks... and maybe a second thought when we go through airport security. In many ways, I am disgusted by Americans today.
As critical as I have long been of Emperor Bush and his sidekick, Darth Cheney, I simply do not find it credible that 9/11 was an "inside job." I wouldn't put it past them to have willfully ignored warnings about al-Qaeda terrorism, in hopes that bin Laden might provide them with a convenient excuse for going to war in Iraq, and I would certainly agree that they exploited the crisis in despicable ways. But the idea that they could orchestrate such a vast conspiracy is preposterous. If explosives were planted throughout the towers, that must have taken a lot of labor. The more people involved, the harder it is to keep secrets. Why have there been no whistleblowers? Why has no one come forward to say, "I planted explosives in the towers." Why has no evidence appeared on Wikileaks? Occam's razor, folks! The simplest explanation that explains the facts is usually the right one. Conspiracy theories like this only distract people from addressing real issues.
How did the attacks change us? They have made us nastier.
This isn't an answer to the question, but I don't see anywhere else to post this. I'm very disappointed that I have not heard Tom Paxton's song, The Bravest, played anywhere today. I expected that we in Minnesota would hear Garrison Keillor singing that song, as he did on PHC 13 October 2011. It is better than any tribute I've heard.
I remember watching the events of 9-11 on TV and wondering how some inexperienced foreign pilots could pull this off? Was it really possible to target buildings like that with a commercial airliner?
Also, the media dialogue began to change. All reference to explosions during the building collapse were deleted. The Pentagon was cordoned off and no one could figure out where the plane wreckage was. Likewise with the plane that crashed on the ground.
Evidence continues to mount that 9-11 was an insider job.
I feel for the families of those who lost loved ones on 9-11. I feel for those who are dying now from exposure to toxins from the fires and demolition,.
I feel for the families of our troops who have died in Iraq and Afghanistant. I feel for all those tortured in all the secret prisons. I feel for the innocent victims of war.
I feel for all of us, as the government now keeps us living in fear of more terrorist attacks. So we have the "Patriot Act," border patrol, and airport screening that invades our very privacy. In effect, we are all being treated like terrorists.
I believe that eventually the truth about 9-11 will come out. Maybe we are not ready for it yet. Maybe we still want to have some faith in our government.
I think that our faith needs to be in ourselves. Our hope remains in our individual efforts to create a better world.
I understand the Math and Science shared in earlier comments. I am married to a brilliant engineer. I have my own questions about it being an 'inside job'. I know that I no longer trust our government. However, I feel that's a discussion for another place and time. But for today, I wish only to honor those who lost their lives, those who still suffer with health problems and for all who lost their loved ones either here or fighting in foreign countries because of the attacks on 9/11/2001. What I learned was to treat every one as if this very moment could be the last we have to share. I do so every minute, every hour of every day.
Six Degrees of 911: “It’s A Small World After All”
Like most Americans over the age of 15, I can remember September 11, 2001 as if it were yesterday. Who could forget that incredibly blue, cloudless sky and the fresh, crisp air with the first hints of the coming change in seasons that would soon be Fall.
It was shortly before 9:00 AM and I was working at the computer in my “Parkway South” (aka home) law office in South Minneapolis. I had a television on in the background with the CBS Morning Show on when I heard Bryant Gumbel announce reports of a fire at the World Trade Center. I thought to myself, “this has got to be interesting…” and got up and went over to the t.v. just in time to see what looked like a shadow pass in back of one of the towers only to explode out of the side of the tower facing the camera in a spectacular orange fire ball.
As I stood there staring at the television screen in utter disbelief, the telephone rang and like I was in some kind of strange, hypnotic trance, I picked up the receiver and said hello without even glancing, as was my custom, at the caller ID. You see, I had consulted earlier that summer with a potential client, a bank robbery suspect, being held under a federal hold at the Sherburne County, MN jail. At the time they were constructing a new federal courthouse and detention center in downtown Minneapolis and until the new facility was ready, the federal government was contracting with Sherburne County, which had just built a state of the art facility with plenty of capacity, to house federal detainees and prisoners awaiting trial and/or hearing.
When my prospective client did not come up with the retainer fee, I stopped taking his collect calls from the Sherburne County jail which had run up to a not insignificant amount. Because my prospective client had been accused by jail staff of being uncooperative, they had moved him into the solitary confinement wing at the Sherburne County jail.
Hearing the voice of my unrequited client, I snapped out of my trance and unleashed a torrent of verbage, something to the effect: “You would never believe what just happened, I just watched an airliner fly into and explode against one of the World Trade Centers…”. Over the course of the next hour, the one hour my client had outside his cell in solitary, I relayed the incoming news to my client who in turn was passing along the information to the other prisoners in the solitary wing by yelling updates down the hall.
It was not until the next day and reading the Minneapolis and St. Paul newspapers did we discover that also in the solitary wing of the Sherburne County jail that day was Zacarias Moussaoui, who has been held since August of 2001 after raising suspicions at a Minnesota flight school. Despite what the newspapers reported as when Moussaoui first learned of the attacks when he walked into a television lounge and saw new reports later in the day, to which he allegedly pumped his fist in triumph, both my prospective client and I knew the truth, that we were the first persons to apprise him of the news of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.
If you will remember, in the days following 911 there was considerable discussion of the government listening in on attorney client phone calls from jail and you can bet I was sweating that I would receive a phone call from the FBI asking me to explain myself, which thankfully never came.
This story just goes to show how interconnected we are and how small the world is that I would play a role in the most defining event of our generation. Kevin Bacon eat your heart out.
I'm a sustaining member, but I have assiduously avoided all of the 9-11 anniversary coverage.
The only changes 9-11 has made in my life are negative; namely, the loss of many of our civil liberties, and the massive waste of money for anti-terrorism measures that we could simply do without.
Ben Franklin, who noted that "those who would sacrifice essential liberty for a little more security deserve neither liberty nor security," is rolling in his grave.
Post 9-11 America is a dystopia of the first order.
Welcome to the clusterf**k.
"Arguing with a conspiracist (or an ideologue, or a true believer of any sort) is like wrestling a pig. There's no way to do it without getting dirty, and after a while you realize the pig enjoys it.
Posted by Steve the Cynic | September 10, 2011 4:27 PM"
911 Truth -The Science of 911
http://youtu.be/nl9Up2JiC7A
Arguing with a conspiracist (or an ideologue, or a true believer of any sort) is like wrestling a pig. There's no way to do it without getting dirty, and after a while you realize the pig enjoys it.
http://youtu.be/NX_UKdqoa_o
"Lucy, I'm not a metalurgist, but I've seen a blacksmith work. Steel begins to weaken and become pliable long before it reaches the melting point.
Posted by Steve the Cynic | September 10, 2011 1:15 PM "
http://youtu.be/Tw7aG1JJD6I
"Lucy, I'm not a metalurgist, but I've seen a blacksmith work. Steel begins to weaken and become pliable long before it reaches the melting point.
Posted by Steve the Cynic | September 10, 2011 1:15 PM "
http://youtu.be/Tw7aG1JJD6I
Lucy, I'm not a metalurgist, but I've seen a blacksmith work. Steel begins to weaken and become pliable long before it reaches the melting point.
"RE: conspiracy theories.
We would do well to remember the old saying: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
Posted by Steve the Cynic | September 9, 2011 10:49 AM "
http://youtu.be/nnnjIzamnJo
Just to be clear, that was satire. (I've noticed that some folks around here can't take a joke.)
Here's my conspiracy theory. After the Bush administration was caught with its pants down, having ignored previous warnings about how how dangerous al Qaeda was, and having failed to prevent the attacks, they tried to cover up their ineptitude by planting a few clues that there was some wider conspiracy, so that some number of wackos would spin out some truly preposterous yarn that no level-headed person would believe, so as to distract people from noticing its real shortcomings. This technique evolved from the successful prevention of exposure the true nature of top secret military research near Roswell, NM, by the clever placement of rumors that an alien space craft had crashed. The technique is now being used by the Gang Of Plutocrats, to keep people from noticing the growing wealth gap by distracting them with rumors that Obama is a marxist, muslim, terrorist-sympathizer. And because our attention span has been so truncated by television, it works.
Here are the things I find profoundly troubling:
In the history of structural engineering, steel-frame high-rise buildings have never been brought down due to fires either before or since 9/11,so how can fires have brought down three in one day? How is this possible?
The BBC has reported that at least five of the nineteen alleged "hijackers" have turned up alive and well living in Saudi Arabia, yet according to the FBI, they were among those killed in the attacks. How is this possible?
Frank DeMartini, a project manager for the WTC, said the buildings were designed with load redistribution capabilities to withstand the impact of airliners, whose effects would be like "puncturing mosquito netting with a pencil." Yet they completely collapsed. How is this possible?
Since the melting point of steel is about 2,700°F, the temperature of jet fuel fires does not exceed 1,800°F under optimal conditions, and UL certified the steel used to 2,000°F for six hours, the buildings cannot have collapsed due to heat from the fires. How is this possible?
Flight 77, which allegedly hit the building, left the radar screen in the vicinity of the Ohio/Kentucky border, only to "reappear" in very close proximity to the Pentagon shortly before impact. How is this possible?
Foreign "terrorists" who were clever enough to coordinate hijacking four commercial airliners seemingly did not know that the least damage to the Pentagon would be done by hitting its west wing. How is this possible?
Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta, in an underground bunker at the White House, watched Vice President Cheney castigate a young officer for asking, as the plane drew closer and closer to the Pentagon, "Do the orders still stand?" The order cannot have been to shoot it down, but must have been the opposite. How is this possible?
A former Inspector General for the Air Force has observed that Flight 93,which allegedly crashed in Pennsylvania, should have left debris scattered over an area less than the size of a city block; but it is scattered overran area of about eight square miles. How is this possible?
A tape recording of interviews with air traffic controllers on duty on 9/11 was deliberately crushed, cut into very small pieces, and distributed in assorted places to insure its total destruction. How is this possible?
The Pentagon conducted a training exercise called "MASCAL" simulating the crash of a Boeing 757 into the building on 24 October 2000, and yet Condoleezza Rice, among others, has repeatedly asserted that "no one ever imagined" a domestic airplane could be used as a weapon. How is this possible?
It didn't, I knew our government was corrupt:
The impact of planes cannot have caused enough damage to bring the buildings down, since the buildings were designed to withstand them (as Frank DeMartini, the project manager, has observed), the planes alleged to have hit were similar to those they were designed to withstand, and the buildings continued to stand after those impacts with negligible effects.
Most of the jet fuel, principally kerosene, burned up in those fireballs in the first fifteen seconds or so. Below the 96th floor in the North Tower and the 80th in the South, those buildings were stone cold steel, unaffected by any fires at all other than some very modest office fires that burned around 500 degrees F, which functioned as a massive heat sink dissipating the heat from building up on the steel.
The melting point of steel at 2,800 degrees F is about 1,000 degrees higher than the maximum burning temperature of jet-fuel-based fires, which do not exceed 1,800 degrees under optimal conditions; but the NIST examined 236 samples of steel and found that 233 had not been exposed to temperatures above 500 degrees F and the others not above 1200.
Underwriters Laboratory certified the steel in the buildings up to 2,000 degrees F for three or four hours without any significant effects, where these fires burned neither long enough or hot enough—at an average temperature of about 500 degrees for about one hour in the South Tower and one and a half in the North—to weaken, much less melt.
If the steel had melted or weakened, then the affected floors would have displayed completely different behavior, with some degree of asymmetrical sagging and tilting, which would have been gradual and slow, not the complete, abrupt and total demolition that was observed. Which means the NIST cannot even explain the initiation of any “collapse” sequence.
The top 30 floors of the South Tower pivoted and began to fall to the side, when the floors beneath gave way. So it was not even in the position to exert downward pressure on the lower 80 floors. A high-school physics teacher, Charles Boldwyn, moreover, has calculated that, if you take the top 16 floors of the North Tower as one unit of downward force, there were 199 units of upward force to counteract it.
William Rodriguez, who was the senior custodian in the North Tower and the last man to leave the building, has reported massive explosions in the sub-basements that effected extensive destruction, including the demolition of a fifty-ton hydraulic press and the ripping of the skin off a fellow worker, where they filled with water that drained the sprinkler system.
Rodriguez observed that the explosion occurred prior to reverberations from upper floors, a claim that has now been substantiated in a new study by Craig Furlong and Gordon Ross, “Seismic Proof: 9/11 Was an Inside Job,” demonstrating that these explosions actually took place as much as 14 and 17 seconds before the presumptive airplane impacts.
Heavy-steel-construction buildings like the Twin Towers are not generally capable of “pancake collapse,” which normally occurs only with concrete structures of “lift slab” construction and could not occur in redundant welded-steel buildings, such as the towers, unless every supporting column were removed at the same time, floor by floor, as Charles Pegelow, a structural engineer, has observed.
The demolition of the two towers in about 10 seconds apiece is very close to the speed of free fall with only air resistance, which Judy Wood, Ph.D., formerly a professor of mechanical engineering, has observed is an astounding result that would be impossible without extremely powerful sources of energy. If they were collapsing, they would have had to fall through their points of greatest resistance.
Indeed, the towers are exploding from the top, not collapsing to the ground, where their floors do not move, a phenomenon Wood has likened to two gigantic trees turning to sawdust from the top down, which, like the pulverization of the buildings, the government’s account cannot possibly explain. There were no pancakes.
WTC-7 came down in a classic controlled demolition at 5:20 PM after Larry Silverstein suggested the best thing to do might be to “pull it,” displaying all the characteristics of classic controlled demolitions: a complete, abrupt and total collapse into its own footprint, where the floors are all falling at the same time, yielding a stack of pancakes about 5 floors high.
Had the Twin Towers collapsed like WTC-7, there would have been two stacks of "pancakes" equal to about 12% the height of the buildings or around 15 floors high. But they were actually reduced to below ground level. Since there were no "pancakes", there cannot have been any "pancake collapse" of either building, where the buildings were destoryed by different modes of demolition.
The hit point at the Pentagon was too small to accommodate a 100-ton airliner with a 125-foot wingspan and a tail that stands 44-feet above the ground; the debris was wrong for a Boeing 757: no wings, no fuselage, no seats, no bodies, no luggage, no tail! Not even the engines were recovered, which means that the official account is not true.
The Pentagon’s own videotapes do not show a Boeing 757 hitting the building, as even Bill O’Reilly admitted when one was shown on “The O’Reilly Factor”; at 155 feet, the plane was more than twice as long as the 77-foot Pentagon is high and should have been present and easily visible; it was not, which means that the video evidence also contradicts the official account.
The aerodynamics of flight would have made the official trajectory—flying at high speed barely above ground level—physically impossible, because a Boeing 757 flying over 500 mph could not have come closer than about 60 feet of the ground, which means that the official account is not even aerodynamically possible.
Data from a flight recorder provided to Pilots for 9/11 Truth by the National Transportation Safety Board corresponds to a plane with a different approach and altitude, which would have precluded its hitting lampposts or even the building itself, which means that, if this data corresponds to a Boeing 757, it would have flown over the Pentagon rather than hit it.
If Flight 93 crashed into an abandoned mine shaft, as the government maintains, then they should have brought out the heavy equipment and the bright lights and dug and dug, 24/7, in the hope that, by some miracle, someone might possibly have survived. But nothing like that was done. Even the singed trees and shrubs were trimmed, apparently to make it impossible to subject them to chemical analysis.
There is more, especially about the alleged hijackers, including that they were not competent to fly these planes and their names are not on any original, authenticated passenger manifest. Several have turned up alive and well and living in the Middle East. The government has not even produced their tickets as evidence that they were even aboard the aircraft they are alleged to have hijacked.
President Bush recently acknowledged that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. The Senate Intelligence Committee has reported that Saddam was not in cahoots with Al Qaeda. And the FBI has acknowledged that it has “no hard evidence” to tie Osama to 9/11. If Saddam did not do it and Osama did not do it, then who is responsible for the death of 3,000 citizens that day?
We believe that it is the highest form of respect to those who died on 9/11 and their survivors to establish how and why they died, which our own government manifestly has not done. With the American media under the thumb of the intelligence agencies, we can no longer count on the press to perform its investigative function. But we can do our best to expose falsehoods and reveal truths about 9/11.
The Republicracy has you Joe.
September 11th should remind all citizens that the absolute first and primary role of the federal government is to protect its citizens from invasion both foreign and domestic. Failure to do execute this on fundemental principle essentially dissolves the nation. Those who do not understand or disagree have no concept of the realities of good and evil in the world.
D. Ivy - I am speechless and utterly moved. God Bless You!
Let's see here. Divided government on all levels, inflation, gas prices, unemployment and no health care. Polarized populace and failed war strategies Viet-Nam v2.0 and v3.0.
Eleven trillion-dollar deficit, that's trillion with a T. Does anybody know what a trillion is? The farthest observed object in the Universe is a gamma ray burst, presumably generated by a black hole, calculated to be 13.1 billion light years from Earth. This object is said to have exploded only 650 million years after the theoretical "Big Bang". So to use this cosmic scale to compare the national debt, we owe the Communist Chinese more money than light years in the entire known Universe!
All after 9-11 in only ten years.
Terrorists: wh-wh-wh- WINNING! WINNING!
9-11 had a more profound impact on the US than Pearl Harbor.
Pearl Harbor got us involved in the most hideous war ever fought....and America emerged a stonger and better country.
9-11 got us involved in the never-ending, and unbounded "War on Terror" which (under W's leadership) has financially and ideologically bankrupted our nation.
Although I was not directly affected by 9-11, I now live in a country which is a shadow of its former self. I hope we can regain our footing, but fear for our country's and our children's future.
My son and I were visiting my husband at the Pentagon. My son did not survive, I now use a wheelchair, my husband went to war and never returned. I see the country becoming bitter, divided, hateful, and judgmental. It is as if the terrorists keep winning. Divided we WILL fall. It doesn't have to be this way.
I go on by dedicating myself to helping others make positive changes in their lives, for example I run a therapeutic horse program to help people with stress and PTSD. But my neighbors use their prejudices to attack me and my program. I will go on trying to make this a better place. What else can I do. I won't become the "enemy" by becoming hateful myself. I forgive, for me, for them, for all of us to heal. Blessings to all.
Further regarding the conspiriacy theories: Which is more likely? That our government was woefully incompetent to detect and prevent a terrorist attack by mad suicidal islamist militants? Or that our government (or some other more shadowy organization) was so well-organized and tightly disciplined that it could orchestrate an elaborate false-flag attack and have most of the world believe it was done by mad suicidal islamist militants? The latter strains credulity, to say the least.
Have you read the "Battle Royal" by Ellison? A short story, it became Chapter 1 in his book "Invisible Man." Do you remember how hopeful, earnest and dedicated a young man we are introduced to, as he arrives to the country club, all prepared to deliver his speech? Nothing I've read in literature more accurately captures the way I felt about this country prior to 911, at age twenty-three. The boy has been warned, but he is still so naive and so... trusting. He wants to impress, to please. "In those pre-invisible days I visualized myself as a potential Booker T. Washington."
Do you remember how corrupt those men were? How they arranged a battle for their attentions and entertainment, and then tempted the boys. Piling false glory all over the rug, in order to force a tortured fight for what seems at first to be their long awaited reward, but becomes a terrifying struggle for meaningless tokens? "Come on up here boys and get your money... I saw the rug covered with coins... I lunged for a yellow coin... A hot violent force tore through my body, shaking me like a wet rat. The rug was electrified."
Do you remember the lady liberty with the tattoo of of the flag? "And then she began to dance, a slow sensuous movement; the smoke of a hundred cigars clinging to her like the thinnest of veils." How she exemplifies the lure of freedom that is out of reach for so many? The boys avert their eyes unable to even to look her full in the face and examine all of her benefits. Do you remember how they had to watch while the privileged gluttons exploited and misused her?
Do you remember the story of the Battle Roayl? It so completely encompasses the lesson that I had to learn after the events of nine eleven.
The day is a constant reminder of the lies. How my love of liberty was so taken for granted and advantage. That day put a devestating crack in my shell of naivete, from which I eventually crawled out to face the fight. My life is now, in this economy, about survival and protecting the bit of freedom that lives inside all of us, the bit that those "distinguished" bastards cannot take. The rest - the promises of democracy and the hope and the narcissm was never really mine to begin with... because it had come at the cost of "others," who had been forced to pay for it so dearly.
May Love bless the world.
RE: conspiracy theories.
We would do well to remember the old saying: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
"As regard to the news media and members of the government - many are there who, like the conspiracy theorists, go off "half cocked" without real proof"
Steve the Know-it-all and Suzie-
Their proof is that they are living the nightmare-the aftermath of 911. Thier eyes are WIDE OPEN and they are horrified at the state of affairs our country-our world is in.
I suggest you pull your head out of the sand, and go down to the corner store and buy yourself a box of hankies to wipe the remaining bits out of your eyes. You, too, will then see what is REALLY going on. Wake up!
I am definitely more thankful to the first responders who without second thought went into the buildings in NY and DC and those selfless people on the plane and all those good people who are willing to follow in their footsteps today.
As regard to the news media and members of the government - many are there who, like the conspiracy theorists, go off "half cocked" without real proof. I now don't fully believe either of them. They all thinks they are little gods and can do what they want and say what they want - because they must be believed without proof. However, government employee (elected, appointed and hired) and the print and televised media and be challenged and pinned to the wall. Those hiding behind the anonymity of their computers. Becareful of both.
My girlfriend and I were on the N train going into work that morning. I said goodby and got off at 34th St. Her stop was the World Trade Center. I got to my desk and the buzz was about a plane hitting the tower. I called her and she'd made it to work which was around the corner from the WTC. We made a plan to meet at a location on the east side if we lost contact. Somewhere in that time the second plane hit We were then told to evacuate our building.
I left my office and started walking downtown . The first tower fell and a ripple went through the crowds on the street, and you could hear the radio broadcasts intensify.
I saw the second tower fall from just south of Washington Square Park. I thought my girlfriend may have been killed. I got all the way to the edge of the dust cloud and people were streaming out covered in white dust. Ambulances were going by with inches of dust on their tops. Firemen and policemen were walking out of the cloud looking dazed. And the sun was shining through the black cloud. You could see the outlines of buildings. It was totally sureal. I spoke with a cop who said he had been standing across the street from the towers. He said that the people on the otherside of the street had been swallowed up by the collapse. I knew at that point she was probably alive.
I went to the location we'd decided on and waited. She and some of her coworkers showed up at about two in the afternoon.
How did this change me? My girlfriend is now my wife, and we have a lovely three year old child, and a beutiful and peaceful life here in Minnesota. My child, my wife, my life here in many ways are all a result of 9-11.
Clark, I completely agree with you about the ridiculous conspiracy theories. However, they are nothing new. It was predictable that they would come. After Pearl Harbor was attacked, there were people alleging that FDR knew the attack was coming and chose to let it happen, in order to bring us into the war. There were conspiracy theories about the sinking of the Lusitania in1915. It always happens. People tend to latch onto conspiracy theories whenever the world seems to be getting more chaotic and people feel like they're losing control of their lives.
i used to lean left but the reaction of the left to 9-11 has revealed their moral and intellectual bankruptcy. the right is worse but i used to look left for truth and reason. it's just not there.
While the day that I woke up to the radio announcer saying that the World Trade Center got hit and getting to the TV before the 2nd plane hit was traumatic, I think that the long lasting effects on the economy could perhaps by more tragic because the pain is more widespread.
At the time I was working in the nonprofit industry, which someday I hope to get back into. The initial fall in stocks hurt the nonprofit sector hard as not only assets were lost, but because donors also had less to give. Then because of a poor economy and a political shift, that may now be at its peak, state agencies began cutting contracts and other support for the nonprofit sector, from education to health, further damaging the sector.
I was laid off from my nonprofit a few years back and have not been able to find a viable way back into the sector whose organizations were already incredibly flat. I see the nonprofit sector as the canary in the coal mine of the economy and despite efforts of both presidents Bush and Obama to prop up the economy, the economy has never really healed since 9/11.
Realize how happy I am I don't know or live near any of these left wing and conspiracy wacko's who are conviced that Ming the Merciless has sent a death ray from Mars directly into the the structural steel that reinforced the twin towers.
I support both Bush and Obama for killing the muslims that cut off our heads with a dull knife.
My greatest fear is all you stupid people will actually vote and elect Homer Simpson President.
On the frightening side of things, the first two months after 9/11 required me to walk past three different tanks (manned 24/7) whenever I made the three block journey from my residence hall to the center of campus.
On the plus side, I bought an $88 roundtrip ticket from DC to Minneapolis a few days after the attacks because fares dropped so dramatically when people were too scared to fly.
not at all other than at the airport. a 90+ year old friend and i talked about it and decided it had no effect on our lives what so ever. we tend to hype things too much in this country. we are a bunch of chickens without our heads.
I've become a skeptic of the media. Without the internet I believe there would be total information control right now.
http://www.activistpost.com/2011/09/what-does-pull-it-mean-video.html
9/11 drove me to realize that we are but pawns. Follow the money. The elite needed more war, government spending to drain the middle class of the wealth of the 1990's. Israel/Mossad was definitely involved in setting up the attacks along with the Zionist banksters of Wallstreet.
I was on my 3rd week of unemployment and at the Workforce Center located on University and 280 back then. Some other unemployed fellow came into the computer area and announced that some crazy jet just flew into the World Trade Center. I was up and otta there.
Up to that point, (2001) in the field that I considered my career back then, I had worked for two different employers in the architectural field in the span of eleven years. In the last ten years, I have worked for five different employers not including a second job that I took in addition. I no longer consider employment a career but survival, taking what work is available. I am having conversations with many people in the same predicament.
It reminds me of a book, "The Hunger Games" where people are set up against each other in order to survive. The wealthy families create a game where they offer money, homes, scholarships for education, cars (you name it) to a person and then once the offer is accepted they blackmail them so this person is forced to inflict pain on what was their friend and now has become their opponent in the hunger games. This is entertainment for the wealthy to see watch others destroy each other in order to survive.
I was on my 3rd week of unemployment and at the Workforce Center located on University and 280 back then. Some other unemployed fellow came into the computer area and announced that some crazy jet just flew into the World Trade Center. I was up and otta there.
Up to that point, (2001) in the field that I considered my career back then, I had worked for two different employers in the architectural field in the span of eleven years. In the last ten years, I have worked for five different employers not including a second job that I took in addition. I no longer consider employment a career but survival, taking what work is available. I am having conversations with many people in the same predicament.
It reminds me of a book, "The Hunger Games" where people are set up against each other in order to survive. The wealthy families create a game where they offer money, homes, scholarships for education, cars (you name it) to a person and then once the offer is accepted they blackmail them so this person is forced to inflict pain on what was their friend and now has become their opponent in the hunger games. This is entertainment for the wealthy to see watch others destroy each other in order to survive.
My nation, suddnely aware that there is world terrorism, went on a witch-hunt for it. It started war in Afghanistan based on some facutal data. It started a war in Iraq based on fabricated intellgience and an oval office con game. Both wars have added trillions in debt to my country - with little credible change in the terrorism threat. My nation created a patriot act to over-run rights granted in the consitution and its ammendments. It built a brand new department called home-land security at a cost of trillions more - and whose signature beneift to our country is the eternal orange threat level - replaced by NTAS and rarely referenced or discussed - and ignored by nearly all. The bigger end results was an excessive American-jingoism ... in which everything America does is justified - because we were attacked. I think the greatest thing to arise from 9/11 is the realization that America - as a country - has a lot of growing up to do. We are way to used to getting our way - right or wrong . We need to learn to become a partner with other nations - and step back from being the benevolent dictator that our excessive military spending has allowed us to become.
I agree with Julie the government is corrupt and 9/11 is pure evidence we are at war. It is a war between a multi-trillion-dollar syndicate with unspeakable resources and tactics to back up their acts vs. a population who has been financially drained; sound-bite conditioned by controlled media for cued responses; and saturated with "shut up; follow instructions; and do what you are told" Anything said outside of the mainstream script is a conspiracy theory.
I was on my 3rd week of unemployment and at the Workforce Center located on University and 280 back then. Some other unemployed fellow came into the computer area and announced that some crazy jet just flew into the World Trade Center. I was up and otta there.
Up to that point, (2001) in the field that I considered my career back then, I had worked for two different employers in the architectural field in the span of eleven years. In the last ten years, I have worked for five different employers not including a second job that I took in addition. I no longer consider employment a career but survival, taking what work is available. I am having conversations with many people in the same predicament.
It reminds me of a book, "The Hunger Games" where people are set up against each other in order to survive. The wealthy families create a game where they offer money, homes, scholarships for education, cars (you name it) to a person and then once the offer is accepted they blackmail them so this person is forced to inflict pain on what was their friend and now has become their opponent in the hunger games. This is entertainment for the wealthy to see watch others destroy each other in order to survive.
The attacks brought out some of the best and some of the worst of human nature: compassionate solidarity, and fear/hate-mongering; heroic first responders, and a rush to war; sincere patriotism, and jingoistic nationalism. On balance, our nation's overreaction to the attacks did us more harm than the attacks themselves. The whole episode prompted me to think more deeply about what's really important, and what's really worth doing.
I was living in California and for some unknown reason, had spent the night in my other bedroom which had a TV and turned it on very early. So I picked up the coverage from the very first on NBC. I stayed home all day watching the coverage.
As a result, I moved back to Minnesota the next spring and am next week headed to Afghanistan to spend the next several years helping to build the intellectual infrastructure that country needs to stand on its own.
I was 13 years old on 9/11 and still remember standing in my living room, getting ready for school, watching the Today Show's live coverage of the second plane crashing into the tower. I literally did not believe what I was seeing. The image was horrifying. And the thought of what was behind it, the murderous intent, the desperation, was even more frightening. I learned very quickly that this was a world in which people did this to each other.
Looking back on the last ten years, I have to imagine that the outlook of my generation has been dominated by 9/11. We came of age with planes crashing into buildings, felt the initial rush of patriotism, then witnessed as an administration manufactured a war in Iraq that not only failed to bring resolution to the tragedy of 9/11, it wrought even more calculated but senseless destruction on an already devastated world.
In our conscious political memory, we have known war, economic recession, and endless political bickering. We have also witnessed communities banding together against war, against the repression of civil liberties, against ethnic and religious persecution. I am still hopeful that this is not the world I pass on to my children. But if I seem a bit cynical, perhaps this helps to explain why.
I re-enlisted, went on two more long deployments and finished 20 years of service. I decided to do an enormous amount of reading regarding Islam and the Middle East and have developed a liking for Arab art work and Turkish coffee.
9/11/2001 made me realize how completely corrupt the government is. So many unanswered questions; just look at building 7, and Silverstein’s order to “pull it”. All three of the building fell free fall, no resistance. No investigation on the explosions heard by the many of the people who were at the site.
Nineteen men pass through airport security. Eleven of them are stopped and questioned but then allowed to board. Several large passenger planes wind up hijacked and flown at high speed into enormous buildings. None of these men had shown previous capacity to accomplish this feat. These men were armed with box cutters. No jet fighters were scrambled to intercept these planes, although the authorities in charge of such actions knew immediately what was happening. Airport traffic controllers were ordered to destroy all recorded evidence of the event. Some of them physically broke the CD’s and scattered the pieces into different trash containers at the airports.
Within hours, three of the biggest buildings in the city, buildings designed to absorb the impact of the very planes which hit them, all crumbled into their own footprints at the speed of freefall. It was said that the fire, which burned below the melting point of steel, caused this to happen. No fire in history had previously accomplished such a thing, not once. Previous fires had burned hotter and longer, yet no building fell. Now, three have fallen in one day. Months later the wreckage burned white hot beneath the surface and clear cuts in support beams were photographed.
It hasn't. Taking your shoes off at the airport is annoying tho.
To be perfectly honest, 9/11/01 made me really resent the Republican party for using a tragic event to go to war, reduce individual liberties and charge dissenters with being anti-American.
The affect was profound as I lived about 4 miles from the Pentagon and we heard and felt the impact's explosion. It was such a beautiful day with a brilliant blue sky... I remember thinking 'how could this happen on such a beautiful day?' It changed everything as safety became an issue in everyday life in a way that it had not been before. The subways, airports and even checkpoints in the city are living examples of what we took for granted before. There is definately a pre 9/11 relaxed way of traveling and living which has forever changed.
I moved from Washington, DC to Albert Lea, MN to get a way from the constant warnings, alerts and reminders of that day (as well as the rush hour traffic). A quieter life in rural midwest America for time to reflect and enjoy friends and family.
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