Posted by Shes_InItForTheMoney on September 13, 2011, at 13:56:01
In reply to Re: Scott please... » Shes_InItForTheMoney, posted by SLS on September 13, 2011, at 11:35:42
> > Scott, I very honestly did not mean *any* disrespect for your experience and feelings. In fact, I posted my reference points *because* I have very deep empathy, more than I think some here seem to understand, for those affected and who lost so many lives on 9/11. I believe these people deserve answers or the horrific tragedy will all be in vain. It is all connected in some way or another.
> > In the aftermath, anyone who questioned things where told to "shut up", and I refer you to the quotation in your signature.
> >
> > Let us hope this next decade will be one of peace.
> > Gracefully under Pressure,
> >
> > Jay
>
>
> Well, Jay, I'm afraid I didn't make my point visible enough for you to see. You were not the target. I did not consider your first post to be an example of graffiti terrorism. However, it did seem misplaced. I think you found some evidence of this contained in the posts of others. Someone went so far as to start a new thread for you, such that you could establish a political topic. You might deliberate your choice of where to submit subsequent posts regarding political reactivity to the events of 9/11/2001. I would not want to see this thread deteriorate any further than it has already by exchanging a series of adversarial off-topic posts to one another.
>
> Meanwhile...
>
> I would be curious to know what emotions you felt on 9/11/2001.
>
> I probably would have enlisted in the military that day were I not too old for admission. I was angry, but felt impotent for being unable to do anything about it. I was hugely frustrated that I had no way of getting into Manhattan so I could look for my father. More than anything, I wanted to help, but my route to the city had been cut off.
>
>
> - Scott
>
>
>
>
>Hello Scott:
Yes, you are quite right. I now think my references may have been a bit misplaced. I guess it is hard for me to not comment, as I am a social scientist, and tend to very much be quite sensitive to the "macro" view. I have digested 1000's of peer-reviewed journal articles; books; thesis and such on the topic. It doesn't make me any kind of "expert", but is where my bias lays in how I look at the entire 9/11 saga, and the thousands of social liberty and military questions that followed.
Still, I am human and needed to reach out and tell you I mean't no offense to your awe-striking story of both luck and resiliance.
I have a few stories to tell about the day 9/11, and my personal reaction. I had just worked a nightshift, but stayed up that morning and flipped on the "Today" show while I checked email. I had just missed when the second plane hit the other tower when I turned on the tv, and seeing the smouldering and holes in the towers, I honestly couldn't believe my eyes. Two of my biggest fears are a)airline crashes and b)high-rise disasters. I immediately went over to my folks house to try and grapple what was going on...see if they heard anything else. I saw, live at the very moment, the first tower fall. I will never forget it, and the sickness and tearfullness that came across me. I had just watched thousands of people die in a few minute period. It honestly felt almost *perverted* watching the tv cameras record the pictures of people jumping from the buildings to their death. I really felt a nausea, and an almost detached sense of what was taking place. I had recently became a Christian, but this just resonated in my head.."God, where are you?" And then the second tower fell..And then the stories of what happened in Pennsylvania and Washington. My questions where of "How could any human being think up and act in such a way...to cause all of this horror..Hell on Earth?". When I saw the pictures of the people in the streets holding out pictures, deep in tears, begging if anyone had saw their husbands, wives, sisters, brothers....I cried right along with them...even strangers on a tv screen. How could a human not...This was actually the most difficult, seeing these people brought to their knees, clutching pictures of their loved ones. Yesterday, I saw the picture of a Father on his knees, putting his arm over his lost son's name on the 9/11 memorial. I have lost a child too, and I could imagine the pure existential, endless Hell-like pain that gripped this man.
Now, I was actually involved, in a very tiny way, in capturing the front-line pictures and film that where taken from the angle of the EMS people and citizens that Sept. 11 late-afternoon, evening. I was co-webmaster of a certain rock-group's website. A small production movie house (Camera Planet) sent us an email asking if they could speak to us on the phone that night. They had been filming most of the day and evening not far from Ground Zero. They had footage (nothing sensationalized, or tasteless) that they wanted to put to the music of the band whose website I was involved in, the band Live, and their song overcome. We couldn't contact the band, but we decided just to give them a *yes*...as we where 100 percent positive the band would have. We where right, and one of the rarest glimpses into the human factor of 9/11, most which tv never captured, was created. The song is "Overcome". Camera Planet put it up on Youtube, and this is a rare glimpse into the day/evening of 9/11 anybody would ever see on film. I kindly ask if you watch it, here: (warning..this is very intense)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfaZvAsFwzI
I went through a period of very bad nightmares around 9/11. They lasted almost two years. Peace is a very deeply, morally important thing to me. It is at the heart of my core, and what happened on 9/11 was the *absolute* antithesis of every little bit of my core values, my DNA.
Sorry for the length, but I thought it important to see me in this light, and that I mean *no harm*.
Thanks,
Jay
"Love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic and we'll change the world," ~Jack Layton 1950-2011
poster:Shes_InItForTheMoney
thread:996364
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20110910/msgs/996660.html