That's my photograph, taken in the evening, in 2007, when a low cloud kept the memorial lights from projecting upward and the light spread horizontally.The quarter-century mark feels important — I was 50 when it happened, I'm 75 now — but I will repeat what I said in 2022: "I don't like terrorists squatting on the calendar, forcing us into darkness every 365 days. We must honor the dead? But if we truly ordered our life around honoring the dead, every day of the year would be a somber day of commemoration. Instead, we have a scattering of death days on the American calendar. Why those and not others? What interests are served by keeping those horrendous events fresh in our mind and not others?"
There is always a low cloud keeping us from seeing the full picture.
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It's not just about honoring the dead, but also about honoring the heroism, bravery, and sacrifice of Americans that day. It reminds us of what a great country we are, full of great people, many of whom have an unknown hero in their heart that can appear when needed most. It is a day of great proud and unity. I for one thank God everyday for being an American, and always will.
That's not an argument.
This is a commeration.
“Instead, we have a scattering of death days on the American calendar. Why those and not others? What interests are served by keeping those horrendous events fresh in our mind and not others?"
9/11 was a bit more consequential than most. It played a big role in shaping the world we live in now.
Do you think people don't remember it every day, especially families? And what do you suggest we do? Volunteer more? Do you? Come on, Althouse. Did you skip your students' graduations, some meaningless local ritual commemorating you teaching them? This is indefensible agitprop.
Maybe we've propped you up in you bubble for long enough. This post is too much.
I assume the terrorists of this world enjoy seeing their grand achievement made the center of attention over and over again. I assume they are encouraged, seeing us reliving our pain annually.
…maybe it does. The US has now grown our own terrorists and they’re part of a loose cabal of legal and political organizations. Major ones…
It’s important to not forget the lessons of the past. Since the brain is adept at getting used to things, trying to make the memory of the dead a generalized feeling we carry around always would make us more likely to forget it as a discrete thing of importance. Setting aside a specific day for extra-remembering helps keep it from becoming mundane, forgettable.
“There is always a low cloud keeping us from seeing the full picture.”
Not always. I thought those lights were a silly idea until one clear night I saw them from the Brooklyn Bridge. A lovely silent tribute to what was lost, ascending into the darkness. Very moving.
"a scattering of death days on the American calendar"
By my count, and confirmed by Gemini, we have two such days that I would say are widely observed now, September 11 and December 7. I'd also say observance of both is likely to be in slow decline going forward. There are others either officially or semi-officially recognized but other than Memorial Day most are somewhat obscure. I think we recognize September 11, 2001 as significant for the same reason December 7, 1941 has long been recognized. As Jack notes, it's not just the loss of life but the response to the event was a significant turning point in our history.
I think the hardest thing is, unlike after Pearl Harbor, we didn't go out and fix the problem- possibly because we can't. It just hangs there, reminding us of our loss, and there is no real closure.
The internet has informed me that "Paul uses this metaphor to illustrate that human understanding of God and spiritual truths is limited in this life, and only in the future—after death or in the resurrection—will believers perceive divine reality fully and directly."
There are wolves within and wolves without
Remembering Rick Rescorla, Morgan Stanley’s director of security in the South Tower of the World Trade Center.
“Rescorla was a British-American veteran, former police officer, and security specialist. Well before September 11, 2001, he worried that the World Trade Center could be attacked and pushed Morgan Stanley to take emergency preparedness seriously. He arranged frequent, realistic evacuation drills - reportedly every three months - even though many employees and executives disliked the disruption.
After the first plane hit the North Tower, building announcements initially told people in the South Tower to stay at their desks. Rescorla rejected that advice. He took a bullhorn and walkie-talkie and began systematically directing Morgan Stanley employees and visitors out via the stairwells. He emphasized staying calm, avoiding elevators, and continuing to move.
Accounts often remember him singing Cornish songs as he led people downward and kept panic from spreading. His planning and actions helped evacuate roughly 2,700 Morgan Stanley employees, plus many visitors, before the South Tower collapsed.”
He died that day as he stayed in the tower to help further evacuate the building.
“ What interests are served by keeping those horrendous events fresh in our mind and not others?"
A provocative but worthwhile question by Professor Ann Althouse.
Last week I was in Deuel County, Nebraska (pop. 1,803). At the coffee shop in Chappell, I asked a girl what they were reading in English class.
“A novel about 9/11.”
Those that were not born in 2001 need to know and appreciate that the loss of our freedom is only a generation away. There is still evil in the world. There are millions of people who want to kill us because we are not Mohammedans. Islam has been at this for centuries and they are not going to quit.
Young people living a life out on the prairie and away from our diverse cities have no personal experience or knowledge of the above.
In line with that, we need to understand that we can’t be electing as the Mayor of NYC, Rep. from MN or as a Senator from MI, people who downplay the meaning of 9/11. These are people who want power and money for themselves by using our system against us.
We are doomed to repeat our previous mistakes if we don’t remember what they did to us. Mistakes made like that of Jamie Gorelick who thought it was vital to the Republic that the FBI and CIA not talk to each other about terrorists.
A price has to be paid for our continued freedom against these killers. I’m not going to whine if I have to pay $4.00 a gallon if it prevents the so-called Supreme Leader of Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. There’s a TDS woman in Omaha running for the House who constantly complains about this. And she has a net worth of $5.5m.
As St. Ignatius Loyola wrote centuries ago, there really are just two sides on the fundamental issue of evil and good. The side of good has to realize the side of evil is out there and works daily to destroy us.
I'm afraid our gracious hostess is the type who doesn't "get it." That's perfectly fine, because everyone is entitled to their opinion, which is a beautiful thing. I will stand and honor America today, as is my choice, while she is free to enjoy a comfortable retirement hide behind the cold, cynical, cloak of an academic, as afforded by the grace of being born in the greatest country in the history of mankind.
Indeed david
I assume the terrorists of this world enjoy seeing their grand achievement made the center of attention over and over again. I assume they are encouraged, seeing us reliving our pain annually.
The terrorists are going to be smug assholes no matter what we do. Remembering 9/11 isn't about them, it's about us.
They not only minimize it they applaud it mamdani omar and thT other crazy hijab lady in minnesota
I had a brother who died in Viet Nam in 1968. I have always remembered him but not in the same way over the years. I have particularly struggled to behave as a free American because I think he died for that. When I understood 911, I realized that the America which came out of World War II was over. I was a free American in a new situation in which freedom had to be struggled for in a new way. After World War II every European nation was shattered; China was wrecked; and all the colonies were adrift. We were not in danger from anyone unless we involved ourselves in outside disasters such as a Russian attack on Europe. But when 911 happened Europe was no longer shattered, China had bought our manufacturing from our business elite, and the colonies had become nations. The attack symbolized the dangers of the new order. To this day, there are many who simply cannot face that fact that we can become involved in a war we did not choose. They want the truth to be that we cause any war we're in and that we can stop any war by changing our behavior. Would that it were so. 911 says otherwise. For realists, that kind of lofty thinking fell with the Towers.
I just explained to a 25 year old co-worker that the government didn't always just spy on everyone yesterday.
Stratton is her name if memory serves
Inadequate response, Ann. Why do we care what terrorist murderers think of us? My parents' neighbor was a manager at Cantor Fitzgerald. He went to well over 50 funerals or memorials (no identified body) that year. Now, decades later, he's still going to them. My neighbor got called up and spent brutal, soul-destroying years there. My college roomate, an executive trader in another building across the street, was yelling at some new employee when the plane hit, and then all he heard was silence as his office people burned to death. He never forgave himself for knowing that the last thing this kid heard on earth was being chewed out by him. My student was supposed to retire from a long military career Sept. 20 and instead spent the next 11 years missing her childrens' adolescences and the dissolution of her family. What did you do? Doodle stupid cat pictures, drink coffee, and teach the same memorized 1/2 some but not all years with summers off?
You don't invade memorials of the dead. You lack ordinary decency, not to mention any appreciation for what this country and those of us who pay for your lifestyle sacrifice so you never had to live in anything but sheltered luxury.
Please remove any comment I ever made on your blog. You're no better than the mentally ill on college campuses dancing and singing about Charlie Kirk's murder. It's sickening.
"What interests are served by keeping those horrendous events fresh in our mind and not others?"
Excellent question.
"I assume the terrorists of this world enjoy seeing their grand achievement made the center of attention over and over again.".
Let them know it. Let them know that we have not forgotten. Though many of our young have no concept of what it was on that day, how it stopped the entire world, how every jet and airplane in US air was grounded in short time. How the nation became still...and one. We have to do a better job of teaching what happened to the youngest of us. So that we NEVER forget.
Let the terrorists know that we remember. Let them know that we have long memories. And that we are still coming for them.
And at some point, we will, like the Israelis, say 'Enough'. And then do what must be done to those who would have our lives.
25 years is a long time. A generation. I hadn't even met my wife when this was happening. I'll never forget that day, or the days that followed. I still get that feeling in my gut. I can still feel both the rage and the sadness when I see videos of it, or read witness accounts.
Your photograph is outstanding. It shows the outline of the towers, stifled, cut off and spread out, much as they were on that day. From my end, in my lifetime, I hope we never forget. And I hope we still have it in us to go after those who did it, or would do it again. 25 years is a long time. But I've not lost the rage over it.
Nice Dave…
And I mean remove all of them, today.
technochitlin said...
I think the hardest thing is, unlike after Pearl Harbor, we didn't go out and fix the problem- possibly because we can't. It just hangs there, reminding us of our loss, and there is no real closure.
We can fix it.
It just requires a people that is not morally decayed.
The world is swinging back against that moral decay. Everyone is noticing how morally depraved Islam and countries dominated by it are. The rulers of the Middle East understand the religion of their people and what it takes to keep them in line.
We are also swinging back against the post-modernists, the jooooooo haters, and the moral cowards.
The United States is going to remind everyone that we are a Christian Nation and why that makes us the best country in the world.
It turned into a business. It won't go away.
Gorgeous picture of downtown!
Jaq said...
"What interests are served by keeping those horrendous events fresh in our mind and not others?"
Excellent question.
Its the jooooooooos amrite?
O say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming...
- https://share.google/DRAFwYVTbkhHCWzMo
IIRC, we had approximately two weeks after the attack where we almost came together as one people before the usual backstabbing, thievery and other malevolent activities of Democrats resumed.
There are a lot of lessons to learn from 9/11.
One was that George Bush and the Neocons were fucking traitors.
This thread is going to provide ample opportunity for the people who can't see the difference between what George Bush did and what Trump is doing to demonstrate their stupidity and moral retardation.
Iman said...
IIRC, we had approximately two weeks after the attack where we almost came together as one people before the usual backstabbing, thievery and other malevolent activities of Democrats resumed.
You mean before George Bush led us into a war against the wrong people for purposes that had nothing to do with solving the actual problem?
"You're no better than the mentally ill on college campuses dancing and singing about Charlie Kirk's murder. It's sickening."
Did it ever occur to you that you are being manipulated? Those of us with normal emotions are child's play to be manipulated by the sociopaths that actually run our society. Look at "The Free Clinic" run by the CIA (it's public record) where experiments were done on society's outcasts. You don't think it's possible that intelligence agencies have little groups of the mentally ill, available to hand a gun to, and to give a little direction and encouragement, and probably offer some cash? This is how Ukraine does assassinations in Moscow, and you know who taught Ukraine how to do assassinations? Well, it's in the New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/25/world/europe/cia-ukraine-intelligence-russia-war.html
I first began to question these narratives with global warming, when arguments were pushed that made no logical sense, and the pushback against the critics never properly addressed the flaws that were pointed out and I have just enough math to understand the arguments. I was a full throated supporter of the war against Saddam, you can go back and check the comments here, but then I began to question why, how did I come to believe that it was the right thing to do?
The more you look at the history of the Middle East, the more you question our narratives, here is what Charlie Kirk, who not only opposed the ethnic cleansing in Gaza, but the Iran war, said:
***“We displaced the democratically elected leader Mosaddegh and put in the Shah, which of course led to the ayatollahs of Iran,” he said, referring to former Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, who was ousted in a US-orchestrated coup in 1953. The US-backed shah of Iran was then overthrown in 1979.***
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/what-charlie-kirk-said-about-iran-israel-islam-and-jeffrey-epstein
It's funny how I agree with many of the things that Charlie Kirk said more than a lot of you guys, but where I draw the line is this:
“I believe in the scriptural land rights given to Israel. I believe in fulfilment of prophecy. "
Now Turning Point has a leader who never ever questions Israel or the wars. Funny how that worked out.
Well, those first two weeks were full of uncertainty and many of us expected hidden cells or a chemical attack or some other shoe to drop. We were hyper vigilant but also some of us had to struggle through those days confronting other follow-on problems caused by the attack. Many of my colleagues were trapped in Mexico or overseas when planes were grounded. I spent most of the first week working my way home to SoCal from Boston, having flown in on AA10 on 9/10, the last successful flight that airplane made.
The plane stays overnight and turns into flight AA11 the next morning and heads back to LA. You know the rest of the story.
Some people fall more into the category of "let's not give them the satisfaction"; others, "remembrance"; others "never again." Some overlap. This was a deeply dark day. I begrudge no one their individual reactions (other than those cheering the attack, etc., of course). It was a profound day, a reset, and one we've not got quite right yet.
I want to remember the dead victims (including some I knew or knew of--like a friend's boyfriend and a friend of my brother). I want to remember the absolute valor of the FDNY and others, many of whom also died. And I want to honor those who worked so hard and so long in the aftermath. I want to acknowledge the pain of friends and families and colleagues of the victims. I want to grieve for what we lost that day, and I want to mourn the wrenching shift in our society and in the world.
I want to fight my (natural) cynicism and embrace gratitude and hope.
R.I.P.
"Its the jooooooooos amrite?"
If you get to redefine Judaism to exclusively mean Israeli Zionists, well, making a big deal about 9-11 certainly serves their interests.
Usa usa usa
Ann triggered another grrrl fight.
It's like she raped TinaTrent all over again...
Lol
What a show.
"I assume the terrorists of this world enjoy seeing their grand achievement made the center of attention over and over again. I assume they are encouraged, seeing us reliving our pain annually."
Do you feel encouraged on August 6th? I don't, so I wouldn't presume others would.
Jaq, what it must be like to live in there.
A memorial acknowledges our past, reflects on our present, and gives purpose to our future.
Look how many wars we got to fight over 9-11.
We had bin Laden dead to rights, dropping bomb after bomb on Tora Bora, when suddenly a pause in the bombing was ordered, and bin Laden escaped back to Pakistan. Why? Because if we had killed bin Laden two weeks into the war, it would have been hard not to declare victory and bring our troops home.
Here is Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor telling the Mujahadeen to go take back Afghanistan, with American funding, weapons, and training, BT.W.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=A9RCFZnWGE0&ra=m
Say what you will about the communist aligned government in Afghanistan in the '70s, they didn't put women in Burkas.
Please don't go, Tina. We need your perspective and your eloquent truth telling. I find it interesting that you are my neighbor on the other side of Lake Lanier, but we will probably never meet. I hope this is not farewell.
For better or worse, Bush ended the war in Iraq, a gateway for terrorism. Trump is on track to end the war in Iran, fertile ground for terrorism.
This is the 25th anniversary, so there's more bustle about it than usual. It's a generational thing. Europe was haunted for years by WWII. American boomers grew up in an age saturated with memories of WWII. This is what Americans alive in 2001 have instead of Verdun, the Somme, Pearl Harbor or Stalingrad. As we pass from the scene, there'll be less to-do about 9/11, just like with 12/7 or 11/22.
We were fighting in Iraq after Bush left office. We are still there in a small way (final withdrawal due at the end of this month). We aren't going to conquer Iran. If we tried, it would be another forever war.
Attacking Iraq wasn't a rational response to 911, but "let's not give them the satisfaction of thinking about it" is never a satisfactory response to real and serious attacks.
I'm watching the Golden Globe Race (solo sailors around the world nonstop, just started. Live streaming from most of the boats in turn). No mention of 9/11, curiously, as if it's not a thing that can be profited off of in France.
current stream
Ann said she doesn’t like the terrorist forcing us into darkness. When I visited Omaha Beach, in Normandy in 2016, I was surprised at how it looks now. The WWII photos show a barren landscape, where the Germans had cleared all the house but two that they kept for observation posts. All the bushes were gone as they cleared fields of fire. When we visited, the houses were back, people were cooking out and there were even some nude sunbathers on their decks. I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about that, on what we Americans think of as hallowed grounds. I asked my guide about it and he said “The French, particularly in Normandy, have great respect for the sacrifices the Allies made on those beaches and all over Normandy. But they also believed the sacrifices were made so life could go on”.
Indeed. To think otherwise would let them into our minds. Be respectful but don’t let the bastards win.
technochitlin,
There's a world of difference between "can't" and "won't".
And note that the Kaaba is still standing.
"If you get to redefine Judaism to exclusively mean Israeli Zionists, well, making a big deal about 9-11 certainly serves their interests."
Indeed. It serves to remind and alert Israelis, and the world, of precisely what Islamic terrorists will do to Israel if given the means and opportunity.
“We can fix it.” — Achilles, I hope you are right. I hope we can shake off this decadent goo of decline.
9/11 was my daughter’s 10th birthday. We opened presents before school in a peaceful world. The news broke, the morning was, as I’d imagine, it was for most of us living outside of NYC. By early afternoon, I had a decision to make— shall we go on with our planned birthday dinner, or keep candlelight vigil? I poured myself into making the best meatballs and German chocolate cake ever, set a beautiful, goofy table, and decided we would simply continue with what was truly of value and in front of us.
That exercise forged a template for how I would come to view the small things that make family life, as great towers against the spirit of the age that seeks to seduce and dominate us.
I am not called to wade into the great questions of the day. I can’t stop AI or Iran from getting the bomb. But I can create a refuge each and every day with the blessings I have been given, and share them with those around me.
Choosing to not actively remember is not the equivalent of forgetting.
A good friend of mine was on the 95th floor of the North Tower on 9/11. We know thanks to a co-worker that he survived the initial attack. He communicated to the co-worker that he was scared and that smoke was filling in his office. His family recovered a jawbone fragment and some other bits and pieces in the years that followed. It would be hard to explain to him the insanity that has followed in the 25 years since his murder, especially pertaining to the wars, the loss of civil liberties, the justification of torture as an instrument of state policy, and the two time election of Donald J. Trump. The only consolation in any of this are the friendships that have endured through all of this with his absence almost acting like a gravitational force holding people together over 25 years despite distance and time.
How many people in the days after would have predicted that there would not be another attack of that nature for 25 years and counting. Our government did lots of things right after 9/11. .
9/11 also revealed the best of America. The 343 firemen - over 400 first responders in total - who died rushing into those burning buildings.The unbelievable compassion strangers on NYC streets showed each other in the long aftermath - the untold and innumerable acts of kindness, the tears that needed no apology and the comforting hugs and hands on shoulders that were given and accepted without embarrassment.
We were a society with divisions then too. With a president who had lost the popular vote, who had needed litigation to ultimately end the election, whose competence many questioned.
But what the Althouse post fails to note - what many, many have failed to learn and grasp - is the deep and remarkable strength and unity that is latent in America; not something that was forged for a moment on 9/11 and then lost, but something that was always there, that showed when the occasion demanded, and skeptics and naysayers and snide sophisticates and buffoonish critics full of false and cheap self-righteousness be damned.
That latent strength and unity is there still. It remains.
Among all else we will remember this day, we will remember that.
And let others forget it at their peril.
I refuse to disrespect the dead by not honoring their passing in such a violent and diabolical act, just as I refuse to dishonor my country for its imperfections. We are only as good as our values, and our commitment to defend them.
"What interests are served by keeping those horrendous events fresh in our mind and not others?"
Still a good question.
As long as the war that resulted from the attacks went on, it was only natural that the event that sparked the war would be prominently marked by the nation. Many regarded the Afghanistan withdrawal as the end of the GWOT, but there has been no official proclamation and we are still fighting radical Islam around the world and we are told that we are still not safe from such attacks at home despite the ever increasing power of the security state.
So what interests are served? Those that seek to benefit from our fears. There are many. Americans are told they need to be afraid, afraid of threats from afar and afraid of one another. And anger follows fear.
Here's another controversy for us to get angry about. We tend to reflexively turn it into a binary, but like almost all our divisive issues, it isn't one.
Islam is the Religion of Peace like Syphilis is the ________.
We're fighting in Mexico. We're fighting in America. A neverending war of competing interests, some who entertain abortive ideation to garner progress.
1. 33% of Americans have no memory of 9/11.
2. Please don't go Tina.
Iman
Thank you. I spit my coffee out, but thank you.
While I am usually in sync with Tina Trent, who sees the world through an interesting lens, I would not remove her posts. They are a treasure to be preserved.
In the same spirit, we preserve the memory of other things such as 9/11. It is not a quirk of fate that Holocaust survivors around the world record their testimonies about terrible events that are indexed and securely held by archives such as the USC Shoah Foundation and made available to the public. They know that this effort must be made in order to ensure that these events are not lost among the detritus of other horrible event over time.
And we cannot ignore that there are certain folks out there who seek to ensure that ultimately what we think we recall…was a lie.
- Krumhorn
Jaq
What is the purpose of remembering?
I remember every scar on my body. Everything that got them there.
There is a scar in NY. I find it painful to view the event. What sticks in my mind is the sound of bodies hitting the pavement. Lives of real people. people who didn't hurt anybody. Their lives coming to down to two choices. Burn or jump. So yeah, I remember.
Continuity.
Every event that happens in the universe affects you. It’s like gravity if the event is close and massive it affects you greatly, if distant and small you don’t feel it. So the impact depends on where you are.
I think we remember things based on personal contact with the participants, once the people who lived it are no longer around the event moves into history and not lived experience. Pearl Harbor will be discussed less and less and 911 will do the same around 2080. I still think about D Day in June, but don’t usually remember Gettysburg or Vicksburg in July. We remember people we knew, I think that's how we are built.
@Tina Trent, why not stick around, it's just about to get more interesting, and venting your spleen once in a while is perfectly acceptable to the mostly high quality riff-raff who visit.
To say that remembering is just making the terrorists happy is wrong. Remember and let them know you remember. They can be proud their victory has brought them ashes. Living in reality successfully means acknowledging all and living with it.
I worked a few blocks from the WTC. I had a necessary job, and I stayed on it. Everyone knew that that white haze we were inhaling couldn't possibly be healthy, but what can you do. Anyway, I broke eighty, and my present COPD might have just as well be caused by the pack per day Marlboro habit I had for a good chunk of my life.......I'd just as soon let the day pass unnoticed. It certainly seems to be the most successful terror attack since the assassination or the Archduke Ferdinand. In retrospect, I don't think WWI was the best possible response to that terror attack.
Now we have a Democrat party submerged in Islamic Love affair and communism.
Blame the Zionists! Fuck off Tuq'r.
What interests it serves is clickbait. Everybody wants traffic. Your being considered patriotic depends on clicking.
On the other hand you're a dupe for manipulation for whatever follows from clicking.
Overall I think the remembrance of 9/11 still unites Americans.
It's analogous to the Tea Party, killed by people wanting to lead the Tea Party. Their manipulations were not part of the original genuine response idea and everybody rejected it. Of course rejecting was on the patriotic side as the deep state presented it then.
General rule (women hate generalizations): if it's on display, it's not patriotism.
@Tina Trent
“Please remove any comment I ever made on your blog.“
Those were great comments and we need you to stick around.
Althouse has her opinions and she offers a space for everyone to make their points as well.
@rhhardin:
“women hate generalizations”
It’s the men who hate generalizations. As soon as I make one about men, they get all snippy.
News Nation on X has excellent respectful content on 9/11.
Leftists and Jew blamers can f-off.
Eva - RH can't get laid so he is very frustrated and hates females. Don't let him get to you.
Islam is the Religion of Peace like Syphylis is the Gift of Love
Excellent, Stan Smith!!!
I have a good friend (jr. high school to the present time) who had flown back to Boston to interview for a job on the 10th who would’ve been on the flight out of Boston returning to LA on Tuesday morning had the company not asked him to come back for a second interview that morning.
We both played HS basketball and one of our teammates was the younger brother of Capt. Chip Burlingame, who was the pilot of the hijacked plane that crashed into the Pentagon.
I get Althouse's point, but the real problem is not that we pause to remember the day, the dead, and the heroes, but that we have failed to come to grips with the Islamic threat. Instead we have let millions of Muslims enter the country, and elected a pro-Jihad mayor of the very city that was attacked, not to mention a slew of far-left pro-Islamist members of Congress. It would be fine to remember the day as we do, if only we also were not also submitting to Islamic infiltration of our country. (Needless to say, by "we" I don't mean people here, but the political elites and their supporters who kowtow to Islam.)
👆What James K wrote👆
We need to maintain a war footing and there are forces in government and our society in general that are actively working against that.
I was living in New Zealand on 9-11 watching videos of many people jumping to their deaths from the towers. I was told later by friends in the US that very few, if any, videos played here showed them jumping. I’ve always wondered if that was true. When I ask here people say they don’t remember. I can’t forget!
James K (11:38) is absolutely right, but people here don’t recognize Muslim propaganda promulgated first by Geo. W. Bush: “Religion of Peace.” What crap!
Hombre, there's a fantastic documentary on that subject.
9/11: The Falling Man
Powerful doc about the attacks on September 11. So many people are trapped in the towers. And they’re desperately talking to their loved ones on the phone. And then people start breaking the windows in the skyscraper so they can get oxygen and breathe. And people are falling and jumping to their deaths. And an AP photographer takes a photograph of a falling man. The image is beautiful and it upsets a lot of people. And then a journalist identifies the wrong man as the falling man. And that upsets a lot more people. Man, this movie will make you cry.
Bad link, trying again.
Please remove any comment I ever made on your blog. You're no better than the mentally ill on college campuses dancing and singing about Charlie Kirk's murder. It's sickening.
The other possibility, Tina, is that you misunderstood what she wrote.
How can you be posting here so long and not know Ann Althouse, her spirit and her kindness? I totally get her not wanting to dwell on atrocities. That's your basic liberal move, to try to see the good. You've misjudged her, horribly, when you say she is a cheerleader for all these murders. It's completely wrong and an awful thing to say.
Their Best for the Survivors - THE WHO 9/11
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aruDK5EmAl8
They were falling.
The cameras in the helicopters captured it all.
I watched it as it was happening.
Later it was known to first responders to be aware of the bodies crashing down from on high.
How many readers of this blog took seriously Loose Change, Dylan Avery’s 2005 documentary?
I can’t imagine every viewer became a committed “truther,” of course. But the film significantly amplified doubts and alternative narratives about 9/11, became quite popular with certain audiences, and helped demonstrate how conspiracy narratives could spread through the emerging internet ecosystem.
Loose Change was just the begginning of the torrent of false information that riles up the mouth breathers.
If 9-11 happened today, no doubt that Alex Jones, Qanon and many MAGAt subcultures would immediately cast doubt that it happened the way we all saw it happen;
" No man, the place was wired to blow form the inside....by the jews!"
I mean look what happened with covid. A lot of formely thinking people lost their minds, went off the deep end and never came back.
Grok tells me that about 900,000 people have been killed in the global war on terror since 9/11/2001. 300,000 of them enemy combatants. 97% of the 900,000 were Muslims. Not a real great outcome for the Islamists, but I doubt they care.
I remember the terrible feelings I felt as I watched it slowly unfold. I remember the heartbreaking stories of senseless loss of innocent lives, but I also remember incredible stories of courage, love, and sacrifice. In balance, I was proud of my country and its people that day, and humbled to be considered among them.
Tragedy is not something we should take ownership of even if we suffered it personally, but certainly not by association, and certainly not to use as a weapon against your own.
'.......If 9-11 happened today, no doubt .... subcultures would immediately cast doubt that it happened the way we all saw it happen....'
And yet the only one spouting such manifest nonsense, or even alluding to any of it - is you. Go touch some grass, idiot.
We should have rebuilt the towers, five stories higher, then turned the Middle East into glass.
Then acted like nothing ever happened.
FortheloveofIce said...
'.......If 9-11 happened today, no doubt that Alex Jones, Qanon and many MAGAt subcultures would immediately cast doubt that it happened the way we all saw it happen;'
I doubt it....since most of the people who didn't believe it were people like Rosie O'Donnell, and we all know she is on YOUR side with the other crazies.
Front page story on the NYT website today: Headline: 'After 9/11, Islamophobia shaped a generation of Muslim New Yorkers.'
Here, some terrific optics at the Memorial site, as the names of the dead are read out and their families mourn.
No, Joe. Leave the lights where they are. Two big middle fingers to the Muslim world.
So two "different" accounts both reference Loose Change back to back. I smell dirty socks
Spencer Pratt
@spencerpratt
·
4h
While normal Americans cry, commie Mamdani and AOC laugh it up at the 9/11 memorial in New York. They hate you. They hate your country. They enjoy your misery. We cannot allow these people to have power.
https://x.com/spencerpratt/status/2098448537088303171?s=20
*If 9-11 happened today, no doubt that Alex Jones, Qanon and many MAGAt subcultures would immediately cast doubt that it happened the way we all saw it happen;*
With rare exception, the Truthers I've encountered have all been leftist fuckheads like you.
You know, the people screaming that ChimpyMcHilterburton MIHOPed or LIHOPed 9/11.
And regarding Covid? We were right, asshole. About all of it.
You were wrong.
Announcing your departure and demanding that all your posts be removed seems a bit, dare I say it, hysterical. I find Tina's endless indignation a bit tiresome.
God knows our heart.
Bondi Beach hero
I like rememebering the heroism of "lets roll" and the first responders. All the other stuff, including the hate, should be left in the past.
It'd be interesting to speculate on what our rememberance would be like if 4000 people had been killed in Kansas City on 911.
Does anyone remember those killed in DC? They seem to be forgotten.
What interests are served by keeping those horrendous events fresh in our mind and not others?
Spielberg struggled for years trying to figure out how to make a movie about the Holocaust. How do you find the goodness out of all those atrocities? And he finally found Oskar Schindler, who saved 1,200 people. And he told that story. Fantastic movie.
If you live in Europe you have so many "dates of death" to remember. We've been lucky. Pearl harbor, 911. Attacks by foreigners on US soil have been extremely rare.
Our obsession with 911 does seem to be a little manipulative in 2026. Noel Coward was complaining in his diary in 1960 that nobody in the UK seemed to give a damn about the battle of britain. Especially the young'uns.
But the world moves on.
I'd like to hear more about Pearl Harbor every December 7th. But no one seems to care. The Arizona Memorial was very moving.
MJB Wolf: "Well, those first two weeks were full of uncertainty."
Yes, and one of the uncertainties was whether or not the US was going to nuke the Muslim world.
Because that's what the Muslim world would have done had the roles been reversed.
Once the wogs realized we were going to fight back with Queensbury rules rather than Bronze Age morality, they all relaxed. CC, JSM
Lots of comments about significant dates falling into obscurity. This was happening with WWII even while that generation was still alive. GHW Bush, whose life was irrevocably changed by Pearl Harbor, misidentified the date as September 7 - at the American Legion convention! VE and VJ Days used to be BFDs, but now can only be found on, well, the American Legion or VFW calendars.
And of course hardly anyone can keep Memorial and Veterans Days distinguished, or remember that the latter was originally the WWI Armistice Day, while the former was started as a Civil War remembrance.
It probably is better for us as a country for some of these dates to fade away. Do we really want to be like Yugoslavia, remembering battles from 500 years ago? Oh, that's right, there is no Yugoslavia any more. Because of all those kids taught to remember what the great-greats of their schoolmates did.
OTOH, we don't want to forget the general idea that freedom isn't free, the tree of liberty must be watered by the blood of tyrants, etc.
I dunno. CC, JSM
There's much to be said for the forgetting past wrongs as a people. Certainly dredging up the events of WW2 which was over 80 years ago, Nazis, Jews, Soviets, Chinese, Poles, Germans, Japanese, etc. and obsessing about them is unhealthy.
Memorial day served a purpose which was to bring the North and South together to remember all the brave men who fought and died on both sides.
Veterans Day was a victim of events. The war to end all wars turned out to be just world war part 1.
RCOCEAN II said...
I'd like to hear more about Pearl Harbor every December 7th. But no one seems to care. The Arizona Memorial was very moving.
The difference between December 7th and 9/11 is december 11th was avenged properly.
9/11 was hijacked by traitors to pass the Patriot act and start wars against countries that had nothing to do with it at the behest of Lloyds of London.
The Saudis are some of Trump's biggest business partners and investors.
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