Tuesday, September 13, 2011
9/11 - the most historic event in recent history
I had thought when I went to work Monday morning some folks would have a different perspective in light of the preceding day's solemn and extremely moving events, don't worry about stupid stuff......uhm, no. We don't discuss current events much, I'm always the one to bring up the topic but then again I never married my job. It's been years since I read the late Claire Sterling's seminal work The Terror Network published in 1981 and what's changed is that then terrorism was mainly political whereas today's it's largely inspired by a warped vision of God. Sure Hamas and Hezbollah are still political but it's a weird development, after the Cold War never dreamed we'd be at war with radical Islam. You don't believe in Allah and we'll kill you, when did that happen? Saw Frontline's "Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero" the other night which while superbly produced and asked legitimate questions somehow left me uninspired and empty. Doesn't anyone ponder this puzzle that God chose to give us the gift of free will and that means the freedom to choose evil in many cases, to make bad decisions and that all too often those bad choices negatively, even tragically impact and impose themselves on others, the good, the innocent, the virtuous? Put another way if God forced you to be faithful to your spouse it wouldn't mean anything so I'm a little more on God's side here and also if you never had Evil could you really appreciate the Good? If the world was always and forever a perpetual Eden with no tears and sorrow, no suffering and no death would we even know what the Good is? How horrible those people died on that day and your immediate thought is there but for the grace of God. To make that terrible terrible decision to die in overwhelming fire or to jump 80 or even 100 stories hand in hand with a complete stranger in some cases. My own mother many months before this even happened was sitting on the couch one day and said she had a very bad feeling. She felt cold she said and then said she felt something very terrible was gonna happen to the World Trade Center and it's always struck me to this day. I've heard others say similar things so I do believe in a kind of psychic reality. 9/11 unified us as never before and how could it not? I'm sure those people who chose to jump sometimes again with that complete stranger were not contemplating their political differences or the stupid stuff that went on at work last week and that's one of the great lessons here. The other is this tragic event so mind-boggling in the magnitude of its sheer evil, this existentially surreal Happening brought out the worst but more importantly the best in Humanity. We also went from the sublime to Rachel Uchitel becoming one of Tiger Woods' bevy of mistresses so the poetic always somehow becomes mixed with the tabloid culture but that's to be expected. Then there was my lady boss who yesterday was doing her work as usual and asked me what date it is and I'm thinking but didn't say it just how uninformed are you? I mean I'm not a nerd or anything but when you go home what do you do? Do you at least pop on the News for 10 or 15 minutes before going to bed? Again an extremely moving and poignant day and make no mistake, we live in a post 9/11-centric world. It imbues all our thoughts, our very psyche and it did affect my sleep that night. Though it was an adequate sleep it was a kind of somber and fitful slumber and my dreams and thoughts drifted back to this tragic framework brought on by the day's events. What are your thoughts?
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Of course I've always seemed to take the unpopular opinion but my feeling on the whys behind this terrorism goes back to the Crusades. Apart from that, American as well as (historically) Christian imperialism plays into the picture. On the one hand, America (and other Western nations such as England) have attempted to impose Western culture onto foreign nations ostensibly to 'civilize' the native savages, demeaning those natives and their own cultures, which in many cases were highly advanced and sophisticated. This is still going on today. On the other hand, historically, Christianity and the 'Holy Roman Empire' has marginalized, persecuted, banished, discriminated against and even made illegal other religions besides its own. If you think that these things get forgotten overnight or even in a hundred or five hundred or a thousand years, you're wrong. Even in our own country today we can see Christian attempts to dominate and marginalize other religious beliefs.
ReplyDeleteI'm not discounting any of the violence or death nor am I trying to minimalize it, but I think the wholesale blaming of the entire Islamic religion, that so many people have embraced, is both naive and evidence of a xenophobic ignorance.
What I think is the best memorial to those who died that day are the people who are working today to promote tolerance, positivity, acceptance and peace in their memory. Rather than protesting Islam, trying to block the building of a mosque, flipping out everytime someone's wearing hijab, instead, these people are doing practical work towards a positive future. And that's where the real business is: the taking of a tragedy and instead of focusing on revenge and bitterness, turning it around to work for good.
The whole thing makes me sick, and it has become a whole political thing instead of an actual day of remembrance. When we stop caring about what actually happened that day, then the damn terrorist won.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's even possible to know exactly what happened that day to begin with. Some 3,000 people died. You know how many people died in Vietnam? Korea?
ReplyDeleteEach and every day that civil liberties here in America continue to be eroded the terrorists are winning. Each and every instance that the American military presence expands around the globe, specifically in the Middle East, the terrorists are winning.
Sat you kind of buttress my theory that libs have always had a bigger problem with Christianity than with radical Islam and if I read you right radical Islam is a reaction to Christianity? Beth I agree and that's why I just wanted to focus on the tragic events of that day, our common humanity. Soap conspiracy theories about 9/11 always seem so vague to me: do they mean to say our own gov't knew it was going to happen and did nothing OR our own gov't did it (bizarre) OR our own gov't was in cahoots with the terrorists (24-style) and let them do it? I'll stick with the facts of that day, that al-Qaeda did it.
ReplyDeleteI don't have a problem with Christianity. I do think that the role of the Christian church in attempting to dominate the earth, historically, gets minimized and ignored. How can you discount the Crusades? How can you discount Western attempts to usurp Eastern cultures with Coca-Cola imperialism? How can you forget these things? And how can you think that it doesn't have an effect?
ReplyDeleteAnd it's not just the Muslims that were targeted. Jews were evicted wholesale from entire countries. (These are the same Jews that Christians today feel it's a national duty to protect. Tempus mutantur.) The Albigenses, the Waldenses, plenty of other groups were also targeted. The difference is that most of them were entirely eliminated, and the Jews have, if you look at it in the long view, chosen one enemy over another.
So I'm not blaming Christianity per se, but I am asking that people recognize that radical Islamic violence didn't materialize out of nowhere, nor was it just some bright idea that someone came up with for no apparent reason. And also that the blanket condemnation of ALL Muslims (which is currently a popular opinion these days) is inaccurate, naive and plain ignorant.
And I do and have always agreed with Soap on this issue: I find it virtually impossible to believe that in the most watched airspace on the planet, where radar coverage is so complete that they can probably distinguish a seagull from a butterfly, two commercial airliners managed to get off course, fly straight down the route of the Hudson and slam into two of the most iconic buildings in the world. Not to mention that they flew past an airforce base. It's just as improbable in my book as some other widely accepted notions (which I won't mention now because they'll totally divert the thread).
The "facts". LOL
ReplyDelete"Whoever controls the media, the images, controls the culture." - Allen Ginsberg
Saty and Z, I suggest heading over to my blog and watching the recently published vid 9/11 A conspiracy theory. It's not that long and puts the obsurdity of the"facts" into perspective.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't find it Soap... I looked. But no need convincing me that the canonical version of events is full of absurdity.
ReplyDeleteAnd Z: when I talk about Western Imperialism, I'm not just talking about America nor am I just talking about the Middle East. Let's face it, the historical facts are that white people of multiple Western nations (Spain, Portugal, France, England, America, Holland)spent hundreds of years in 'conquest', in the process either eliminating natives (Native Americans), marginalizing them (Native Americans, Aborigines), discounting their religious beliefs (all the religions of Africa and India) and basically attempting to replace native culture with their own. Even Max Muller, who translated many Hindu scriptures into English, stated that the reason he learned Hindi in the first place was to 'infiltrate' the local culture and work towards converting Hindus from their 'pagan, Satanic' beliefs to the 'true religion'. These attempts to subdue the natives in the name of 'civilizing' (and exploiting) them are not relegated to long-gone centuries; the British Raj is still within recent memory, as are Nazi attempts to eradicate the Jews, and even in our own country, both from the moment of its inception and today, attempts to marginalize (and demonize, and eliminate) certain religions and groups. So this is neither a strictly American nor a strictly historical issue.
ReplyDeleteAnd far from 'liberals having a problem with Christianity', you cannot deny that the Holy Roman Empire controlled politics in its time throughout the Western world and was a heavy influence (besides pure economics) on the decisions of all these nations to go out and 'subdue the earth in the name of God'.
Many of these usurped cultures never fought back nor attempted to revolt; many were exploited (read: African slavery, Indian servants of the Raj) or shipped off to those parts of nations considered undesirable and unprofitable (Native Americans, Aborigines, the African tribes and nations of South Africa) or sent to other places entirely (Jews). On the other hand, some have fought back; the Irish and Scots are still waging this war despite treaties and so forth, and the Middle East also continues to fight against the Westernization of their countries.
I should point out in fairness that although this imperialism is mostly a Western phenomenon it has happened and is happening in Asia as well with the Chinese working hard and succeeding in eliminating the Tibetans, and the historic wars between the Japanese and Chinese for dominance.
Maybe it's because so many of these cultures were conquered without a struggle that we've come to expect that non-reaction, and so we find the fight of a nation or group to maintain its own identity in whatever way it can in the face of superior military strength and the relentless force of McDonalds, Pepsi and Domino's so abhorrent. Without minimalizing the tragedies that have occurred, in the honest, objective assessment of the facts, we would do precisely the same thing. George Washington used guerilla warfare to attempt to offset the superior power of the British during the Revolution. It's no different, except now there are more (though still inadequate for a fair fight) resources available to the disadvantaged.
I just want to put in very clear perspective that what goes around comes around, and in no way can Western nations and cultures, over a period of hundreds of years of provocation, claim any innocence when revenge gets taken.
http://soapboxgod.blogspot.com/2011/09/ignorance-is-strength.html
ReplyDeleteThat was so damn good I put it on FB.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing to me the vilification people have gotten simply for asking these questions. I've been told I'm treasonous... I think it's just that the thought of believing these things is just too painful for people to accept.
"I think it's just that the thought of believing these things is just too painful for people to accept."
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly what it is. Governments (ours included) have a good laundry list; a train of abuses if you will.
It shows a lack of thought and logic when people can't come to terms with the fact that government officials would kill 3,000+ people on 9/11 when you consider that by government policy roughly 53,000 were killed during the Korean war and another 58,000 during the Vietnam war.
3,000 deaths for some statist agenda is nothing.
The truth shall set you free. I don't claim to know what the truth is. We're still searching for it regarding 9/11 but I can tell you one thing, it isn't what you've been led to believe.
Re your comments about airspace on 9/11 Saty that would imply they were in on it too and imo the more people that would have to get involved to get a good conspiracy going the less likely that conspiracy is true in the first place. What did they all go yep, let's do it?
ReplyDeleteIt is important to point out Z (in case you did not know) that there were military exercises being conducted days before 9/11 and as well on 9/11. At least 2 of the exercises were simulations of a hijacked plane.
ReplyDeleteThis is an important fact as it would obviously distort one's perception about what was actually occuring on the morning of 9/11. Thus, due to the confusion of separating the simulation exercise(s) from the real event, individuals working to control the airspace would have unknowingly made the operation that much easier to carry out. The way it was setup, they didn't need to specifically know what the real plan was as they were, from the get go, set up to focus on something entirely different.
What gets me is we actually trained the hijackers in a way. What was it, down in Arizona somewhere and they said to the instructors we want to learn how to fly a jetliner but not how to land it and nobody found that strange? Actually a couple people did but it never reached up the food chain in any meaningful way.
ReplyDeleteColeen Rowley found it strange. I know Coleen personally.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coleen_Rowley
Z, with a good setup, a professional setup handled by people who manage delicate, sensitive, international covert operations on a daily basis, very few people need to know. Plenty of actions can be taken and made by people who are completely ignorant of the reasons behind why they were told to do it or what the implications and consequences will be. They've been used for a higher purpose.
ReplyDeleteNow, if we can agree on the fact that there are more air-traffic-controller eyeballs on the Northeast Corridor than anywhere else on the world, then I would like you to explain how multiple commercial jets (not hangliders, hot air balloons, or Cessnas) were monstrously off course for not five minutes but a considerable period of time, flying past an airforce base, and not one of those air-traffic-controller eyeballs did one single thing about it. How do you explain that?
Seriously, how can you explain it?
Let me also throw this little factoid at you (courtesy Wiki) to put some perspective on the hugeness of the environment we're describing:
ReplyDeleteIn 2010, LaGuardia handled just under 24.0 million passengers; JFK handled 46.5 million[1] and Newark handled 33.1 million,[1] making for a total of approximately 104 million travelers using New York airports, which is the largest airport system in the United States, largest in the world in terms of flight operations, and second in the world (after London) in terms of passenger traffic.
I'm putting this up so that we can get a better perspective of exactly what kind of airspace we're talking about. Those numbers only reflect those three airports and not the smaller ones like Westchester County and Stewart, which complicate the scene even more.
The other thing I noticed during last Sunday's memorial coverage and the docudramas and films of that day was the very dramatic photographic coverage of the moments just when those two planes hit. Now I realize everyone has some device or doodad to take pictures these days, a cop gets rough with someone and it winds up on the evening news that night but if I wanted to put on my conspiratorial hat for a minute I'd say some people were ready for it and got excellent camera angles and the like. Some guy was just in the right place at the right time and pointed his camera up at the sky willy-nilly and caught a jet going into a skyscraper, yeah right (just to play Devil's Advocate here). Also soon as the first tower was hit the second tower should have been evacuated as in pronto although I realize this is a very time-consuming process obviously. I mean yeah I had questions too the first day it happened but I mostly chalk it up to simple incompetence, the Peter Principle once again.
ReplyDeleteI'll go to my grave that this wasn't incompetence.
ReplyDeleteIncompetence was flight 93, which was likely headed for WTC7, getting shot down because someone didn't get the memo that it was supposed to hit WTC7. This of course may very well been the reason that, in the words of WTC complex owner Larry Silverstein, the order was given to pull it.
Bear in mind that WTC7 housed offices of the IRS, SEC, CIA, Secret Service, etc.
The most notable of those probably being the SEC considering that at the time of the event thousands of files for numerous investigations were housed there.
I recommended it to Saty but if you can get about an hour of computer time at the library or end up at a friend's where you can watch it, you should check out Youtube and watch Loose Change. If that doesn't make you rethink the "official" story then nothing will.
ReplyDeleteI'm gonna watch it after 5-O. I'll let you know what I think. Hopefully it won't take three hours to buffer (we have slow 'rural' internet because we're several miles from the nearest switching station or whatever it's called). I'm not complaining-we used to have dialup, and slow DSL is still more stable and cheaper than sattelite (which we had for a couple years).
ReplyDeleteOMG, Soap.
ReplyDeleteI can imagine people just getting up and walking away from the computer. The conflict it would produce in them would be overwhelming.
Thanks for pointing me to it. It was an eye opener.
Glad you watched it and enjoyed it. The truth is out there.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think of the new 5-0 Saty? My brother says it's bad writing.
ReplyDeleteI've only seen it once. Here are my quick impressions. The girl is wimpy. I think she needs to be a little tougher like the chick on NCI with the eyebrows (have no idea which NCI and don't know her name) or even better the chick from Flashpoint. Her name is Jules. Second, they have the coolest gadgets. I love that table computer thing that you can fling stuff onto the wall computer. Although Flashpoint has cool gadgets and they also have the kickass uniforms.
ReplyDeleteI think Scott Caan is a good choice for Danno. I didn't particularly like the guy they have for Steve and I do like the guy they got for Chin.
If I had to choose which shows to watch I'd take Flashpoint over the new 5 O but I would take the old 5O over either of them (and MeTV is moving it from 5PM to noon so I won't get to see it anymore.. agony agony).
And I do have one question: what is it with these NCI shows that they have to have the freaky girl? I mean that chick Abby, isn't she a bit old to be dressing like she's some kind of highschool goth queen? There's another girl on another one of the NCIs that I saw one time, and she was some lab chick and she was all freaky dressed too. I just always think of Kill Bill and that girl GoGo. I mean, is it just to appeal to the BDSM crowd or what? Anyway it irritates me.
That's all I know.
PS Scott just said the other freaky girl isn't on NCI, she's on Criminal Minds. I didn't watch that one, I was probably just passing through the room at the time.
ReplyDeleteStill the point remains.
I don't watch Criminal Minds and other shows like it because it always seems to be about serial killers. I've never really watched NCI just saw a bunch of promos and even judging from the promos Abby's her name? irritates me.
ReplyDeleteI think you should get a look at Flashpoint. It's not like the other shows.
ReplyDeleteI was just passing through the room and I got absolutely riveted. It moves fast and it's real psychological. Plus they only use lethal force as a last resort.
And of course they got the kickass uniforms.
Take a look and tell me what you think of it. I think it's on tonight.
I'm actually one of the few people left who don't have cable. I remember when cable first came out it was something like 19 bucks a month. I was thinking though why not just have ALL the channels out there for free? O'Reilly and the rest but of course there's no money in that, just sayin'
ReplyDelete