I was in New York City on 9/11/01. I lived about a mile from the World Trade Center, across the Brooklyn Bridge. I literally felt the impact when the first airplane his the first of the Twin Towers. I rushed to the waterfront and saw the second plane fly into the second tower. I was traumatized for months afterwards, maybe longer. I will never forget.
Please pause and remember the nearly 3,000 souls who lost their lives that terrible morning and the brave firefighters and police who died while bravely responding to the disaster.
This is a documentary that I have posted before about the greatest boatlift in history, the story of the spontaneous flotilla that rescued survivors.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
And while you’re remembering those 2,996 deaths, also remember that in response, the U.S. has murdered somewhere between 5-7 million innocent people in about half a dozen Muslim countries, as well as displaced 37 million more.
In addition, the “unity” following September 11 was used to consolidate fascist power in the form of the Patriot Act, the NDAA, the creation of Homeland Security and other similar gross erosions of American civil liberties.
View at Medium.com
Trump demands ‘patriotic education’ in U.S. schools.
Children must be taught that America is “an exceptional, free and just nation, worth defending, preserving and protecting,” he said.
Excerpt:
“President Donald Trump said Monday that the nation must restore “patriotic education” in schools as a way to calm unrest in cities and counter “lies” about racism in the United States.
Trump blamed violent protests in Portland, Ore., and other cities in recent months on “left-wing indoctrination” in schools and universities, while accusing his Democratic presidential challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, of giving “moral aid and comfort” to vandals.”
One of the reasons I oppose blindly reciting the Pledge, jingoistic justifications for “honoring” the flag, or singing the national anthem before events that have nothing to do with civic virtue or engagement. Without discussions of what they mean, it’s all just tribal indoctrination.
Of course, saying the pledge and singing a patriotic song must be backed up with history and civics education. Without those these acts are just jingoism.
“the U.S. has murdered somewhere between 5-7 million innocent people in about half a dozen Muslim countries…”
Where is that number coming from? Russian propaganda??
Even left wing publications that are very anti-war do not try to mislead the public and claim that the deaths caused by militants and horrible dictators who rape and gas their own people are really “MURDERS” committed by the US.
I challenge you to break down the deaths in Syria and how many were victims of the US “murdering” them and how many were because of Putin and Assad.
I suspect you want to blame the US for every death that happened because the US stood by and let Putin and Assad kill innocent civilians in Syria, and you ALSO want to blame the US for every death that happened because the US tried to stop Putin and Assad from killing innocent civilians in Syria.
Do you blame Putin and Assad for ANY deaths and the displacement of millions of Syrians or is everything the fault of the US for standing by and letting it happen. Oops, I mean for getting involved. Oops, I mean for standing by and letting those civilians get killed by Putin and Assad without trying to stop it. Oops, I mean for getting involved.
Never mind — I know you would say the US murdered them all.
What is your estimate of how many innocent civilians Abraham Lincoln murdered in the Civil War and do you condemn Abraham Lincoln as a murderer?
Is Putin a murderer or not? Just wondering where your loyalties lie here.
This Medium article is written by someone who identifies as “Caitlin Johnstone” (no photo, just a drawing).
And I believe that dienne77 pulled that “US Murdered 5-7 iinnocent people in the mideast” out of thin air. Or more likely, this makes the US responsible for all the deaths caused by Putin because Putin must not be criticized.
I’d like to see dienne77’s calculation for how many people Putin murdered, but I don’t think she is allowed to post that.
This same writer also wrote in May that “Trump is a Normal President” and seems to have the exact same view as dienne77 that Putin and Trump must always get the benefit of the doubt and they are completely innocent, and the evil-doers are all the lying and dishonest Trump and Putin critics.
It is shocking how many time dienne77 and “Caitlin Johnstone” (no photo) have to devote to defending Putin and Trump and demonizing democrats and the US.
“thin air”, you obviously grew up in Yankee country. Those of us from the South have a much more descriptive, gritty phrase for that. Starts with “pulled out of…”
GregB,
lol! I grew up in the midwest. I still wear “tennishoes” and drink “pop”. Actually, some of my vocabulary has become more “easternized” since living in NYC, but I think your more “descriptive” phrase is universal!
At the time, I owned a small publishing house. My daughter called and told me to flip on the television (there was one in my office). I called my staff all into the room, and we watched in horror.
One thing I remember clearly was a newscaster listening to his earphone and saying that there was a plane that seemed to be headed to Washington and that fighter jets had been scrambled to intercept it. A few minutes later, the plane was wreckage on the ground. I’ve always wondered whether the story later told about Flight 93 was a coverup. The 9/11 Commission report and the NORAD testimony don’t gibe. I have searched and searched for the clip of the newscaster discussing this, from that morning, but I’ve been unable to find it. I’m not saying that there was definitely a coverup, only that I’ve always wondered about this.
I sent everyone home to look after his or her loved ones.
On 9/11, I was still teaching. During my hour drive to work, I listen to book tapes instead of the radio, so I didn’t know what was happening in New York City and at the Pentagon.
I parked in the faculty parking lot and was walking from my car to my classroom when I found out. The high school where I taught had a six-period day but teachers only had to teach five classes. My first class started 2nd period and the 1st period was my planning period. When I arrived at school, 1st period had just started.
As I was walking by the open door of a science class, I heard the students inside crying and there were sounds of shock. I stopped and stood by the door and watched the flat-screen TV above the whiteboard as the second jet hit the other tower.
The world changed for most people but not for me. If I had not served in the Marines and fought in Vietnam, I would have been shocked. I wasn’t. My first thought was that this will lead to another war and many more deaths and a lot more suffering somewhere else in the world as the U.S. gets revenge.
Yes, for most Americans, the unthinkable had happened. The U.S. had been attacked just like the country was attacked at Pearl Harbor.
Up until 9/11, most Americans thought we were safe in the U.S. because of two oceans and the largest Navy in the world.
That was also how the Japanese thought until the U.S. retaliated with the Dolittle raid on Tokyo and later two A-bombs were dropped on two Japanese cities to force the Japanese to surrender and end WWII that had killed tens of millions of people.
The Japanese started WWII because they thought they were invincible in their home country just like Americans once thought we were.
The U.S. started wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan and many other smaller conflicts because most Americans thought we would always be safe at home, except from each other.
Now, we have Donald Eek Thinly Skin Always Lying and Cheating Trump in the White House. We lost 3,000 people in the twin towers on 9/11, but DT because of his lies is responsible for 90% of the COVID-19 deaths and that loss already is and will be a lot more than 3,000 by the time this pandemic runs its course.
Trump is a domestic terrorist and traitor and should be treated the same way we treated the 9/11 terrorists, the Taliban, al Queda, and ISIS.
I love, Mr. Ramser, the quotation on your Gravitar profile.
“Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.” ― Charles Dickens
That’s something to aspire to!
What is sad is that we had the sympathy and well wishes of most of the whole world. Bush squandered that support by attacking Iraq (why not Saudi Arabia or Peru or ____? I recommend 2 songs – Time for asking Why byTommy Sands and The Bravest by Tom Paxton. Both are on Youtube.
Remember all the war mongering? It was intense, from both Republicans and Democrats, but especially from Bush, Jr., Condoleezza Rice, Dark Lord Dick Cheney, and Donnie Rumsfeld. War criminals, all. Everyone now knows that these wars were horrific mistakes. I remember reading a comment by a former high-level MI6 official who said, “All these did was water the little plants of terrorism.” Well, that’s not all they did, of course, but that was one consequence of them.
Ofc., this was all entirely predictable.
We also got the Dept. of Homeland Security after 9/11, and we’ve been militarizing the police departments ever since.
I was horrified that the shrub administration combined all these agencies and departments into one and gave it this fascist name. And yes. I read a story a couple years ago about how the St. Petersburg (Florida, not Russia) police had purchased a new armored vehicle equipped with infrared cameras and very sensitive listening devices that could look and see within the walls of people’s homes, something they needed, they said, for their local war on drugs.
A number of school districts received unneeded military equipment after the invasion of Iraq. Some districts had armored personnel vehicles. God knows what else.
!!!!!!!
Why Iraq? Reportedly, henchmen of Saddam Hussein were planning to assassinate Dubya’s father in 1993.
Why not Saudi Arabia? Weelllll…
Hussein’s reading of history was that the Brits and the Americans had drawn a line around the oilfields that were Iraq’s patrimony and declared it a state–the puppet state of Kuwait. I remember hearing the Iraqi ambassador to the United States, Tarek Aziz, on the news saying that the sons and the daughters of the royal family there barely spoke Arabic because they had all been boarded in schools in Europe. And Hussein, whom we had put into power, was literally, quite literally, at work on a project to rebuild the ancient city of Babylon, using stones with his name printed on them. (These dictators rapidly develop delusions of grandeur.) Then, when the U.S. ambassador told Aziz that the U.S. wasn’t concerned about “your border dispute with Kuwait,” Iraq took this as a signal that they could carry out their invasion. Aie yie yie. And, of course, Maggie Thatcher immediately got on the phone to Bush Sr. to express her outrage at the takeover by Iraq of Kuwaiti oil fields and facilities belonging to British companies. What a failure of intelligence and diplomacy!
Although it’s not for everyone, I listen to Steve Reich’s WTC 9/11 on every anniversary. Like Joe Zawinul’s Mauthausen, it’s not intended to be “enjoyed,” its intention is to recall the emotions and reality of the day while honoring and paying tribute to the many who were intricately involved in the events and lost their lives. If you are familiar with Reich’s music, you may appreciate this, if you are not, it may seem odd. He uses actual recordings–of the air control towers and first responder dispatchers, of witnesses, of the first responders inside the buildings, of the survivors. But it does bring back the emotions of the day unlike any other work of art.
I: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWhTkOMue70
II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imUvhpj8Hu4
III: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEjmczo7iDc
Although my comment is moderation, probably due to names in it, here is a wonderful interview with Reich in which he explains his process in composing WTC 9/100 beginning at 4:05 of this clip:
Greg,
Comments go into moderation when they have more than one link. And if they say Kavanaugh. And other reasons.
I know, shouldn’t have written that. I don’t worry if I go into moderation. No need to explain!
Hadn’t listened to Mauthausen for quite some time. Joe Zawinul, an Austrian keyboard player, played with Cannonball Adderley (and wrote one of his signature tunes, Mercy, Mercy, Mercy), Mile Davis during his late 60s/early 70s electric band, and was a found member of Weather Report (with Wayne Shorter, also in Miles’s bands in the 60s). This might be the most accessible piece from the album, which was commissioned by the trustees of the Mauthausen historical site: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2lzed-utGo
This piece is magnificent, Greg. Listening now. Thank you for sharing it!
oh goodness, I can’t imagine that people who were only a block away when it happened 😦
A mile away–on the other side of the Brooklyn Bridge. Those who were a block away were truly in harm’s way. I was not.
Thank goodness you were OK
Never forgetting . . . Never stop feeling, mourning, grieving, or healing. Never. The during, the after, the present . . . Trying to make sense of it, trying to learn from it, trying to apply the learning in my own civilian and civic life. It’s healthy to still be in touch with as sick a situation as what happened and why. Who will we choose to become as a result? No one must ever forget . . . Then. Now. Always.
Absolutely, to forget means to lose oneself. to forget means to forget how far we’ve come.
Highly recommended: Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower, which tells the back story to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Chilling.
This is a wonderful video about something I did not know at all. Thank you so much. It brought tears to my eyes.
Each year I treat my classes to a paragraph Diane wrote describing her memories of that day 19 years ago. Thanks.
Roy, I was looking for that entry. If you have it, please post it here as I intend to repost it in future years. My memory will fade, but that summary was fresh.
Not meaning to coopt Roy here, but I actually have it bookmarked:
https://dianeravitch.net/2018/09/11/9-11-forever-in-our-hearts-and-memories/
I felt that same crash you did. Have a hard time talking about it because so many people’s lives were devastated that day. It was horrific to hear and then later see the thin covering of ash and papers on the ground, and the thousands of fliers of people searching out their missing loved ones.
yes, there was a thin covering of ash all over the cars in my neighborhood (Brooklyn Heights), and pieces of charred paper floated into my backyard, that had once been on someone’s desk.
I was at school outside NYC about twenty-five miles away. Parents hurried in to pick up their children. People didn’t know if we were under attack. Then, we got word of parents and teachers’ loved ones that perished at ground zero. The whole day was an eerie out of body experience.
One more thing we need to remember about September 11th is that the long-term death toll due to toxic dust-induced death and disability is greater than the immediate death toll and is still growing. That’s why the September 11th victim’s compensation fund is so vital. And wouldn’t you know it, the Idiot is stealing funds away from it to pay for political priorities.
https://crooksandliars.com/2020/09/friday-news-dump-trump-siphons-4m-911
Trump has also taken money from FEMA–for natural disasters like hurricanes and fires–to pay for his idiotic wall.
Greg B. Thank you for bookmarking Diane’s other post.
I am not a New Yorker. I lived and worked there for a year while in graduate school at NYU. I knew the geography of the city between the Ferry to Staten Island to north of Yankee Stadium.
A former student was near the twin towers when the planes hit and like many others also ran non-stop collapsing in Central Park where some people gathered her up, reconnected her with friends, and took care of her until she could return home.
I cried the year after this event. I was in New York in the Spring. There were daffodils everywhere, because bulbs were donated by the Netherlands, and NYC volunteers planted them.
Transcribing prologue to The Candy Bombers: The Untold Story of the Berlin Airlift and America’s Finest Hour below for you, Laura.
I took my children to New York at Christmas after 9/11, to skate in front of Rockefeller Center, see the Christmas decorations, and take a pilgrimage to Ground Zero. The great hulking frame of a building was still reaching up, out of the rubble, smoke from dust or whatever was still rising from the site, and there were makeshift memorials all around the site and, as well, in Penn Station–memorials to loved ones lost. I had taken those flights from Boston to LA many times and could easily have been on one on a different day. I thought about this often.
The rubble at Ground Zero continued to burn for many weeks after the event. The underground fires continued to smolder.
There are thousands of monuments scattered across the nation commemorating the fallen in wars throughout American history. Will there be even a single monument to commemorate the soon to be hundreds of thousands of dead, more than most of those wars combined? Or will all of those tributes be allowed to be forgotten in vain so that we can continue our never ending march to war narrative instead?
On the lower lip of Manhattan, fires trapped deep beneath the twisted metal girders were still burning. In great cities around the globe, people gathered to express their outrage and their sympathy. Hundreds of Londoners stood in silence when Big Ben rang at noon. When the guard changed at Buckingham Palace, the band played a song about the American flag still waving after a failed British assault on Fort McHenry. In Beijing and Amman, bouquets and wreaths piled high at the gates of the American embassies. In Dublin, the stores closed in commemoration. Children in the West Bank held candlelight vigils. In Paris, the newspaper headline was “We Are All Americans.”
But nowhere was there greater outpouring of humanity and emotion than in the German capital of Berlin. There, 200,000 people gathered along the broad avenue leading through the Tiergarten to the Brandenburg Gate. No one was quite sure why so many turned out.
The crowd felt young. Men and women in their twenties wore backpacks and shorts under the late summer sun; parents pushed strollers and held children by the hand in the enormous throng.
One woman stood still, alone in the crowd, lost in her thoughts as families and couples marched past her. She was old and stooped. Her hair was wild and she wore a dark, heavy coat even on the warm day. She was quietly sobbing.
Two young men approached her and asked why she was crying. She seemed startled, as if roused from a slumber. “I love Americans,” she said quickly, in a way that was so imploring they understand that it grabbed them by their lapels. She started to go on, to say more, to explain, but before the words came out, her gaze widened and warmed, the tears replaced by an indefatigable joy. Her shoulders straightened just a bit. The wrinkles seemed to flee her face.
A distinct, happy memory danced across her eyes as she looked upward, toward the sky. She began softly, in a whisper. “You see, I was a girl during the airlift…”
The point of this: Never was the international love for the U.S. as great as it was on September 12, 2001. Not even at the end of WWII. GW Bush squandered it, Obama restored some of it, the Idiot killed it for good. As deeply tragic as it was, there was a silver lining in the big picture to September 11th. Will we ever be able to resurrect it?
We managed, for a long, long time, to hold onto this goodwill through much of the world because of the promise that this country held out to immigrants. This is a magical place that you can come to and fulfill your dreams for your spouse, for your children. Trump and his Propaganda Minister, Stephen “Goebbels” Miller, have ZERO understanding of this. They profess to love this country but have no notion whatsoever what “America” has meant to people the world over, something we managed to hold onto despite our long history of exploitation and cruelties worldwide. I, too, wonder whether we shall ever recover this goodwill, p—-ed away by the apeman and his ghoulish propaganda minister and his Beria, Barr.
Thank you Greg.
Yes, beautifully said, Greg!
Forgot to cite, this is the prologue of Andrei Cherny’s The Candy Bombers: The Untold Story of the Berlin Airlift and America’s Finest Hour, one of the more uplifting histories written in the past 20 years.
A day late but; did you happen to see on PBS “the man who knew”; It MAY be available on the internet. If so I HIGHLY recommend it.
also
my posting
3 statistics jumping out to me on 9/11 today:
• More than 60 times; the number of deaths from Covid-19 than on 9/11.
• More people died from Covid-19 during the 4 days of the Republican convention than on 9/11
• Western forest fires: more than twice the number of fires in 3 days than in a “normal” year – and the fire season is not only not over, it has been extended significantly in the last decade.
Now known; the president was aware of the dangers of Covid, what he told the American people who were too unintelligent to understand the truth obviously from his point of view; how he now continues to lead in ways known that can lead to death and disease
Too, Climate change is still a Chinese hoax and that undoubtedly his followers do not care. He can deliberately “shoot someone” and his supporters will still support him.
A former student accused me of being full of hate for Trump upon reading this.
Hate is too mild a word. Loathing. Disgust. Revulsion. Nausea.