🤠#DanRather @DanRather 💜💜💜Dear Dan, Thank you for the beautiful writing and helping us make sense of the past along with today's events🌹You are a true historian 📚.
Although nothing can erase the tragedy and grief stricken- ness it seems we are all feeling at once these days, we hope it wasn't too taxing on you reliving those tragic events. We so appreciate all the great you bring into the world 🌏 and find true solace in your words. Thanks again for always giving us your best. 🦄🤍
I remember my son calling my attention to the TV that was showing a plane flying into the first tower. My thought at that time was about how much it looked like part of a sci-fi fiction. It was so hard to for me to grasp the reality of what had just happened. I was in shock and could decide what I needed to do in response. Then I watched the second plane hit the second tower.
20 years already? Gee, whether we are Publiccan, Dim, or neither like me. It seems that we SHOULD ALL know the horrendous truth about 9/11 by now. However, no! The government propaganda keeps coming every year. Will the sad, awful truth of 9/11 keep being closeted like those of the JFK assassination, death of Osama BinLaden, and even the 1969 moon landing (and possibly all outer space travel?) Does repeating a lie often enough replace the truth?
Now we have a terrible plague called COVID-19 whether lab created or natural. There is too much propaganda about what I believe to be a "plandemic." Again, many innocent Americans and people of the world are dead and dying. VERY SAD!
It seems to this concerned observor that the blame is now being placed on us who refuse to wear masks and take COVID-19 nose-jab testing and vaccines. (By the way, the government
enforcing of these last two are against the U.S. Constitution. Does this matter to anyone HERE?)
We protect ourselves naturally against COVID-19 and all Coronavirus' for less than $10.00 a bottle. And have since 2009. I was unknowing exposed to COVID-19 on January 12, 2021, my 73rd birthday. Thankfully, I did not have any ill effects. We have not taken flu vaccines all of this time. I post about this publicly on MeWe after being kicked off of Facebook and Twitter for sharing natural remedies for years. Yeah.
Take what may be a suspicous vaccine if you must. I will pray that you will stay well. But please DON'T force us to do the SAME! WE WON'T!
As an 8th grade teacher in a New York City suburb, I taught many students whose parents worked in the World Trade Towers, especially at Cantor Fitzgerald. After my first period class, I entered the teacher's room full of sobbing colleagues, many who were married to first responders or whose spouses also worked downtown. We gasped as the 2nd tower was hit. Our talented and insightful clinical team went into high gear to help all the teachers get through the day so that we could keep the students safe and unaware of the devastation happening only 20 miles away. One small blessing was that this was BEFORE cell phones so that students weren't getting texts and alarming phone calls that could set off hysteria. I'll never forget the force of trying to be positive for hours when my insides were screaming with sorrow and fear. The days and weeks after 9/11 were nothing short of traumatic for this community. So many familiar names are etched today at the memorial in NYC. Our school community united in supporting every family touched by this tragedy. I watched yesterday with a heavy heart and sadness that the unity we felt as a nation then just doesn't seem to exist today. I am still in touch with many of the students I taught that year; they are now 24 . There is a sensitivity and connectivity in the way they view the world that I admire. How they can be so optimistic and hopeful amidst such ugliness should be a lesson to many of us. They are the ones that give me strength.
Me, I was 20 years younger, 49, lying on my hospital bed in my bedroom, watching television. Honestly, I don’t remember what I was watching, but I remember when the channel cut in and the news broadcaster told of a plane striking one of the towers in New York City. As he was giving the news report, the camera was showing the area, when you heard another noise of a plane, which the cameraman was fortunate enough to scan upward showing the second plane flying into the other tower. People screamed, as you could clearly see people falling to their deaths from the towers.
Absolutely horrible! I laid in my bed, and literally cried, thinking of the lives lost, needlessly, because of such horrific, cowardly, acts of some individuals. Who would commit such acts? Why? What was the reasoning? Was this an act of terror, or was it acts of some completely deranged individuals that just planned on doing this as some pact together?
I had no clue, but the news continued telling of a 3rd plane, that wasn’t responding to any aircraft controls instructions/orders to land at the nearest airport. The news remained on this plane for a bit, and all of a sudden it disappeared from sight on radar. Disappearing over what was described as farming area. Flight 93, they learned, had crashed.
As the news continued that day, the gossip started. Where was that plane going? What was it’s target? And of course, we were at war, but with whom, wasn’t quite sure, yet, but like everything else going on, the gossip folks were spreading their thoughts, and the media outlets were picking up and carrying each and every thought to the hilt.
After that day, this remained in the news, seemingly, forever. With reason, of course. This was big news, and every news outlet was after the ‘big story’ that would launch their network to the top of the ratings pile. Fighting each other to be ‘first’ to get some related story, or the ‘breaking story’ out first in regards to the investigation of who did this, and why. Most of all, what was our country prepared to do about it?
Now, 20 years later, I still lay here in my hospital bed in my bedroom, watching this on television, and I remember that day. Those people killed instantly when the planes piled into the towers, the pentagon, and that farm field. I say a prayer, as I did that day for all the lost souls. For the people on the planes, for the first responders, law enforcement, firefighters, everyone lost that day, and in the 20 years since due to the different illnesses they acquired from working “the pile” at “ground zero”.
Where has our country gone since 9/11? Has it gone in a good direction? Or has it fallen further into darkness and divide? Another big question I have is this. This country came together after 9/11. People were helping other people, all over the country. Didn’t matter of face, color, creed, sexual orientation, or anything. Blood was needed, people were rolling up their sleeves giving all they could give to help those victims, and hospitals in New York that needed the blood. People were coming out of the woodwork to help at “ground zero” search for victims. People, restaurants, were setting up at “ground zero”, the pentagon, the farm field, to feed the first responders and others involved in all the search, rescue, and recovery, efforts to find survivors, and victims of this horrific tragedy.
Why does it take such a tragedy for this to happen? Why does it take hundreds of people to die for everyone to get to know their neighbors, and, if their neighbors have any needs?
Come to think of it, it doesn’t take such a tragedy. Why? Because this country has been in such a tragedy since this pandemic started. This country couldn’t possibly be more divided than it’s been probably since the Civil War. Which, I might add, still divides this country to this day. But, that’s another writing topic for the writers of Steady!
A very close friend of ours from Montreal caught an early flight home the night before 9/11 as his meetings had finished at the towers. He thought, “Why not head on home tonight, I’ll surprise my wife?” He truly believes it was his deceased mother speaking to him in spirit, as she has done this before in helping him and others. I am sure there are countless stories of survivors who were saved that day because they went back to answer a phone call or their child was upset for some reason, they got a red light or got in long coffee line up. Hopefully, they have been able to move forward, make a difference with their life and feel very blessed.
Mass Murderer and International War Criminal George W Bush compared unarmed rioters and protestors at the Capitol to those who attacked America on 9/11 Perhaps he should have to undergo a drug test to see if he is snorting cocaine again. For leftists who believe the protestors were armed they may watch the black female acting head of the Capitol police testify in hearings that NO weapons were recovered that day. Not one deadly weapon! But Dan Rather and other keep lying about the events of that day. Biden and Merrick Garland are holding political prisoners. BLM and Antifa tore America apart and most of them had their charges dropped by democrat DAs. NO JUSTICE NO PEACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NO JUSTICE NO PEACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We have an answer for all the other questions that have arisen from it, since. and they're all based on the same logic we knew within minutes of the attack and have never needed to prove: "AQ did it."
That's all we've needed to know.
20, 25 , 100 years ... at some point America will have to look at the anomalies in its logic.
I'm a Brit. In WWII, for fifty days, "Mr. Hitler" bombed us. On my birthday, in 2005, terrorists blew up buses and trains in our capital city that my friends were traveling on. Prior to that, we had The Troubles where the IRA bombed us -- or threatened to bomb us -- for four decades. I grew up in N. Ireland in the '60s. My family moved to the mainland because the IRA targeted my father and threatened to kill us. Throughout the '70s I couldn't go to Jerusalem, Cyprus, and several other places due to religious violence. At one point I has to take a bus to work because the IRA blew up the railway line I used to take. When 9/11 happened, I went to work. I went to work every day. Many of my colleagues stayed home, in San Francisco, where there was no threat. One of my colleagues came to work every day for two weeks with a gas mask on his belt. Americans have no idea how to live with violence and terrorism all their lives. The reaction to 9/11 frankly disgusts me. American policies caused that attack and it was a blip on the radar compared to what other countries have lived through for decades. I've been an American citizen now since 2005 but I still roll my eyes at the pathetic response most Americans have to 9/11 -- you people know nothing about terrorism and violence! Yes, it was terrible -- all attacks are -- but it pales in comparison to what so many nations have to deal with on a daily basis.
"But what the last 20 years has also taught us is that the choices we make matter, and no single outcome should be considered inevitable."
I was on my way home from a month in England. All the pilot said was, "Due to a series of terrorist attacks in the United States, we are returning to Heathrow." The air phones in the seats were turned off and I didn't find out what happened until we made it back to the terminal. Retrieving my luggage, I called my mother to find out if my cousin, posted to the Pentagon at the time, was accounted for. Thankfully, they were fine.
I spent the next 10 days watching Europe, not the US, react, discuss, and mourn the attack. It was only after I returned, that I realized how hard our turn to the right was going to be. It was terrifying, especially after the Bush v. Gore decision, installing a president not elected by a majority of American voters. We're hanging on by our fingernails to an ideal that we have never practiced because of a history most of us were never taught. It's time to shed the "exceptional American" shell and work to save our species from extinction. The planet will be fine.
The last 20 years have taught me that we're all in this together, whether you like it or not. Get with the program and honor the social contract. Work every day to build a better world because there are a lot of people profiting from the destruction of it. It's time to hold them to account.
I remember you that day in 2011 but most vividly a few days later on Letterman-your emotion and exhaustion. It’s what made the whole thing real and validated my own emotion and exhaustion. Thank you once again for your words.
When are the investigations going to start on Biden? When is a special council going to be appointed to look into all the money he and his son took from Chinese State Companies including their military companies? Where is fuckface Mueller? Oh wait Mueller and W Bush and Condi RIce let 9 11 happen. They should have been put on trial for their fucking lives. Hell is coming to America. You sons of bitches now eat George W Bush and Dick Cheney, Liz Cheneys assholes. Presidential daily briefing on Aug 6th of 2001 laid out that Bin Ladin would attack using aircraft. Bush and his team did nothing. Anyone who is honest knows that a second civil war is coming. Their is still time to divide the country between red and blue. It can still be a peaceful divorce or end like the war of the roses. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/apr/09/september11.alqaida
9/11 attacks were a horrible event for America but did America deserve it? That is a question that must be answered and posed to the multitude of politicians in America who have engaged in acts of mass murder of Islamic counties of the world. America is the bull dog of the filthy Zionists who now control all the levers of power inside the U.S. and her weapons of mass destruction.
So beautifully articulated creating a profoundly contemplative read. Thank you Dan Rather. How wonderful it must be to know that you are achieving the goal of so many of us. You are living a life well-lived by making a powerfully positive difference in people's lives. We thank you for sharing your wisdom and your perspectives.
Apologies for length. I should write something. (If only I knew what . . . )
Imagine that you work in an office. One day, a group of hoodlums break in, knock over the huge filing cabinet, and set fire to it, killing everyone in your office--customers, employees, a manager, many passersby on the street. You are on vacation. You see the news on television. The events feel surreal. Your workplace, on TV, your co-workers. Your office is shut down. You can't go to work. Everywhere, there's media. The world is watching. It must be a nightmare.
New day; twenty years later: People are still talking about that day at your office, still holding memorials for the victims. Some are even associating the tragedy with much of the evil that's happened since in the world. What does it all mean?
Those hoodlums, do they deserve the notoriety? They wanted it. If they're up there with their "vestal virgins," looking down, they're thrilled with it.
But "we mustn't forget." We privately must've forget our loved ones, but are all these public remembrances doing anything besides selling flags, hotel rooms, and media ads? Have they fostered important learning? Is our country and world a better a place? Or is all the hoopla just "feel good" and commercial?
I don't have a say. I was at home on 9/11, on vacation. My flight bag and nav charts were resting in the corner, so choices about how to remember 9/11 belong to other people.
For a few years, I worked on "special assignment" as a training developer in a ground-bound office, down the hall from the Captain of Flight 93. Pilots "flying a desk" don't have regular flight schedules. To stay current, they pick up trips. They choose. On 9/11, especially, I think about choice and random luck.
I commuted to work out of Boston. On 9/11, that choice was affected by random luck. Most pilots bid for their trips. They participate in choosing their flights. On 9/11, some of those innocent choices proved fatal. Sometimes we can't out-power bad luck.
But for the most part, choice matters. Choosing to vote or not vote matters. I know that because I won a local election by one vote. Choosing to be vaccinated or not matters How many will die because of even one negative choice? People can chose not to inform themselves, not to learn critical thinking skills, not to decrease the likelihood of making wrong choices. They can refuse to admit, "I don't know," and stubbornly make choices as if they do. They can believe false social-media posts--including posts created purposely to misdirect.
How many uninformed choices does it take to topple a democracy? One too many? How many individual, terrorist choices did it take to kill my co-workers? Astonishingly few. In a society where "no man (sic) is an island," one choice can affect many, and "freedom of choice" is not the same as "freedom to do whatever the damn hell I please".
Twenty years and I still don't know what 9/11 means. It changed my job, for sure. But I don't see that its lessons have made our country a better place. What in heck can I do about that? I can't change other people, but I can try to find ways to contribute to steering the ship in a positive direction.
So far, this is what I remember from 9/11: evil is real and dangerous and often disguised. It wants to fool you, to mislead you. It wants to get through your metal detector. Don't let it. Question everything. Work to identify it accurately and to thwart it.
At the "office," the essential lesson was this: shirking responsibility for your choices could make you first at the scene of the crash. That applies to a country as well as an aircraft.
RIP to UA and AA crew and all others affected by the tragedies of 9/11. May their sacrifices inspire us to work together toward a better future.
🤠#DanRather @DanRather 💜💜💜Dear Dan, Thank you for the beautiful writing and helping us make sense of the past along with today's events🌹You are a true historian 📚.
Although nothing can erase the tragedy and grief stricken- ness it seems we are all feeling at once these days, we hope it wasn't too taxing on you reliving those tragic events. We so appreciate all the great you bring into the world 🌏 and find true solace in your words. Thanks again for always giving us your best. 🦄🤍
I remember my son calling my attention to the TV that was showing a plane flying into the first tower. My thought at that time was about how much it looked like part of a sci-fi fiction. It was so hard to for me to grasp the reality of what had just happened. I was in shock and could decide what I needed to do in response. Then I watched the second plane hit the second tower.
20 years already? Gee, whether we are Publiccan, Dim, or neither like me. It seems that we SHOULD ALL know the horrendous truth about 9/11 by now. However, no! The government propaganda keeps coming every year. Will the sad, awful truth of 9/11 keep being closeted like those of the JFK assassination, death of Osama BinLaden, and even the 1969 moon landing (and possibly all outer space travel?) Does repeating a lie often enough replace the truth?
Now we have a terrible plague called COVID-19 whether lab created or natural. There is too much propaganda about what I believe to be a "plandemic." Again, many innocent Americans and people of the world are dead and dying. VERY SAD!
It seems to this concerned observor that the blame is now being placed on us who refuse to wear masks and take COVID-19 nose-jab testing and vaccines. (By the way, the government
enforcing of these last two are against the U.S. Constitution. Does this matter to anyone HERE?)
We protect ourselves naturally against COVID-19 and all Coronavirus' for less than $10.00 a bottle. And have since 2009. I was unknowing exposed to COVID-19 on January 12, 2021, my 73rd birthday. Thankfully, I did not have any ill effects. We have not taken flu vaccines all of this time. I post about this publicly on MeWe after being kicked off of Facebook and Twitter for sharing natural remedies for years. Yeah.
Take what may be a suspicous vaccine if you must. I will pray that you will stay well. But please DON'T force us to do the SAME! WE WON'T!
Thank you Dan. So eloquently written.
As an 8th grade teacher in a New York City suburb, I taught many students whose parents worked in the World Trade Towers, especially at Cantor Fitzgerald. After my first period class, I entered the teacher's room full of sobbing colleagues, many who were married to first responders or whose spouses also worked downtown. We gasped as the 2nd tower was hit. Our talented and insightful clinical team went into high gear to help all the teachers get through the day so that we could keep the students safe and unaware of the devastation happening only 20 miles away. One small blessing was that this was BEFORE cell phones so that students weren't getting texts and alarming phone calls that could set off hysteria. I'll never forget the force of trying to be positive for hours when my insides were screaming with sorrow and fear. The days and weeks after 9/11 were nothing short of traumatic for this community. So many familiar names are etched today at the memorial in NYC. Our school community united in supporting every family touched by this tragedy. I watched yesterday with a heavy heart and sadness that the unity we felt as a nation then just doesn't seem to exist today. I am still in touch with many of the students I taught that year; they are now 24 . There is a sensitivity and connectivity in the way they view the world that I admire. How they can be so optimistic and hopeful amidst such ugliness should be a lesson to many of us. They are the ones that give me strength.
20 years…….
What were you doing on that fateful day?
Me, I was 20 years younger, 49, lying on my hospital bed in my bedroom, watching television. Honestly, I don’t remember what I was watching, but I remember when the channel cut in and the news broadcaster told of a plane striking one of the towers in New York City. As he was giving the news report, the camera was showing the area, when you heard another noise of a plane, which the cameraman was fortunate enough to scan upward showing the second plane flying into the other tower. People screamed, as you could clearly see people falling to their deaths from the towers.
Absolutely horrible! I laid in my bed, and literally cried, thinking of the lives lost, needlessly, because of such horrific, cowardly, acts of some individuals. Who would commit such acts? Why? What was the reasoning? Was this an act of terror, or was it acts of some completely deranged individuals that just planned on doing this as some pact together?
I had no clue, but the news continued telling of a 3rd plane, that wasn’t responding to any aircraft controls instructions/orders to land at the nearest airport. The news remained on this plane for a bit, and all of a sudden it disappeared from sight on radar. Disappearing over what was described as farming area. Flight 93, they learned, had crashed.
As the news continued that day, the gossip started. Where was that plane going? What was it’s target? And of course, we were at war, but with whom, wasn’t quite sure, yet, but like everything else going on, the gossip folks were spreading their thoughts, and the media outlets were picking up and carrying each and every thought to the hilt.
After that day, this remained in the news, seemingly, forever. With reason, of course. This was big news, and every news outlet was after the ‘big story’ that would launch their network to the top of the ratings pile. Fighting each other to be ‘first’ to get some related story, or the ‘breaking story’ out first in regards to the investigation of who did this, and why. Most of all, what was our country prepared to do about it?
Now, 20 years later, I still lay here in my hospital bed in my bedroom, watching this on television, and I remember that day. Those people killed instantly when the planes piled into the towers, the pentagon, and that farm field. I say a prayer, as I did that day for all the lost souls. For the people on the planes, for the first responders, law enforcement, firefighters, everyone lost that day, and in the 20 years since due to the different illnesses they acquired from working “the pile” at “ground zero”.
Where has our country gone since 9/11? Has it gone in a good direction? Or has it fallen further into darkness and divide? Another big question I have is this. This country came together after 9/11. People were helping other people, all over the country. Didn’t matter of face, color, creed, sexual orientation, or anything. Blood was needed, people were rolling up their sleeves giving all they could give to help those victims, and hospitals in New York that needed the blood. People were coming out of the woodwork to help at “ground zero” search for victims. People, restaurants, were setting up at “ground zero”, the pentagon, the farm field, to feed the first responders and others involved in all the search, rescue, and recovery, efforts to find survivors, and victims of this horrific tragedy.
Why does it take such a tragedy for this to happen? Why does it take hundreds of people to die for everyone to get to know their neighbors, and, if their neighbors have any needs?
Come to think of it, it doesn’t take such a tragedy. Why? Because this country has been in such a tragedy since this pandemic started. This country couldn’t possibly be more divided than it’s been probably since the Civil War. Which, I might add, still divides this country to this day. But, that’s another writing topic for the writers of Steady!
A very close friend of ours from Montreal caught an early flight home the night before 9/11 as his meetings had finished at the towers. He thought, “Why not head on home tonight, I’ll surprise my wife?” He truly believes it was his deceased mother speaking to him in spirit, as she has done this before in helping him and others. I am sure there are countless stories of survivors who were saved that day because they went back to answer a phone call or their child was upset for some reason, they got a red light or got in long coffee line up. Hopefully, they have been able to move forward, make a difference with their life and feel very blessed.
Mass Murderer and International War Criminal George W Bush compared unarmed rioters and protestors at the Capitol to those who attacked America on 9/11 Perhaps he should have to undergo a drug test to see if he is snorting cocaine again. For leftists who believe the protestors were armed they may watch the black female acting head of the Capitol police testify in hearings that NO weapons were recovered that day. Not one deadly weapon! But Dan Rather and other keep lying about the events of that day. Biden and Merrick Garland are holding political prisoners. BLM and Antifa tore America apart and most of them had their charges dropped by democrat DAs. NO JUSTICE NO PEACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NO JUSTICE NO PEACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"How? We cannot answer that question."
Why not?
We have an answer for all the other questions that have arisen from it, since. and they're all based on the same logic we knew within minutes of the attack and have never needed to prove: "AQ did it."
That's all we've needed to know.
20, 25 , 100 years ... at some point America will have to look at the anomalies in its logic.
I'm a Brit. In WWII, for fifty days, "Mr. Hitler" bombed us. On my birthday, in 2005, terrorists blew up buses and trains in our capital city that my friends were traveling on. Prior to that, we had The Troubles where the IRA bombed us -- or threatened to bomb us -- for four decades. I grew up in N. Ireland in the '60s. My family moved to the mainland because the IRA targeted my father and threatened to kill us. Throughout the '70s I couldn't go to Jerusalem, Cyprus, and several other places due to religious violence. At one point I has to take a bus to work because the IRA blew up the railway line I used to take. When 9/11 happened, I went to work. I went to work every day. Many of my colleagues stayed home, in San Francisco, where there was no threat. One of my colleagues came to work every day for two weeks with a gas mask on his belt. Americans have no idea how to live with violence and terrorism all their lives. The reaction to 9/11 frankly disgusts me. American policies caused that attack and it was a blip on the radar compared to what other countries have lived through for decades. I've been an American citizen now since 2005 but I still roll my eyes at the pathetic response most Americans have to 9/11 -- you people know nothing about terrorism and violence! Yes, it was terrible -- all attacks are -- but it pales in comparison to what so many nations have to deal with on a daily basis.
"But what the last 20 years has also taught us is that the choices we make matter, and no single outcome should be considered inevitable."
I was on my way home from a month in England. All the pilot said was, "Due to a series of terrorist attacks in the United States, we are returning to Heathrow." The air phones in the seats were turned off and I didn't find out what happened until we made it back to the terminal. Retrieving my luggage, I called my mother to find out if my cousin, posted to the Pentagon at the time, was accounted for. Thankfully, they were fine.
I spent the next 10 days watching Europe, not the US, react, discuss, and mourn the attack. It was only after I returned, that I realized how hard our turn to the right was going to be. It was terrifying, especially after the Bush v. Gore decision, installing a president not elected by a majority of American voters. We're hanging on by our fingernails to an ideal that we have never practiced because of a history most of us were never taught. It's time to shed the "exceptional American" shell and work to save our species from extinction. The planet will be fine.
The last 20 years have taught me that we're all in this together, whether you like it or not. Get with the program and honor the social contract. Work every day to build a better world because there are a lot of people profiting from the destruction of it. It's time to hold them to account.
I remember you that day in 2011 but most vividly a few days later on Letterman-your emotion and exhaustion. It’s what made the whole thing real and validated my own emotion and exhaustion. Thank you once again for your words.
When are the investigations going to start on Biden? When is a special council going to be appointed to look into all the money he and his son took from Chinese State Companies including their military companies? Where is fuckface Mueller? Oh wait Mueller and W Bush and Condi RIce let 9 11 happen. They should have been put on trial for their fucking lives. Hell is coming to America. You sons of bitches now eat George W Bush and Dick Cheney, Liz Cheneys assholes. Presidential daily briefing on Aug 6th of 2001 laid out that Bin Ladin would attack using aircraft. Bush and his team did nothing. Anyone who is honest knows that a second civil war is coming. Their is still time to divide the country between red and blue. It can still be a peaceful divorce or end like the war of the roses. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/apr/09/september11.alqaida
9/11 attacks were a horrible event for America but did America deserve it? That is a question that must be answered and posed to the multitude of politicians in America who have engaged in acts of mass murder of Islamic counties of the world. America is the bull dog of the filthy Zionists who now control all the levers of power inside the U.S. and her weapons of mass destruction.
So beautifully articulated creating a profoundly contemplative read. Thank you Dan Rather. How wonderful it must be to know that you are achieving the goal of so many of us. You are living a life well-lived by making a powerfully positive difference in people's lives. We thank you for sharing your wisdom and your perspectives.
Apologies for length. I should write something. (If only I knew what . . . )
Imagine that you work in an office. One day, a group of hoodlums break in, knock over the huge filing cabinet, and set fire to it, killing everyone in your office--customers, employees, a manager, many passersby on the street. You are on vacation. You see the news on television. The events feel surreal. Your workplace, on TV, your co-workers. Your office is shut down. You can't go to work. Everywhere, there's media. The world is watching. It must be a nightmare.
New day; twenty years later: People are still talking about that day at your office, still holding memorials for the victims. Some are even associating the tragedy with much of the evil that's happened since in the world. What does it all mean?
Those hoodlums, do they deserve the notoriety? They wanted it. If they're up there with their "vestal virgins," looking down, they're thrilled with it.
But "we mustn't forget." We privately must've forget our loved ones, but are all these public remembrances doing anything besides selling flags, hotel rooms, and media ads? Have they fostered important learning? Is our country and world a better a place? Or is all the hoopla just "feel good" and commercial?
I don't have a say. I was at home on 9/11, on vacation. My flight bag and nav charts were resting in the corner, so choices about how to remember 9/11 belong to other people.
For a few years, I worked on "special assignment" as a training developer in a ground-bound office, down the hall from the Captain of Flight 93. Pilots "flying a desk" don't have regular flight schedules. To stay current, they pick up trips. They choose. On 9/11, especially, I think about choice and random luck.
I commuted to work out of Boston. On 9/11, that choice was affected by random luck. Most pilots bid for their trips. They participate in choosing their flights. On 9/11, some of those innocent choices proved fatal. Sometimes we can't out-power bad luck.
But for the most part, choice matters. Choosing to vote or not vote matters. I know that because I won a local election by one vote. Choosing to be vaccinated or not matters How many will die because of even one negative choice? People can chose not to inform themselves, not to learn critical thinking skills, not to decrease the likelihood of making wrong choices. They can refuse to admit, "I don't know," and stubbornly make choices as if they do. They can believe false social-media posts--including posts created purposely to misdirect.
How many uninformed choices does it take to topple a democracy? One too many? How many individual, terrorist choices did it take to kill my co-workers? Astonishingly few. In a society where "no man (sic) is an island," one choice can affect many, and "freedom of choice" is not the same as "freedom to do whatever the damn hell I please".
Twenty years and I still don't know what 9/11 means. It changed my job, for sure. But I don't see that its lessons have made our country a better place. What in heck can I do about that? I can't change other people, but I can try to find ways to contribute to steering the ship in a positive direction.
So far, this is what I remember from 9/11: evil is real and dangerous and often disguised. It wants to fool you, to mislead you. It wants to get through your metal detector. Don't let it. Question everything. Work to identify it accurately and to thwart it.
At the "office," the essential lesson was this: shirking responsibility for your choices could make you first at the scene of the crash. That applies to a country as well as an aircraft.
RIP to UA and AA crew and all others affected by the tragedies of 9/11. May their sacrifices inspire us to work together toward a better future.