posted
Tomorrow CNN is airing (on it's website) a repeat of coverage that it showed 5 years ago. Starting from the first moment they reported the attacks, to the end of the day.
posted
I can't watch it again, I can close my eyes and still see some of those images as clear as a bell. No way will I do it again.
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posted
I've avoided most repeated coverage of the attacks over the years because of these same sentiments. But I think I will watch this time because I do want to relive those moments as a memorial to those who died and for the historical significance. I think I owe it to them (and to history) to feel that again.
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quote:Originally posted by erosomniac: Why would any normal person deliberately relive those moments?
To remember! I will probably watch it. It stirs my emotions every time I see it. Yes, it is tragic but as I watch it and see all the spirit and power that it brought forth in this nation at that moment in time is brought back into my heart. It is a history that I will never forget and hope to be able to pass to my children in vivid detail the way my Grandfather passed on the stories of Pearl Harbor to me. He told the amazing stories of turning on the radio and listening to the news and kept all the newspaper clippings from it. It was always amazing to sit on his lap and listen to those stories.
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posted
I will likely not remember most of the day.
And I wouldn't watch it anyway. I get annoyed by that kind of thing. Just like I get annoyed when every single news channel is talking about terrorists in Britain every day for a week.
posted
I won't watch the whole thing. But I might rewatch the first hour or two before I have to go to work.
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Why don't you remember without seeing a TV rebroadcast?
I do but I still like the idea of having the rebroadcasts to help me remember. I mean after 5 years a lot can be forgotten!
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Why don't you remember without seeing a TV rebroadcast?
I do but I still like the idea of having the rebroadcasts to help me remember. I mean after 5 years a lot can be forgotten!
What's important about it will *never* be forgotten...
One would seem to think that but many things in history have been remember differently as to what was important!
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posted
Maybe they'll show the part where it's all a government conspiracy. I keep hearing about that, but I don't remember it at the time.
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I don't plan on watching anything. It's my birthday, and I plan to spend it being happy.
I think about me and my loved ones dying and what would I do if it were me often enough. And no one cares what I think about dealing with terrorists anyway; I'm not in a power position. And I don't know everything about the situation, and probably never will.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: I'm worried about people thinking the rebroadcast is happening at that moment.
Never underestimate people's potential for idiocy or ignorance.
Maybe I'm underestimating ignorance, but you got to be really messed up to think they're collapsing again...
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: I'm worried about people thinking the rebroadcast is happening at that moment.
Never underestimate people's potential for idiocy or ignorance.
You don't think there'll be a frame, or something in the corner, indicating that it's a rebroadcast or something? I'd bet there will be.
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posted
The BBC has a few interesting stats comparing the US before and after 9/11. Almost doubling our defense spending, hate crimes against muslims going from 30/year to 150/year (after a giant spike in 2001), a huge increase in media reports mentioning bin Laden.
Why don't you remember without seeing a TV rebroadcast?
Most of the time we don't know how much we remember or forget about something without re-experiencing it to some degree. The effect gets worse the farther removed in time we are from the event itself. I don't think there is anything wrong with not wanting to re-live viewing the broadcasts from 9/11, especially for those who were most directly affected by the tragedy.
However, there is also nothing inherently wrong with re-viewing the broadcasts. Personally, I think an adequate effect for those who need the reminders could be acheived by a tasteful narrative and selected still shots from the event. Raw broadcasts, to me, are for history class, not for memorials. But the idea itself of being reminded of the past through historical artifacts is part of what makes us human.
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posted
In ancient Byzantium, the capital city of Constantinople was surrounded by enormous walls and deep water; it was considered impregnable, and indeed even as the rest of the Byzantine Empire collapsed, the people inside considered themselves a bastion of civilization. They had allies, but even their allies just pretended to at best a veneer of their sophistication.
As the eastern empire crumbled, the Byzantines fell to blaming each other and pulling strings, jockeying for political advantage -- secure in the knowledge that, while things could get unpleasant, they would never get bad, and that the unpleasantness could be used to keep score. Service in the military became a matter of political advantage.
And then a small group of invaders actually made it into Constantinople, over the walls. They were just raiders, and most of them died in the attempt, and only a few of them managed to get away with anything. Only a handful of citizens were killed.
But the people of Constantiople were aghast. The entirety of the Christian world had fallen to pieces around them over the last few hundred years, but none of that bothered them as much as the thought that their walls might not be an effective shield against raiders with ladders (as opposed to raiders with horses, which were still stopped quite effectively). There were accusations and recriminations, purges and plots and even a small handful of riots. Factions advocating war argued with factions advocating alliance and other factions arguing a complete withdrawal from the world. And the people began to think of themselves not just as the only civilized people, but the last bastion of civilization, a city on a hill surrounded by barbarians. Their entertainments were hedonistic and their politics self-interested and short-term, as they increasingly became convinced that every year would be slightly worse than the year before it.
Constantinople was finally conquered -- the first time -- not by barbarian invaders, but by ostensible allies, Crusaders whose mission of "liberation" had been hijacked this time out by a group of Venetian mobsters. The occupation of Constantinople was an unmitigated disaster, and even though the Greeks retook the city from their Christian "allies" a little while later, the empire never recovered. Their ambition was broken, and the actual fall of the city two hundred years later was an afterthought.
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What do you think the last of the Byzintines should have done? Aside from put aside their petty squabbles.
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BTW, maybe it's my internet connection but CNN is far too chunky to watch today. I think everyone's watching it already...
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The very last of the Byzantines should have realized that, one way or another, they were going to join the Ottoman Empire, and should have married into it or otherwise joined it from a position of power, rather than clinging to the illusion that no one was going to bother taking the city. For one thing, it'd probably still be called Constantinople today if they'd negotiated from strength.
What the Byzantines before the very last Byzantines should have done is realized that being the last bastion of civilization isn't a tenable position, and allied with others to aggressively spread civilization -- either by conquest or by trade -- everywhere, without focusing on which city laid the best claim to ownership of that society. I believe they permitted the romantic notion of their fading glory and former supremacy to make them cynical and decadent; their allies were always their inferiors, and they seemed to feel that there was no point in working to civilize the world since experience had shown them that the world would reject it.
The idea that the Ottomans were equally civilized was inconceivable to them, even though by that point any casual outside observer would have called them more civilized in almost every way. It was this same attitude that tainted their dealings with Rome, thus ensuring that a unified empire never rose again; the idea of being joined to the Latins was outright repugnant.
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And how would you apply this lesson to today, since this IS a 9/11 thread and we ARE dealing with the desendants of the ottomans. (Though I don't think anyone except Tresopax can argue that they're the least bit civilized.)
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posted
Well, the first observation is that, like the Byzantines, we're always awfully shocked when people we've completely ignored manage to hurt us, and our reaction is to first lash out disproportionately and then withdraw into cynicism.
The second is that, like the Byzantines, we're often tempted to argue that -- as the greatest empire the world had ever known -- we're fully capable of soldiering on ourselves, no matter what's going on outside. When we make friends, we make friends on our terms; we're always very clear about who's in charge. And, like the Byzantines, we believe that this reinforces the illusion of our indomitability, without acknowledging the attendant cost.
If it were up to me, we'd have colonies. But people today find that savagely expansionistic, so YMMV. *shrug*
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posted
Yes, I watched the archive footage. I was traveling on 9/11 and do not have television at home so I didn't see it the first time.
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Not a chance I would watch such a rebroadcast. I was watching the first time, and that isn't something I'll ever forget.
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Though in this day and age, I'm not sure what colonies would even mean. The United States has military bases all over the world, and I suspect it would be difficult to find American citizens willing to pick up and move to somewhere where they might well meet with a hostile response and immense hardship.
I don't have cable, and I'm not sticking glued to my computer with a three-year-old to care for, even if I thought I would benefit from rewatching the coverage and suffering a wave of reremembered fear and misery. I'll spare a thought for those who lost someone on that day, hope that it was a dark time that is falling behind us, and go about my day.
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posted
I am indeed assuming that there's no chance that Bush and Cheney are inhuman monsters, capable of engineering the deaths of thousands to facilitate the murder of additional thousands.
For one thing, were they competent enough to have kept such an elaborate conspiracy quiet, they'd evidence more competency in general (unless that, too, is all part of their plan). For another, I think it's extraordinarily outrageous -- and presumptive -- to contemplate as a default the possibility that they might be so depraved.
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The Byzantines didn't have the manpower to hold Anatolia. Even after the Crusaders helped them regain control of the plateau, there was no way they were ever going to hold it against Turkic invaders from outside.
They would've probably survived just fine until the age of gunpowder if the Fourth Crusade hadn't of sacked the city. And it's entirely possible that the changing face of Europe would have saved them from utter destruction.
Holding onto their past ideals of greatness is what cost them their empire (well, that and a complete lack of understand of the Western world), they should've let the Crusaders through without demanding territorial concessions from them. They would've kept the Muslims at bay for perhaps a long time to come, and it's possible the Byztantines could have kept the crusader focus on more helpful targets of opportunity, instead of wasted efforts in Africa.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Tom & Lyrhawn, I'm very happy you bring up the history of the last Romans. I've been studying the Eastern Roman Empire the past couple years with more and more interest. And, as you have pointed out, there is alot to learn from their history for our current situation.
posted
I'm not so eager to see the day of coverage, but I'd be curious to watch the Sunday morning talking heads on the subsequent weekend.
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I have trouble reading some of the history of the city Telp. I get seriously angry when I read about the fourth crusade, and the utter waste of lives and materiel, and the outright plundering and destruction of what was the greatest city in the world. And I get angry when I read about the defacing of the Hagia Sophia by Muslim conquerers.
I'm very invested in history.
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posted
Speaking as someone who lived/worked in the DC area and was driving on the Beltway near the Dulles airport exit at the time all of this happened, I can't imagine why anyone would possibly want to watch a rebroadcast of that day. It was difficult and emotional enough to live through the first time. The terror that my mother, who works within 15 minutes of the Pentagon and numerous friends who work in the Pentagon were hurt or killed, the loss of communications and working with teenagers who were all terrified is not something I would want to put myself through again, and I can't understand why anyone would.
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I rewatched part of it. I got to when the second plane hit the south tower and had to turn it off.
I'm glad the Pres isn't making a bunch of speeches all over the place. Quiet reflection is better I think, for now.
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During my one hour break between classes, I usually move my car and wind up listening to sports talk radio. The fall college football season is the only time I care enough about sports to want to listen to sports talk, but I do like to listen to it around this time of year.
One person called in and berated the show hosts, becuase they were talking about sports on a day when they should be remembering the 911 victims and the soldiers fighting overseas. I was impressed with the response of the host - he said that they did open the show by talking about the significance of the day, and the statio observed a moment of silence this morning at the time when the first plane hit, but that the best way to pay tribute to those that lost their lives and those that are fighting now is to live our lives, and that includes talking about sports. Plus, he pointed out they are broadcast over the net and many Alabamians who serve overseas listen to them, and those soldiers have made it clear through emails that they want to listen to talk about college football!
I think we should remember, but not relive. We should move forward in our lives, always honoring those that perished that day, but the biggest tribute we can pay is to respect their memories but at the same time celebrate life, not death.
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posted
I don't know, Mr. Tom. I have read in the papers that many Muslims in the Middle East do not believe that Muslims participated in the 9/11 attacks.
There are really only 2 credible possibilities:
1. Cheney knew it was coming, and did nothing.
2. Cheney bet that something would eventually happen, and did nothing.
A prevailing theory among Europeans is that the oil pipeline through Afghanistan was the main motivation.
Google the word "LIHOP" along with "pipeline" and you'll see what has been written.
Posts: 48 | Registered: Jun 2006
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Alot of Muslims have been told it was a Jewish/Zionist trick to make Muslims look bad.
They have a VERY different view on what news is reliable in the Middle East. My Poly Sci teacher from Iran said that they watch episodes of X-Files and they think some of that stuff really happens. They are VERY prone to believe conspiracy theories (but perhaps they are not to blame, we have interefered in middle eastern affairs MANY times in the last 60 years or so).
I agree with Belle, we are mindful of Sept 11th, but we honor the dead by focusing on making America a better place. Laugh all you want, but large groups of people getting together to celebrate athletic prowess is better than sittinga round missing the dead.
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