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Anderson: Remembering 9/11 – As The Smoke Clears PDF Print E-mail
Written by Andrea Anderson   
Tuesday, 11 September 2007

How important is it to remember 9/11/01? Is it just history or does it affect us even to this day? I believe, these are questions we all must ask ourselves. For those who have difficulty finding the answers to these questions, consider how much has happened since that day and in the name of that day. You may find, that horrific day didn’t just end at the death of 2,973 U.S. citizens, as tragic as that may be.


Since then, the toxic dust which New Yorkers were told was “safe and acceptable” by Former Mayor Giulani, has resulted in several deaths and serious lung problems including cancer. In fact, a federal judge ruled that former EPA director Christine Todd Whitman had misled residents and rescuers when she pronounced that the air quality in lower Manhattan met safety standards and necessitated neither a surgical mask nor a respirator. She claims under oath that she did this under the urgency of our federal government to get Wall Street and the economy up and running again and because Giuliani did not want New York to be seen as unsafe by a bunch of people wearing masks or hazmat suits.


In other words, our government was more concerned about money than about additional lives. Because of this, people like Felix Hernandez, Tim Keller, Deborah Reeve, James Zadroga, James Godbee, Felicia Dunn-Jones and their families have become additional victims of 9/11.


Since then, we have gone to war in Iraq, very simply based on the “threat” of another 9/11 terror attack. In fact, we have now lost more of our citizens to the war in Iraq than in the original 9/11 attack. Kind of defeats the purpose given, if you think about it.


So, let’s think about it. Let’s think about how 9/11 has changed the lives of U.S. citizens, the law and our government. Let’s think about how living in terror actually defeats the purpose of freedom and gives our enemies the upper hand. Let’s consider how we now have the Patriot Act in place has changed and will continue to change how we live. The Patriot Act now forces us (lawful U.S. citizens) to allow:


  • Physical searches and spying on U.S. citizens without a warrant and the right to do so without notifying the suspected party.

  • Monitoring of both the telephone and internet communications without giving notice or seeking a warrant.

  • Arrests solely on the basis of “suspicion” alone, without warrant and without a formal charge.

  • Detaining suspicious persons indefinitely and without notice neither publicly nor privately.

  • Deportation of legal immigrants for minor violations.

  • Carrying out selective prosecutions and racial profiling unchecked.

  • Detaining, deporting, and denying fundamental due process rights to lawful immigrants, including the right to legal counsel and public hearings.

  • Wire-tapping client confidential communications.


I think the answer is obvious. 9/11/01 is not history, as it is still shaping our lives. I believe it is worth not just remembering but worth thinking about.


This article is dedicated to ALL of the people who lost their lives, livelihoods and loves on 9/11/01.


Please visit :


www.fealgoodfoundation.com/WhoWeAre.html


www.911ea.org/Donation.htm


Lakeport resident Andrea Anderson's mother worked at the World Trade Center, and left the building 20 minutes before the first plane hit, losing many coworkers and friends.


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Raphael - Unanswered questions... Author | 09-12-2007 06:41:25
Without completely giving into "conspiracy theories" (conspiracy theories seemed to be perfectly acceptable during the cold war, when people, the government and the media "discovered" communist plots behind every street corner), there are many questions the government is unwilling to answer and the press is too cowardly to ask...such as the demolition style collapsing of the buildings, among others.
The fact is, who benefited from the events of 9/11? Every major crisis strenghtens and expends the power and scope of government, from each world war to every imaginable "threat to national security"...bureaucracies do not go away, they spread like so many pests, feeding on us, on our paranoias and fears, on our emotions, on our needs... (Did anyone notice how Americans' fear after 9/11 was played to the hilt by the government, with the help of the corporate media, to quickly pass into law questionable measures, and without proper national debate?...I mean, was anyone still thinking at the time, or did fear shut down the judgment of over 300 million people?)
Is it possible that the terrorists, who were Saudis, not Iraqis by the way, were aided and manipulated without their knowledge, to accomplish their destructive goals? After all, fanatics are not necessarily the most intelligent people, and could easily have been duped, blinded as they are by hatred and their single-minded goal. Could the Israeli and the US secret services have worked together on this? No one will ever know, and not that anyone really cares, (as long as "reality shows" multiply on TV, who cares about the real world?) but could anyone actually believe the unconceivable "coincidence" of NORAD being shut down on that very day, and that the planes were let through the most powerful and capable military defenses in the world? Just imagine what would have happened if the strategy had worked: the White House would have been strucked, and we would all have, at that precise moment, kissed what we call democracy good bye, as we would have been made to live under martial law and extreme security measures that would have overruled the Constitution and all our civil liberties until further notice (that is to say until Bush, Cheney, Rove and other ideologues would have decided to give up their absolute power over us).
We know what Bush thinks of the Constitution (just a piece of paper!)...and we now live under permanent martial law (check it out if you don't believe it).
So who benefited from 9/11? The terrorists, fortunately, could not destroy this nation with all the car and plane bombs in the world, but our government can with a stroke of Bush's pen...with the unpatriot act, with unconstitutional laws, with more power given to the Executive branch than should reasonnably and safely be allowed and the evisceration of Congressional powers to make the Legislative a rubber stamp institution, with the weakening of the Judicial branch and the punishment of judges who do not comply, with the eroding of the few liberties we have left, and the greatest expension of governmental bureaucracy in a long time, all "for our own good"...And I doubt the terrorists care whether we still have a US Constitution or domestic freedoms, they might mostly want the US out of the Middle East and to see us stop helping Israel (by the way I do not think Israel should be left to fend by itself while surrounded by enemies who have sworn to destroy it). No, I think the people who benefited most from 9/11 are those extremist right wing ideologues who sought to transform this nation from within, to expend their power and control over us and make the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as "quaint" as they perceive international treaties, such as the Geneva Convention, to be.
If there is another terrorist attack, it will be the last nail in the coffin that seem to have become the United States under the crazed-dare I say unAmerican?-leadership of such extremists, with the passive blessing of the populace, of course, whose thoughts are so easily manufactured and controlled by the media it is truly frightening...As a woman in England said, "we have to give up our liberties to keep our freedom"...go figure, kind of like the sheep running to the slaughterhouse to feel safe!
So why isn't there more of an open discussion over these topics, on a national level?
Having lived in 3 different democracies for a significant number of years, I can honestly (and sadly) say that I have never seen a supposedly free people as afraid of their own government as are Americans. Perhaps this is the reason, and the heavy price of living in a world power, were everything is increasingly, once again and as it was during the cold war, becoming a matter of "national security" or "national interest".
purplegirl - Seeking The Truth Registered | 09-12-2007 11:46:54
To this day, there are many questions that remain unanswered from 9/11. I, for one, will never stop questioning, especially now that the smoke clears. I believe, we owe it to the people who died due to that day to never stop questioning and to always think about the answers we are getting rather than just accepting them at face value.
http://st911.org/
Donna Christopher - What we have IP:12.210.242.xxx | 09-12-2007 12:03:23
is the government we deserve. The only real questions is what are we going to do about it? As long as cable is on and there is a cold one in the fridge the answer is Not A Damn Thing. Next year we have the opportunity to replace this crop of chowderheads with a crop of chowderheads with different hair styles. Big Whoop. Do we still have the guts to get our country back?

I can't buy into the conspiracy theories to much, just don't see the brain power to make it happen - more passive negligence than deliberate malfeasance topped with a large dollop of greed. As to the collapse of the Towers, last I heard they were the only buildings built in NYC that were NOT built to building code and did not have the cross structural supports the code would have required. Aesthetics vs. integrity. This would have stopped the complete collapse. Rudy put the command center in the basement of a building that was a known target of the folks that don't care for folks like us. They haven't liked us since the original crusades. You want to change the world and the new world order of Bushworld? Eliminate the need for thinking the middle east put their countries on top of our oil. For what we have wasted on the war you cannot convince me would could not have come up with an energy alternative. There is no value to place on the loss of our loved ones. None of us seems to have any value to our government except that as carbon based funding units and the funding is about to get funny as the piper is due payment and we are bankrupt in more ways than one. And it all culminated yesterday when I heard Petraeus, after being pinned down by Senator Warner admit he has no idea if we are "safer" now. NO, we are not safer, from either our government or the ill will of others. Again I ponder, what will We, the American people, do about?
sannan - thank you for inviting us to t Manager | 09-12-2007 13:41:37
our government only invites us to respond emotionally to what looks like a trumped-up excuse to invade Iraq, loot its treasury, destroy its infrastructure, and then rebuild it through a lot of no-bid contracts to companies which have close ties to the Bush League.
I'm thinking "follow the money" and Tonkin Gulf.
drpmjhess - On the money Registered | 09-13-2007 13:53:00
Andrea, your ideas expressed in this essay resonate with me. The greater tragedy is that the average American has not the slightest inkling of the coming catastrophic event that will knock our civilization sideways, possibly as early as 2012.
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