I Ripped off a Scab Last Night

[Sugar Smack]

My boyfriend and I decided to watch Fahrenheit 9/11 on our last full night together before I headed back to NC. The scab was there to be regarded occasionally and remembered because it happened to us all. Both of us have a copy of the film, but we brought it out last night to watch again.

I can't even tell you how pure my rage was. I felt like I was becoming another person as we listened to the planes hit the towers. If you close your eyes, you're with the people on the ground in NYC, and when you open them again, you're in your own living room watching strangers clutch at each other and cry. The disbelief, the shock. People's expressions all reading, "This can't be happening to us". Every trace of social human characteristic like "ego" and "vanity" had been stripped away from the people on the ground as they looked up at the sky and watched their brothers and sisters jump, by twos and threes, out of the buildings.

What would I have done on that ledge? Would I have made that 10 second flight solo? Would I drag someone else out with me? Would I stay inside and wait to see if the flames would be less painful than instant disintegration? Ten seconds is a long fall. You have no doubt about what's next. Would I want to be touching another human being as we had no choice but to end our lives?

Sitting through those shots of George Bush in that classroom sent me into a blind rage. Whoever said that Michael Moore's editing was "over the top" can kiss my ass. IT HAPPENED. THE MOVIE ISN'T OVER.

The Bush administration was warned repeatedly. The scab is off and the blood is flowing, and for some families, Sybil Edmonds and Sy Hersch are the ones who keep that in mind daily. I've gone for up to three or four days at a time not thinking about September 11th, and then it comes back like a punch in the gut. Always at the most random times- pouring coffee or smoking a cigarette, glancing at the sky, working on an ad in my office.

Bush is a constant embarrassment. We look at his face and to feel relief, we use the words, "Chimp" and "Assclown" and any other invective we can think of to separate ourselves further from this absolute JOKE of a human being. It's not a joke. The Bush administration should be behind bars for their lack of humanity and their criminal activities. They have no souls, and they will never feel the wounds they've caused millions of people.

[Stephanie]

1. The hundreds of people who jumped is almost never mentioned.

That horror is too much for most people to take I guess.

http://www.esquire.com/features/articles/2003/030903_mfe_falling_1.html

The Falling Man

By Tom Junod
September 2003, Volume 140, Issue 3
Photograph by Richard Drew



Do you remember this photograph? In the United States, people have taken pains to banish it from the record of September 11, 2001. The story behind it, though, and the search for the man pictured in it, are our most intimate connection to the horror of that day.

[no name no slogan]

6. delete

[Sugar Smack]

8. Thank you, Stephanie.

I can't understand the people who act like this is some kind of story; IT FUCKING HAPPENED. The horror is too much for some people, but that "taking pains to banish it from the record" makes me positively SICK.

Last night I tried to imagine what being one of the jumpers would be like; it tore me out of the frame, and fueled my rage, to say the least.

[Sapphocrat]

84. A friend of my sister's watched them jump.

You know, I can't say much more beyond that. There are some stories I know, from New Yorkers who lived nearby, that I've never been able to relate here, because it wouldn't help anybody. The jumpers alone are more than enough to inflame what we all felt then, and are probably feeling right now.

I don't think I've ever gone a single day without dwelling on what I saw the morning of 9/11 (and that was just on TV), and wondering what it felt like to count off the last six seconds of one's life.

I have looked at many of the pictures of the jumpers, and thought: "She's wearing a sleeveless white top. She had no idea when she got dressed that morning..."

I can't help but personalize it to that degree.

But then, maybe that's what makes us different from those who try to sweep the real horror under the rug, like a dirty secret.

And I'd rather be able to feel, no matter how much it hurts.

[Sabriel]

15. What a wonderful, awful story

Thanks for the link. I'm glad I didn't miss it.

[Divernan]

17. The Esquire article you link to is incredibly powerful

and incredibly sad.

[Sugar Smack]

19. "THEY BEGAN JUMPING NOT LONG

after the first plane hit the North Tower, not long after the fire started. They kept jumping until the tower fell. They jumped through windows already broken and then, later, through windows they broke themselves. They jumped to escape the smoke and the fire; they jumped when the ceilings fell and the floors collapsed; they jumped just to breathe once more before they died."

God.

[Stephanie]

25. those who didn't jump were crushed to death when the floor pancaked

unless they were burned alive first -

[npincus]

23. my G-d, I'd never read that

I didn't realize that many had jumped; I watched the Towers burn and fall from the Hoboken waterfront but did could not make out that people were jumping, though others in the crowd were shouting in horror that they were. This brings it all back.

[Stephanie]

26. One of my girlfriends lived at 600 Gateway Plaza

In the World Financial Center - she watched the whole thing from her window on the 20th floor - watched the people pressed up against the glass with SOS signs, and the people jumping - until she had to escape herself -

[Sugar Smack]

28. Oh, GOD. God. That is horrifying. She probably

carries that memory with her like an open wound. I could not be sane any more after seeing that. I could try to be sane, but I would be finished. Your poor friend. I really am sorry.

[npincus]

36. oh my G-d

I worked on projects there (Tower 2) for 4+ years, knew many PA guys in the Construction Dept. 2 of whom were killed, knew the buildings and concourse very well (I still have my WTC security access pass I was supposed to surrender)- I do corporate interior architecture. One former client was AON- I worked on projects on Floors 100-105 plus misc. other floors; I lost touch with people there, but am sure so many of them did not make it. I have so many memories. I remember the elevator scraping the shaft on the way up on a very, very windy day and the building swaying so much (I was on 105) it was creaking loudly and a drywall ceiling cracked; it felt like you were on a boat (the Towers were designed for a 3-foot deflection at the top). I had to walk down to the Sky Lobby on 74 to get out because they stopped upper elevator service altogether. Fortunately, my other client, the NYSE, was on much lower floors and everybody made it out safely. My cousin saw debris falling from Tower 1 when she was grabbing a coffee on the way up to her office in Tower 2 (Goldman Sachs- 70-somethingth Floor) and got the hell out, thank G-d, though I recall she said an announcement told people they should go back to their offices, that everything was fine. Many of her co-workers and friends were not so lucky.

I was at home on that day, actually heard a 'boom' noise, then moments later saw giant plumes of smoke from my living room window. I had the TV on, heard the announcement, then grabbed a pair of shorts and ran out to the (waterfront) park across the street. As I got there the 2nd plane hit. I did not see it hit.

I always hated B*sh and viewed him as illegitmate, but his 'response' to 9-11 (not capturing Bin Laden and starting a fake, bloody, catastrophic war, in particular) have radicalized me.

[Stephanie]

38. another article about the people who jumped >

From USA Today:

USA TODAY estimates that at least 200 people jumped to their deaths that morning, far more than can be seen in the photographs taken that morning. Nearly all were from the north tower, which was hit first and collapsed last. Fewer than a dozen were from the south tower.

The jumping started shortly after the first jet hit at 8:46 a.m. People jumped continuously during the 102 minutes that the north tower stood. Two people jumped as the north tower began to fall at 10:28 a.m., witnesses said.

For those who jumped, the fall lasted 10 seconds. They struck the ground at just less than 150 miles per hour — not fast enough to cause unconsciousness while falling, but fast enough to ensure instant death on impact. People jumped from all four sides of the north tower. They jumped alone, in pairs and in groups.

***

On the south side, firefighters reported 30 to 40 bodies on the roof of the 22-floor Marriott Hotel, adjacent to the north tower.

On the west side, falling bodies crashed onto the awning covering the circular VIP driveway. The thudding of bodies at this entrance can be heard on a video taken near there by French cameraman Jules Naudet, whose footage was broadcast on CBS on March 11.

On the east side, people plummeted into the plaza, best known for its globe sculpture. Blood covered the glass walls and revolving doors that led to the plaza from the second-floor mezzanine in the north tower. People evacuating the north tower walked by this horrible sight.

"The windows were red ... and bits of bodies were outside. We were stunned and amazed," says Richard Moller, who escaped from the 78th floor.

***

Many south tower survivors say the sight of people jumping created an urgency that caused them to leave immediately and ignore announcements that it was safe to return to their desks. About 1,400 people evacuated the upper floors before the second jet hit.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2002-09-02-jumper_x.htm

[Sugar Smack]

49. The description of the expressions

on people's faces are horrifying. And the realization of these facts juxtaposed with Bush's relative comfort during those moments and his smirking face afterward...

[Lydia Leftcoast]

53. I saw the video taken by the French brothers, and the sound of the

falling bodies was one of the most horrifying things about it.

Yes, what mental state would you have to be in to jump dozens of stories to certain death--and having 10 seconds to think about it?

[Sugar Smack]

54. Ten seconds of not losing consciousness

I can barely imagine it. Pictures are something people get used to when they watch special effects in movies. The fact that this was real puts us in an uncomprehending shock. I can barely imagine the mental states of those poor people.

[Stephanie]

55. more photos >

http://wtc10048nyc.free.fr/index2.html

[Sugar Smack]

56. How sad is that shit?!?

How fucking sad.

[Up2Late]

66. I, personally, think this is worst.

Reuters - Jeff Christensens

<http://wtc10048nyc.free.fr/125.html>

That's quite a website.

[Sugar Smack]

72. Yes.

That is the worst.

My god.

[MountainLaurel]

30. One of the reasons

The evacuation of the other building did not begin immediately after the first plane struck was that so many bodies were falling it was considered too dangerous to have people exiting.

[Stephanie]

35. That's right. Father Michael Judd was killed by a falling body

As were others I'm sure. It was also raining fire and debris on the plaza.

[Nickster]

33. Wow, that was really a great article. Thanks for the post.

[SmokingJacket]

42. Amazing story, thanks. nt

[TankLV]

78. Oh my god - I remember again - may he rest in peace and happiness

My bunkerboy and the REPUKE criminals burn in hell for ever and suffer for ever for what they have wrought!

I will never forgive and always hate them to my dying breath for what they did!

bush* LIED & THOUSANDS DIED!

Thankyou for giving us this.

I bend over and kiss my partner and my companion dogs - they are the closest to me at this moment.

I am thankful for every breath I take.

I just read the article on this edit - words fail me.

[no name no slogan]

2. Thank you

for putting into words what so many of us are feeling. The rage, the pain, the hopelessness we feel right now.

But IMHO the tide is turning. The men behind the curtain are being exposed for the criminals they are. Dubya's approval is at ±38%-- and sinking like a brick.

The administration is clutching at straws, blaming anybody they can for their own shortcomings and criminal behavior. They'll soon be frogmarched off to the waiting prison cells.

I can't wait for the perp walks to begin. Scooter Libby is just the first. The opposition is finding its voice. We're growing in numbers and are makinig our move.

And NEVER, EVER give up hope. Sometimes it is all we have. :loveya:

ON EDIT: Recommended for greatest page!

[Sugar Smack]

9. I really try to keep that in mind.

I think our perspicacity has been shot to smithereens by this administration's blunders, crimes, and negligence. I almost remember the safety I felt during the Clinton years.

[Up2Late]

32. I fear you're wrong. I doubt that any of these incompetent jerks...

...who are ultimately responsible for this, and ultimately to blame, by putting this "dry-alcoholic," chickenhawk, never done an honest days work in his life, and failed at everything he ever attempted, so Daddy had to bail him out, moron into the Office of the President, where he could let the whole Country down. I doubt those people will ever spend even a day in prison. They'll just bribe their way out, or head of to some "off shore banking" haven to live out their lives.:mad:

[no name no slogan]

62. Like I said: NEVER, EVER give up hope

the train has already started. Justice may be slow, but we will have it.

:thumbsup:

[marylanddem]

3. What an excellent post - thank you - Michael Moore is a

genius. I was in an antique mall one day & heard him being dissed - by one of the people running the mall! As I left without buying anything, I said to the guy, "By the way, I believe Michael Moore is a great filmmaker." As the smirky smile on his face fell away, his jaw dropped.

[Sugar Smack]

14. *grinning*

He is a genius. Why do people think that he's made his point due to clever editing? You can't make that stuff up; it happened, he assembled his resources, and he did it with aplomb and humanity.

[Up2Late]

64. Clever editing?!? Too much editing in my opinion, but what would I know...

...I'm just a Video/Film editor.

I was very disappointed that he didn't just let the entire 5 minutes of him just sitting there play out. Yes, it drags a bit, but with the right music,a nd a few cut-aways to see what's happening as he sits there, it would have been very effective.

I liked almost everything else about that movie, except for that scene.

If you want to see the FULL, Un-cut video, goto this link, it's at the top of the page of the top link below. Looks like the video is a bit darker that it was originally, so watch carefully at the beginning for Andy Card. If you use IE6, if you right click on the link, you can save a copy to you hard drive:

<http://www.thememoryhole.org/911/bush-911.htm>

<http://www.thememoryhole.org/911/>

I'll eventually get to cutting my own version.

[Sugar Smack]

71. THANK YOU, BABY.

The Memory Hole is one of the greatest links ever, EVER.

[Dora]

4. We must all lift this scab.

Thanks for the post - it's now on the greatest page.

[Sugar Smack]

20. Thank you, Dora.

I am generally in control of myself, but last night I just felt like going out and breaking something. :hug:

[Sabriel]

5. I still can't pick that scab

I can't bring myself to watch it. I've seen so many pictures of what we're doing to people in Iraq, and I can't see any more of them.

[Sugar Smack]

21. Hi, Sabriel.

That's kind of what happened to me last night. I've seen the film 3 or 4 times, but I LOST IT. I'm a guest in my boyfriend's apartment and I started screaming. A few days will go by and our senses become deadened as we distract ourselves.

One more image after another fuels our rage & our horror. I felt helpless with it at first; what do you do with rage? Since I've decided I have to live with it for the time being, I'm trying to use it as a tool.

[Poet Lariat]

7. Thanks for posting this Sugar Smack... lest people forget

[Sugar Smack]

22. Thank you.

It's amazing how much we all feel over that day, yet some of these "Never Forget" people are thinking that "Kicking some Iraqi ass" will vindicate 911. Unbelieveable.

[Beam Me Up]

10. We should never forget. 9/11 is the mother of all 'Iraq War' lies.

It is the mother of all lies regarding the 'War on Terrorism'.

If we could pull the scab all the way back, we'd discover just how ugly the so called 'National Security State' really is. We'd discover who it really serves (not us). We'd discover that we are all victims of a psy-op of mythical proportions; all of us victims of an attack by one class of Americans upon another.

That, too, is real, and it makes me more than sick.

[Sugar Smack]

24. That is something that got me last night-

the lies. Sick, disgusting lies, the backpeddaling, the brazen and unapologetic conduct of this administration. Thank you for that post. I coudn't agree more.

[mtnsnake]

11. Thanks for sharing such a well worded, thought provocative post

Well done!

[Sugar Smack]

27. Thanks. Maybe this is the way a lot of us

feel; I don't know- OK sometimes, being distracted with our own lives. Myself, I don't personally know anyone who died September 11th, but I know people who knew people who died. We get distracted with our lives and then the day comes back, the very idea, that whole nightmare.

[DemonFighterLives]

12. Good Post!

The film should be required viewing to everyone.
:dem:

[Sugar Smack]

29. I think it should, too.

Remember that ridiculous fight against showing it on national TV?

[tk2kewl]

13. I thought you meant you stole something from someone who stole your job

[Sugar Smack]

16. LOL!

You're terrible!

:spray:

[porphyrian]

18. Now watch "Unprecidented" and punch something.

Here's IMDB's page on it:
http://imdb.com/title/tt0346091/

[Sugar Smack]

31. OMG. I just saw the "cast of characters"

and felt my blood pressure go up. Thank you for that link, because I may go see it later once I'm feeling nice & relaxed again. ;-)

[tomreedtoon]

34. One of the ugly truths NOT associated with Bush.

And in fact, it's a painful question to even consider. Given a choice of several ways to die, and little chance that any of them would be any less painful than the other, which would you take?

We Americans like to think we're an optimistic people. We have been in the past, although I can't say we feel that way right now. But we still like to think there's some way out of every dilemma. The people in the WTC might have had that conscious choice about ways to die available to them, or maybe they did what they did out of panic. It was individual; there was no time for consensus.

It is an ugly fact of existence. We don't want to choose to die. We don't want to think about it, and that's why such videos and pictures have been highly censored.

My point is that the agony was not directly caused by Bush. (Unless you're one of those paranoid souls who thought Bush paid bin Laden to hijack those planes - and if you believe that, you've probably bought that North Carolina scrub land from Eric Estrada's TV infomercial by now, sucker.) Bush and his handlers have used the WTC dead AFTER the fact, and that is inexcusable, and I believe they will eventually face a very different God than they imagine who will judge them for that.

However, Bush didn't make those people jump. In this long battle we have to bring America back, we have to be careful about our facts. The Bush Admininstration didn't make those people jump and die; however, it is very guilty of corpse abuse.

[Sugar Smack]

39. Oh, did you get the memo?

Bushco did. "Bin Laden Determined to Strike Within the United States". At least a dozen times.

One of the popular RW talking points I've seen used in arguments is the use of hyperbole (exaggeration) to make the other side seem unreasonable: "Bush didn't make those people jump." By GUM, you're right! Bush didn't MAKE anybody jump! And he wasn't driving a plane into either tower. And he didn't physically stand up there and shove people out of the towers.

It was within this administration's power to prevent these catastrophies and they didn't. That's the logic the rest of us are using. But I did like your Eric Estrada reference, even if we don't watch the same channels. That was HIGHLY amusing.

[Stephanie]

45. Exactly! He refutes a point that was never made in the first place.

[Sugar Smack]

52. I wonder when he'll inform me that Bush didn't cause

Hurricane Katrina. This should be fun.

[Laurab]

70. "paranoid soul" that I am I agree with you

I know he got the memo. I know that the investigation of that day has been fought each and every step of the way by this administration, and there must be a reason for that. What the reason is, we may never really know, but this "paranoid soul" doesn't think the bushit administration is completely forthcoming with their knowledge about that day, and as a "paranoid soul" I can't help but wonder "why".

* isn't over in Iraq helping the guys shoot anyone, or be shot at, either (fat chance of that happening), but it doesn't make him or his misadministration any less culpable.

I wonder which Fox News show the Eric Estrada commercial is on...

[Sugar Smack]

77. I like you,Laurab!

Thanks for your perspective. I really value your input against this shiststorm that's mounting against the rest of us!

[Hello_Kitty]

76. You don't have to be paranoid to be a LIHOPer

Ignored PDBs, memos, warnings from Clinton, intelligence chatter, and the stupefied expression on Dumbya's face, not to mention him and Cheney flying around the country or cowering in hidey-holes. AND THEN, they let the Bin Ladens fly out of the country - WHEN NO ONE ELSE WAS ALLOWED TO FLY!! NOT EVEN FOR AN ORGAN TRANSPLANT!!!!

Stonewalling the 9-11 investigation. PNAC documents that call for the need of a "new Pearl Harbor".

They knew it was coming and figured maybe a few dozen deaths. Small price to pay for political capital needed to carry out their plans. When it turned out to be so much worse, they got the cover-up going and used the much larger tragedy to further their ends even more.


Rotten Evil Assholes. :grr:

[tomreedtoon]

80. But Bush didn't EMPLOY bin Laden.

That's the main point. Some people have completely jumped the track and figured Bush as the leader of a vast black-helicopter conspiracy that deliberately engineered September 11. That didn't happen because Bush couldn't suddenly be as competent as Ernst Stavro Blofeld one moment, and as stupid as Jimmy the Idiot Boy the next.

[Sugar Smack]

83. I haven't seen a SINGLE post on this thread

saying he did. The point of this is that a couple of hundred jumped to their deaths and thousands died in what was a preventable catastrophe. They were warned repeatedly and they didn't act to protect people. Where is this subthread or reference or whatever to what you're talking about? I'm not seeing any paranoia here; I'm seeing anger and frustration.

[Stephanie]

41. The people jumped because of fire and heat and they couldn't breathe

They jumped because they were about to die. But Bush is to blame - perhaps you've heard about a document called the August 2001 Presidential Daily Brief, the one entitled Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States. Perhaps you don't recall Bush's response to that brief, the actions he took to try to prevent such an attack, the warnings he gave to the airlines, etc., that might have saved those people's lives. Oh that's right, they didn't happen. Bush went on vacation instead. And no, I'm not paranoid - I'm just well-informed. Are you?

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/essay.jsp?article=essayairdefense

[petgoat]

68. Bush went on vacation

But while he was on vacation (and ignoring the 8-6 PDB and John Ashcroft
was refusing to return David Schippers's phone calls relaying warnings
from frustrated FBI agents of upcoming attacks in lower Manhattan)
Bush had 24-hour fighter cover, says Rep. Cynthia McKinney.

http://www.counterpunch.org/mckinney0918.html

9/11 Truth is the great issue that will bring the Bushcists down. Next
year, with the five-year anniversaries, will be the year of 9/11 Truth.

We've passed the five-year anniversary of Sandy Berger's request
(11/7/00) that the Pentagon undertake commando raids against the al
Qaeda camps (the chairman of the Joint Chiefs ans the Secy of Defense
opposed him).

In January we'll have the anniversaries of Bush's order that the FBI
shut down investigations of suspected terrorist financiers, and of
Condi's rejection of Richard Clarke's plan to go after al Qaeda
through military strikes and interference with their financing.

When the American people learn what the Bushcists did, their revulsion
will sweep Congress and the Senate in 11/06.

[High Plains]

37. You did an armed robbery on a strike-breaker?

[Sugar Smack]

40. Ooh, you're just as bad as tk2kewl !

:spray:

[Jackpine Radical]

43. Goddamit. All my good lines get pre-emptively stolen before I get here.

[formercia]

44. I wathched it again the other day

for the umteenth time. Whenever I need to remind myself of why i'm here.......

[Sugar Smack]

50. It never gets any easier to watch.

And every stupid move Bush has made afterward adds to the embarrassing, terrible condition of this country. I'm remembering that "Mirror" cover the day after Bush was re-elected right now.

[BikeWriter]

46. It hurts, but thank you for sharing! I hope to live to see justice...

done to the bastards who USED that tragedy to further their own agenda!

[Sugar Smack]

51. Me too, Bike Writer.

I'm with ya. :hug:

[BikeWriter]

61. Thank you, Dear.

:hug:

[in_cog_ni_to]

47. Damn...I thought you ripped off a Union SCAB!

I feel your anger. I KNOW your anger. I hate these people with every fiber of my being and it's beyond belief that they're still in power. Clinton was impeached over lying about a damn BLOW JOB!!!! A BLOW JOB!!!! These maniacal MURDERERS have killed THOUSANDS of people...THOUSANDS! and they're still in power? Where's the outrage is what I want to know. I can't wait for the day they all take a walk to prison.

Great post. I do feel your pain. :cry:

[Sugar Smack]

48. When I think of Clinton's impeachment

compared with the complete train wreck this country's become under the Bush administration, I do the same as you. I'm apoplectic. WHY ARE THEY STILL HERE? WHY?

I really appreciate your post. Your perspective is the same utterly confounded feeling so many of us have.

[glitch]

57. 9/11 - one third of Bush's "Lucky me, I hit the TRIFECTA" to crony

laughter.

Thank you for posting, beautifully written, a necessary reminder to never forget.

[Sugar Smack]

58. Thank you, glitch.

The flip remarks, unbelieveable if they weren't TRUE. And ON CAMERA, Bush's "REAL FUNNY" search for WMDs in the oval office! How do they do it? How do these people sleep at night?

[glitch]

63. My guess is Ambien -- "How do they sleep at night"

Colin Powell said everybody in DC used it. Supposedly it doesn't actually make you sleep, it just makes you forget your sleepless night.
And we wonder why their actions are psychotic.

[lostnfound]

59. The pain of the last 4 years seemed to be present in that moment of video

Before 9-11, I could imagine that November 2000 was a huge disappointment but not the end of 'my country'; long entrenched wars were left behind in childhood 30 years ago; a police state was what Russia had; occasional lies were served up to cover up private affairs not served up 24-7 as breakfast, lunch and dinner; Shrub would hurt the poor and middle class but not decimate the entire economy; corruption meant a handful of greedy people taking kickbacks or trading on inside information (not a fascist cabal colluding against its own people); I feared the idea that a Negroponte-style whacko might once again be set loose to terrorize Latin America, but never dreamed he might be set loose in North America; and extinction was a threat hanging over the heads of specific endangered species not over the entire planet or whole human race.

Watching F9-11 brought it all back, collapsed into 5 minutes of wordless, gut-wrenching, silent sobbing.

[Sugar Smack]

60. Oh, you put that so, so well.

Beautiful. You captured the pathos of this country in one paragraph precicely. It was going to be hard, we knew, but we never expected the brutality.

Thank you for that, lostnfound.

[hippywife]

65. Thank you, Sugar!

This scab should be ripped off everytime it begins to cover over again. I too have cried everytime I've watched that movie. During the blacked out scene of the attacks, I cry as hard as I did the day I watched it happening on TV.

On the second anniversary of the attack, I consciously avoided all the news coverage. I didn't want to hear all the sanctimonious crap that had come to be the standard pap delivered by the MSM. They did no honor to those who died that day.

But the one thing that did get through to me that day, that night as I was getting ready for bed was the very ending of the Frontline program that night. This is what I heard read by the author and I have never, ever forgotten it. It's the most moving thing I've ever heard and read about that day.

"Leap" by Bryan Doyle (editor of the Portland Magazine at the University of Oregon-Portland)

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/faith/questions/leap.html

But he reached for her hand and she reached for his hand and they leaped out the window holding hands.

I try to whisper prayers for the sudden dead and the harrowed families of the dead and the screaming souls of the murderers but I keep coming back to his hand and her hand nestled in each other with such extraordinary ordinary succinct ancient naked stunning perfect simple ferocious love.

Their hands reaching and joining are the most powerful prayer I can imagine, the most eloquent, the most graceful. It is everything that we are capable of against horror and loss and death. It is what makes me believe that we are not craven fools and charlatans to believe in God, to believe that human beings have greatness and holiness within them like seeds that open only under great fires, to believe that some unimaginable essence of who we are persists past the dissolution of what we were, to believe against such evil hourly evidence that love is why we are here.

No one knows who they were: husband and wife, lovers, dear friends, colleagues, strangers thrown together at the window there at the lip of hell. Maybe they didn't even reach for each other consciously, maybe it was instinctive, a reflex, as they both decided at the same time to take two running steps and jump out the shattered window, but they did reach for each other, and they held on tight, and leaped, and fell endlessly into the smoking canyon, at two hundred miles an hour, falling so far and so fast that they would have blacked out before they hit the pavement near Liberty Street so hard that there was a pink mist in the air.

Jennifer Brickhouse saw them holding hands, and Stuart DeHann saw them holding hands, and I hold onto that.

[proud2BlibKansan]

67. The way he portrayed the 9/11 attacks in that movie

was the best I have seen anywhere. Absolutely brilliant filmmaking.

[kansan]

69. Bush is a constant embarrassment.

[Sugar Smack]

74. Welcome to DU, kansan.

You are among friends here; say what you want! :hi:

[Bouncy Ball]

73. Thank you for mentioning the people who jumped.

They haunt me. They will haunt me to the end of my life.

You see, my greatest fear in the whole world is jumping to my death.

So when I saw the footage, briefly, on TV, shortly after it happened, I started to panic and hyperventilate.

I had nightmares about it for six solid weeks afterwards. I know people died in the planes, I know people in the buildings died on impact.

But it's the poor souls who jumped who still haunt me and my dreams.

One woman who jumped was seven months pregnant with her first child, a baby girl. I saw the picture of her when she was just stepping off the ledge. The unspeakable, unknowable horror. There are no words for that, absolutely no words at all. I felt as if I couldn't breathe.

I watched some movie recently from the early 90s, can't remember what it was called. One character was up on the top of one of the towers looking out and I marveled at how low the clouds were, remembered those poor souls, and shivered.

Ten seconds? I never knew how long, but I would have guessed longer. It is my most fervent prayer that every one of them passed out very shortly after jumping and that when they landed they were totally unconscious.

I hope they all were. I do. And I've always wondered why the people who jumped were never really mentioned after that. Was their death just beyond the beyond?

[Sugar Smack]

75. I hope to God they went into shock.

That's the only thing I could wish for them at that point.

I know what you mean.

Ten seconds is a very long time, when you're waiting to die.

Thank you, Bouncy Ball.

[no name no slogan]

86. kick

a big :kick: for this excellent thread and a huge :hug: and :* for my Sugar Smack!!! :loveya:

[Sugar Smack]

87. Thank you so much, nnns.

Really, this has torn me to pieces but I have got to really deal with it, like all of us. We have to rearrange our minds in order to accept or at least assimilate this. It's the truth, and it's still happening.

[JI7]

79. i remember hearing about this that day

people telling of how people would jump. some would be holding hands with each other.

interesting to read your post today because i was just going through a history book in the chapter on conditions in the workplace. and there was a pic in there of some girls who had jumped to their deaths when the building they were working in caught on fire. the pic was of a bunch of girls dead on the streets with some people nearby looking up at that building and probably the other girls who were going to jump to their deaths.

just how much people were suffering to make such a "decision". people who not too long before were just doing their everyday thing at their work. finishing up some assignment before a deadline. thinking about what they will have for lunch.checking their emails, phone messages etc.

[Sugar Smack]

90. The suddenness of how our lives could change

under an administration who gives NOT A SHIT is devastating. One second, checking emails and thinking about what you'll have for lunch, a visit you'll make later that day- the next, clutching the body of a stranger or friend, knowing that it is all over and wondering WHY?

[SpiralHawk]

81. My wingnut bro refuses to watch video of Bush on 9/11

He will not watch the clip.

He absolutely refuses to sit still and see what Bush actually did -- and did not do -- on 9/11.

He willingly chooses the neocon propaganda spin over what his own eyes would tell him is the truth.

But then again, he is among the many. The corporate "journalists" will not look either, or tell the world. That, maybe more than anything, has undermined their credibility. No wonder Americans no longer trust the corporate media.

As for my brother, he is a lost cause quietly glugging down Rush's Anal Cyst flavored kool aid.

[Sugar Smack]

91. What's he think will happen to him if he does?

Harmless, right? It's just a tape. Just the facts. Aren't republicans tough? Can't they watch something that really happened and come to terms with it? What's keeping him?

:hug: for you.

[laruemtt]

82. i've spent many, many hours

imagining what they went through. have all the books i can find and have read and re-read them. have had nightmares in which i was one of them. have had nightmares in which i was at the foot of the buildings watching people go in for the last time.

i continue to read these and imagine - if it happened to one of us it happened to all of us. and it did happen to hundreds. they saw their coworkers on fire and "decided" to jump rather than burn.

imagining this over and over again may be seen as an obsession, and maybe it is. but it also fuels my rage to know that *bushco allowed this to happen to us and ours. their evil is so profound it's terrifying. THEY allowed this happen to us.

[Sugar Smack]

92. An obsession-

but something that needs to be brought up! I agree that it's a detail of history that should be concentrated upon. Who jumps, because they sre facing certain death? Who put those people in that position?

:hug:

[xchrom]

85. kick

[Swamp Rat]

88. kick and ...

:mad: :grr: :mad: :grr: :mad: :grr: :mad: :grr: :mad: :grr:



edit: I wanted to recommend this post. :(

[Sugar Smack]

89. You are so kind, Swamp Rat. We were all worried about you.

And that "See You in Hell" was as angry and perfect a reaction as I'd seen from anyone.

Thank you so much for what you do, Swamp Rat.