9/11

[MrFun]

Wow -- that does sound really lonely.

[Timexwatch]

Originally posted by Estilpón




first, he's from "new europe"

second, do you remember the Old Europe? do you remember Rumsfeld & Germany?

I think... he's thinking... about another

-----> ¿¿¿ungrateful??? <--------

I was attempting to translate. Sorry if my Spanish is rusty. My Spanish is a bit rusty.

[Ming]

Anybody stupid enough to troll this thread today won't be posting for a while... So if you post is now missing, don't bother to whine about it, or repost it. Either will earn a restriction.

[realpolitic]

Originally posted by MOBIUS

What really hit home for me was visiting NY in Jan '02 and seeing the huge hole of ground zero - that gap in the buildings really left me cold. I couldn't bring myself to actually walk up the ramp to the viewing platform - somehow I thought that would be disrespectful being a non American. ...

I doubt many Americans would consider it disrepectful.

I found myself staring at the collapsed Cypress Structure, which killed dozens in the '89 quake. The sense of death was so painful, I wonder how anyone can look at the WTC ruins.

[MrFun]

The ash, debris, and smoke on 9/11 was just so much, that it seemed so unreal.

The smoke was so much that it temporarily obscured the skyline of New York from the view of the ocean. Does anyone know roughly how long this smoke storm lasted?

[chequita guevara]

Self Evident

by ani difranco

yes,
us people are just poems
we're 90% metaphor
with a leanness of meaning
approaching hyper-distillation
and once upon a time
we were moonshine
rushing down the throat of a giraffe
yes, rushing down the long hallway
despite what the p.a. announcement says
yes, rushing down the long stairs
with the whiskey of eternity
fermented and distilled
to eighteen minutes
burning down our throats
down the hall
down the stairs
in a building so tall
that it will always be there
yes, it's part of a pair
there on the bow of noah's ark
the most prestigious couple
just kickin back parked
against a perfectly blue sky
on a morning beatific
in its indian summer breeze
on the day that america
fell to its knees
after strutting around for a century
without saying thank you
or please

and the shock was subsonic
and the smoke was deafening
between the setup and the punch line
cuz we were all on time for work that day
we all boarded that plane for to fly
and then while the fires were raging
we all climbed up on the windowsill
and then we all held hands
and jumped into the sky

and every borough looked up when it heard the first blast
and then every dumb action movie was summarily surpassed
and the exodus uptown by foot and motorcar
looked more like war than anything i've seen so far
so far
so far
so fierce and ingenious
a poetic specter so far gone
that every jackass newscaster was struck dumb and stumbling
over 'oh my god' and 'this is unbelievable' and on and on
and i'll tell you what, while we're at it
you can keep the pentagon
keep the propaganda
keep each and every tv
that's been trying to convince me
to participate
in some prep school punk's plan to perpetuate retribution
perpetuate retribution
even as the blue toxic smoke of our lesson in retribution
is still hanging in the air
and there's ash on our shoes
and there's ash in our hair
and there's a fine silt on every mantle
from hell's kitchen to brooklyn
and the streets are full of stories
sudden twists and near misses
and soon every open bar is crammed to the rafters
with tales of narrowly averted disasters
and the whiskey is flowin
like never before
as all over the country
folks just shake their heads
and pour

so here's a toast to all the folks who live in palestine
afghanistan
iraq

el salvador

here's a toast to the folks living on the pine ridge reservation
under the stone cold gaze of mt. rushmore

here's a toast to all those nurses and doctors
who daily provide women with a choice
who stand down a threat the size of oklahoma city
just to listen to a young woman's voice

here's a toast to all the folks on death row right now
awaiting the executioner's guillotine
who are shackled there with dread and can only escape into their heads
to find peace in the form of a dream

cuz take away our playstations
and we are a third world nation
under the thumb of some blue blood royal son
who stole the oval office and that phony election
i mean
it don't take a weatherman
to look around and see the weather
jeb said he'd deliver florida, folks
and boy did he ever

and we hold these truths to be self evident:
#1 george w. bush is not president
#2 america is not a true democracy
#3 the media is not fooling me
cuz i am a poem heeding hyper-distillation
i've got no room for a lie so verbose
i'm looking out over my whole human family
and i'm raising my glass in a toast

here's to our last drink of fossil fuels
let us vow to get off of this sauce
shoo away the swarms of commuter planes
and find that train ticket we lost
cuz once upon a time the line followed the river
and peeked into all the backyards
and the laundry was waving
the graffiti was teasing us
from brick walls and bridges
we were rolling over ridges
through valleys
under stars
i dream of touring like duke ellington
in my own railroad car
i dream of waiting on the tall blonde wooden benches
in a grand station aglow with grace
and then standing out on the platform
and feeling the air on my face

give back the night its distant whistle
give the darkness back its soul
give the big oil companies the finger finally
and relearn how to rock-n-roll
yes, the lessons are all around us and a change is waiting there
so it's time to pick through the rubble, clean the streets
and clear the air
get our government to pull its big **** out of the sand
of someone else's desert
put it back in its pants
and quit the hypocritical chants of
freedom forever

cuz when one lone phone rang
in two thousand and one
at ten after nine
on nine one one
which is the number we all called
when that lone phone rang right off the wall
right off our desk and down the long hall
down the long stairs
in a building so tall
that the whole world turned
just to watch it fall


and while we're at it
remember the first time around?
the bomb?
the ryder truck?
the parking garage?
the princess that didn't even feel the pea?
remember joking around in our apartment on avenue D?

can you imagine how many paper coffee cups would have to change their design
following a fantastical reversal of the new york skyline?!

it was a joke, of course
it was a joke
at the time
and that was just a few years ago
so let the record show
that the FBI was all over that case
that the plot was obvious and in everybody's face
and scoping that scene
religiously
the CIA
or is it KGB?
committing countless crimes against humanity
with this kind of eventuality
as its excuse
for abuse after expensive abuse
and it didn't have a clue
look, another window to see through
way up here
on the 104th floor
look
another key
another door
10% literal
90% metaphor
3000 some poems disguised as people
on an almost too perfect day
should be more than pawns
in some *******'s passion play
so now it's your job
and it's my job
to make it that way
to make sure they didn't die in vain
sshhhhhh....
baby listen
hear the train?

You can listen to it here.

[MrFun]

wow -- powerful poem, Chegitz -- whoever wrote that was really good

[chequita guevara]

Another song some certain evil people should have understood.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Another reason to dislike DiFranco.

Anyway, today I'm much farther from Ground Zero than I was two years ago. Back then I could see the smoke from my dorm room lounge window. It was a very sobering sight. People were trying their best to try to get in touch with our many friends in NYC.

[Dis]

I've been staying away from the news today. For some reason I'm tired of memorials. I never understood the purpose. They never seemed right to me. Please don't take that as I don't care. I cared very deeply when it happened. But now...

perhaps I have forgotten. But I still know what needs to be done, and that is what is important.

[Frozzy]

[lord of the mark]

'Silly people--and there were many, not only in enemy countries--might discount the force of the United States. Some said they were soft, others that they would never be united. They would fool around at a distance. They would never come to grips. They would never stand blood-letting. Their democracy and system of recurrent elections would paralyze their war effort. They would be just a vague blur on the horizon to friend or foe. Now we should see the weakness of this numerous but remote, wealthy, and talkative people.

But I had studied the American Civil War, fought to the last desperate inch. American blood flowed in my veins. I thought of a remark which Edward Grey had made to me more than thirty years before--that the United States is like "a gigantic boiler. Once the fire is lighted under it there is no limit to the power it can generate." Being saturated and satiated with emotion and sensation, I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful.'

--Winston Churchill

[lord of the mark]

Though mild clear weather
Smile again on the shire of your esteem
And its colors come back, the storm has changed you: You will not forget, ever,
The darkness blotting out hope, the gale Prophesying your downfall.

You must live with your knowledge.
Way back, beyond, outside of you are others,
In moonless absences you never heard of, Who have certainly heard of you,
Beings of unknown number and gender: And they do not like you.

What have you done to them?
Nothing? Nothing is not an answer:
You will come to believe—how can you help it?— That you did, you did do something;
You will find yourself wishing you could make them laugh, You will long for their friendship.

There will be no peace.
Fight back, then, with such courage as you have
And every unchivalrous dodge you know of, Clear in your conscience on this:
Their cause, if they had one, is nothing to them now; They hate for hate's sake.

--W.H. Auden, There Will Be No Peace

[HershOstropoler]

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and consciencious stupidity."
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

[lord of the mark]

'Two years have passed since the "Tragedy of September 11th". A tragedy resulting from an unprecedented terror attack on the US soil and which took thousands of innocent lives and left many grieving families behind.

Without the shadow of any doubt, this infamous attack was the true manifestation that fanatical Islamic Terrorism has no boundaries and is hell bent in uprooting all the advances achieved by the civilized World, replacing it with archaic beliefs along with an intolerant value system inherent in all overzealous religious sects.

September 11th occurred while the Iranians were commemorating their loved one's massacre at the hands of the fascist-theological Islamic Republic regime. This is exactly why the Iranians, immediately felt in their bones the impact of this murderous act and sympathized with the Americans. Few hours later and in thousands, they took to the streets to support the wounded American Nation and to share its sorrow while undergoing the brutality of the regime's shock troops. .

"America, America.... Condolences, Condolences!" and "Death to Taliban, whether in Kabul or Tehran" they chanted while holding their candle lights despite the brutal attacks of Hezbollahi thugs!!

Since then, Iranians have become more determined than ever to stand up against intolerance and tyranny as they saw the trueness of the unprecedented declaration of President George Bush on "War against Terror" and his revelation of the hideousness of religious fanaticism. They've regain hope by witnessing the overthrow first of the backwarded Taliban rulers in Afghanistan and then of the Iraq's Bathist regime, two of the most notorious supporters and purveyors of global terrorism in contemporary international politics.

Without the shadow of any doubt, the Iranians, themselves the first victims of terrorism for nearly a quarter of a century, not only sympathize with the Americans, but they identify with them in this "Just war". They're are engaged in a daily battle to rid themselves of their monstrous regime known for being the "Mother of Islamist Terrorism" and a notorious member of the "Axis of Evil".

More than ever, the struggling freedom loving Iranians are looking for the moral support of the Americans in their global quest to rid the world of this unholy, demonic menace. The Iranian people are in search of a democratic government separate from religious fanaticism, and a free and peaceful society. In pursuit of these goals they ask the American people to join with them in opposition to any reform or reformist movement within the Islamic republic, and to ask of their representative not to embrace or endorse any such sham reform in Iran, as they are nothing but an illusion and they do not represent the Iranian people.

The "Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran" while honoring all those who perished during the horrific September 11 attack and expressing once again its deepest sympathy with the families of the victims, declares that will do what ever is necessary to strengthen the bond and cooperation between the two great nations of Iran and America in the fight and struggle against Global Terrorism and Religious Fanatism.

It's of this committee's strongest believe that the Iranian and American peoples will emerge victorious in their noble mission of contributing to a safer and peaceful World!'

September 11, 2003 (20th Shahrivar 1382)

The "Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran" (SMCCDI