That United Flight 93 movie is upon us and getting hyped. This is the preReview (which means I haven't seen it): "Don't Go!"
Some people believe that plane was shot out of the sky by a (belated) US missile.
The extreme fringe thinks the passengers were flown to the Cleveland airport and shot.
Flight 93 passenger Todd Beamer's wife says his words on the plane "Let's Roll" are what he always said to the kids when he was ready to drive them to soccer practice or whatever.
"Let's Roll" became a patriotic song in the "Let's Get Some Payback--Any Muslim Country Will Do" phase of our nation's history.
Then the cockpit recordings came out and--whoops, looks like Mrs. Beamer was wrong and "rolling" possibly referred to a bunch of passengers rolling a dinner cart down the aisle in a last-ditch assault on the hijackers.
It's great if there was heroism--we'd all like to believe people rose to the occasion in this doomed scenario and that we'd do the same if we were there. Certainly the hijacking was villainy. But the cockpit utterances are spotty at best--a lot of the movie's narrative is speculation.
Are you ready for a work of semi-fiction that passes itself as fact when the bigger questions of 9/11 haven't been answered?
Questions like, were our leaders, or elements within the government, complicit in this thing on any level? Criminally negligent? We may never know, because the commissions were whitewashes and no one in the government got fired.
Is it right that the US has 700 military bases around the world, 17 years after the end of the Cold War? That we continue to prop up bad regimes long after the Cold War excuse has gone away?
Is it understandable that some might hate us for that, however heinous their methods of reprisal?
Are Americans responsible for the actions of their government?
The movie is voyeurism and jingoism without acknowledgement that there's a bigger story and that the film is fiction. The truth is we still don't know what happened that day.
Dubya is supposed to be the 'top cop' of the USA, and then the biggest crime in American history goes down on his watch, and then...... he tries to block any kind of investigation! First he didn't want there to be any kind of investigation at all, then he obstructed and stalled every way he possibly could, it took the administration being shamed by a group of 9/11 widows for there to be ANY investigation, then later Condisleeza Lies wouldn't be allowed to testify, then she would, but not under oath, then Bush wasn't going to testify, then he would, but only in private, in the Oval Office, with Big Dick by his side coaching him, neither of them sworn under oath to tell the truth, & no audio recordings, no video, no written records.... what is wrong with this picture?
These facts, even more than all the facts about the physics of towers in free-fall, etc. etc., make it plain to me that something badly fishy is going on. Sherlock Holmes would certainly think so.
As you describe it (accurately), a grade school kid would (should) think so. How do we live collectively in such a fog of denial and stupidity? We the People should have screamed for accountability. Instead we screamed to attack the wrong country. I'll never understand it.
It's almost a cliche in some circles now, but this passage needs to be repeated loud & often ... oh the irony! :
"We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.
"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."
"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."
"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
Attributed to :: Hermann Goering, Nazi Reichsmarshall and Luftwaffe-Chief (Hitler's right-hand man)Reference :: Gilbert, G.M. Nuremberg Diary. New York: Farrar, Straus and Company, 1947 (pp. 278-279).
While my interest in conspiracy theories usually involves how their esposal mostly reveals the deepest fears of the believer, my own feelings about 9/11 have mostly stayed the same.
It doesn't take a conspiracy to say that the present administration is completely responsible for what happened, in that they had ample warning and did nothing to stop it. That fact alone should have had The People running the neocons out of town on a rail, were it not for The People being utterly scared shitless.
The adminstration stood to gain mightily from the outcome of 9/11, which they have, and their obsession with secrecy has served to keep the lid on any real investigations.
There will probably be all kinds of movies coming out in the next few years, floating all kinds of conspiracy theories. I'd just like to see a real investigation before all the folks involved die off. Movies like Flight 93 simply add to the confusion of our collective memory on the subject.
Strange how most of the country watching it on TV were effected differently than those of us in the city watching in real time without the benefit of a television filter. I'm still trying to sift through that difference.
kind of odd. the movie only advertised on conservative blogs.
MyDD did a big long post lamenting that fact--the upshot was (I think) "We liberals like heros, too!" Then MyDD did an update saying with some satisfaction that "now the movie company is going to advertise on liberal blogs, too." Well, la di da.
"Strange how most of the country watching it on TV were effected differently than those of us in the city watching in real time without the benefit of a television filter. I'm still trying to sift through that difference."
Yeah, same here. As an eyewitness to the events, my thoughts were "what crook or idiot let this happen?" while those who saw the media version focused on which country needed to be bombed. Partly that's ideology but partly it's evidence that TV should never be confused with reality.
This article by James Ridgeway in Counterpunch, What You Won't See in Flight 93 the Film, questions the time it took for American Airlines to warn other flights of the first hijacking on Flight 11.
"The only people to defend the United States on 911 were the passengers and crews of the 4 hijacked planes."
Why does an artist that makes odd little computer doodles get so worked up? You guys, Namenwirth also, are such a chorus of knee jerks it is amazing you can sleep at night with all your doomsday Chicken Little paranoid fears. Maybe you guys are ajusted (meds) and that help keeps you zoned at the computer and the blocks of color on canvas? It's funny to listen, all the Cop = Nazi talk...
What it boils down to is this: you make animated doodles and bitch- the other guy made a feature film that opened the Tribeca film festival. You have a blog (7,000 appear each day) the director has a national audience, news coverage, press coverage.... His feelings, opinions, backing, drive, desires, etc... Win.
wow, he made a feature film. that must mean hes right. and the president is the president so that must mean hes right. but tom has a popular blog and you dont so that must make him more right than you. this makes thinking much easier. thank you.
except when they dont, here. and then it spreads, like some one we knows approval rating dropping. then we say "told you so". dont make me say i told you so punk.
bread and butter.
Brooklyn Rooster does seem weirdly obsessed with status.
BR serial commenter, failed blogger. and apparently ("odd little computer doodles ") art critic.
Who said cops = Nazis? I like most cops, they keep me safe from all the drunk, violent, machismo-infected culturally redneck illegal aliens in monster trucks tearing around my neighborhood & killing each other in between the times they are beating up their wives and girlfriends. It's the Bush Admin that sucks ass.
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That United Flight 93 movie is upon us and getting hyped. This is the preReview (which means I haven't seen it): "Don't Go!"
Some people believe that plane was shot out of the sky by a (belated) US missile.
The extreme fringe thinks the passengers were flown to the Cleveland airport and shot.
Flight 93 passenger Todd Beamer's wife says his words on the plane "Let's Roll" are what he always said to the kids when he was ready to drive them to soccer practice or whatever.
"Let's Roll" became a patriotic song in the "Let's Get Some Payback--Any Muslim Country Will Do" phase of our nation's history.
Then the cockpit recordings came out and--whoops, looks like Mrs. Beamer was wrong and "rolling" possibly referred to a bunch of passengers rolling a dinner cart down the aisle in a last-ditch assault on the hijackers.
It's great if there was heroism--we'd all like to believe people rose to the occasion in this doomed scenario and that we'd do the same if we were there. Certainly the hijacking was villainy. But the cockpit utterances are spotty at best--a lot of the movie's narrative is speculation.
Are you ready for a work of semi-fiction that passes itself as fact when the bigger questions of 9/11 haven't been answered?
Questions like, were our leaders, or elements within the government, complicit in this thing on any level? Criminally negligent? We may never know, because the commissions were whitewashes and no one in the government got fired.
Is it right that the US has 700 military bases around the world, 17 years after the end of the Cold War? That we continue to prop up bad regimes long after the Cold War excuse has gone away?
Is it understandable that some might hate us for that, however heinous their methods of reprisal?
Are Americans responsible for the actions of their government?
The movie is voyeurism and jingoism without acknowledgement that there's a bigger story and that the film is fiction. The truth is we still don't know what happened that day.
- tom moody 4-27-2006 4:13 am
Dubya is supposed to be the 'top cop' of the USA, and then the biggest crime in American history goes down on his watch, and then...... he tries to block any kind of investigation! First he didn't want there to be any kind of investigation at all, then he obstructed and stalled every way he possibly could, it took the administration being shamed by a group of 9/11 widows for there to be ANY investigation, then later Condisleeza Lies wouldn't be allowed to testify, then she would, but not under oath, then Bush wasn't going to testify, then he would, but only in private, in the Oval Office, with Big Dick by his side coaching him, neither of them sworn under oath to tell the truth, & no audio recordings, no video, no written records.... what is wrong with this picture?
These facts, even more than all the facts about the physics of towers in free-fall, etc. etc., make it plain to me that something badly fishy is going on. Sherlock Holmes would certainly think so.
- Thor Johnson (guest) 4-27-2006 7:05 pm
As you describe it (accurately), a grade school kid would (should) think so. How do we live collectively in such a fog of denial and stupidity? We the People should have screamed for accountability. Instead we screamed to attack the wrong country. I'll never understand it.
- tom moody 4-27-2006 9:02 pm
It's almost a cliche in some circles now, but this passage needs to be repeated loud & often ... oh the irony! :
"We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.
"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."
"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."
"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
Attributed to :: Hermann Goering, Nazi Reichsmarshall and Luftwaffe-Chief (Hitler's right-hand man)Reference :: Gilbert, G.M. Nuremberg Diary. New York: Farrar, Straus and Company, 1947 (pp. 278-279).
- Thor Johnson (guest) 4-27-2006 9:23 pm
While my interest in conspiracy theories usually involves how their esposal mostly reveals the deepest fears of the believer, my own feelings about 9/11 have mostly stayed the same.
It doesn't take a conspiracy to say that the present administration is completely responsible for what happened, in that they had ample warning and did nothing to stop it. That fact alone should have had The People running the neocons out of town on a rail, were it not for The People being utterly scared shitless.
The adminstration stood to gain mightily from the outcome of 9/11, which they have, and their obsession with secrecy has served to keep the lid on any real investigations.
There will probably be all kinds of movies coming out in the next few years, floating all kinds of conspiracy theories. I'd just like to see a real investigation before all the folks involved die off. Movies like Flight 93 simply add to the confusion of our collective memory on the subject.
Strange how most of the country watching it on TV were effected differently than those of us in the city watching in real time without the benefit of a television filter. I'm still trying to sift through that difference.
- KH (guest) 4-29-2006 5:34 pm
kind of odd. the movie only advertised on conservative blogs.
- dave 4-29-2006 5:49 pm
MyDD did a big long post lamenting that fact--the upshot was (I think) "We liberals like heros, too!" Then MyDD did an update saying with some satisfaction that "now the movie company is going to advertise on liberal blogs, too." Well, la di da.
"Strange how most of the country watching it on TV were effected differently than those of us in the city watching in real time without the benefit of a television filter. I'm still trying to sift through that difference."
Yeah, same here. As an eyewitness to the events, my thoughts were "what crook or idiot let this happen?" while those who saw the media version focused on which country needed to be bombed. Partly that's ideology but partly it's evidence that TV should never be confused with reality.
- tom moody 4-29-2006 7:21 pm
This article by James Ridgeway in Counterpunch, What You Won't See in Flight 93 the Film, questions the time it took for American Airlines to warn other flights of the first hijacking on Flight 11.
"The only people to defend the United States on 911 were the passengers and crews of the 4 hijacked planes."
- L.M. 4-29-2006 8:05 pm
Why does an artist that makes odd little computer doodles get so worked up? You guys, Namenwirth also, are such a chorus of knee jerks it is amazing you can sleep at night with all your doomsday Chicken Little paranoid fears. Maybe you guys are ajusted (meds) and that help keeps you zoned at the computer and the blocks of color on canvas? It's funny to listen, all the Cop = Nazi talk...
What it boils down to is this: you make animated doodles and bitch- the other guy made a feature film that opened the Tribeca film festival. You have a blog (7,000 appear each day) the director has a national audience, news coverage, press coverage.... His feelings, opinions, backing, drive, desires, etc... Win.
- Brooklyn Rooster (guest) 4-30-2006 4:58 pm
wow, he made a feature film. that must mean hes right. and the president is the president so that must mean hes right. but tom has a popular blog and you dont so that must make him more right than you. this makes thinking much easier. thank you.
- dave 4-30-2006 5:16 pm
except when they dont, here. and then it spreads, like some one we knows approval rating dropping. then we say "told you so". dont make me say i told you so punk.
- bill 4-30-2006 5:19 pm
bread and butter.
- bill 4-30-2006 5:20 pm
Brooklyn Rooster does seem weirdly obsessed with status.
- tom moody 4-30-2006 6:26 pm
BR serial commenter, failed blogger. and apparently ("odd little computer doodles ") art critic.
- bill 4-30-2006 6:59 pm
Who said cops = Nazis? I like most cops, they keep me safe from all the drunk, violent, machismo-infected culturally redneck illegal aliens in monster trucks tearing around my neighborhood & killing each other in between the times they are beating up their wives and girlfriends. It's the Bush Admin that sucks ass.
- Thor Johnson (guest) 5-01-2006 12:20 am