As you know if you hang around this page, I try to pick out interesting video clips to link to, usually one per day. This takes less time than you'd think but last night, as I went searching for something to post tomorrow, it took an unusually long time. I felt that on the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, I ought to put up something that said something important about that day.
There are thousands of video clips on the Internet about the September 11 tragedies. Many of them are long, intense lectures by people who believe they've proven (but haven't) that the "official" version of what occurred that day is a sham. The twin towers could not possibly have collapsed the way we were told they'd collapsed…and of course, no plane hit the Pentagon. Of all that, they are sure. I am a big believer in the expectation that the government will shamelessly lie to us — any regime of the government and especially the current one — but in this case, I have seen no evidence that makes me suspicious that what most people think happened that day is not pretty much what happened that day.
So I won't be linking to any of those videos and besides, they're all real long and extremely boring.
There are also thousands of "tribute" videos people have made…some clumsily titled as "tributes to 9/11" by folks who don't mean to celebrate what occurred on that day. Most consist of stills and video clips edited against a properly somber record…often "Only Time" by Enya. (The first one I recall seeing online a little less than five years ago was this one. It's still quite moving and whoever assembled it did a helluva job.)
I watched a few of them last night and found myself getting alternately sad and angry. The sad part needs no explanation but perhaps the angry part does. The more I am reminded of the pain of that day, the more I resent the folks who've tried to manipulate its memory. No event in my lifetime (I'm 54) brought Americans together the way our shared suffering brought us together that day. It is appalling not only that this unity has been lost but that the emotions of 9/11 have been reconfigured to demonize one another. The worst kind of partisans have claimed 9/11 as a club to use against the other side. The same thing has happened with the Iraq War: If you don't see things my way and vote for my side, you must be objectively pro-terrorist, plus you hate America and pray for our troops to be killed.
That dung has always bothered me, but it never quite bothered me as much as it did last night when I was watching footage of the burning towers, still shots of innocent human beings plunging to their deaths and the pained agony of onlookers and family members. I kept thinking, "How did we get from this to where we are now?" I finally had to stop watching 9/11 videos and cleanse my video palate with stuff like this.
So I haven't picked out a video for tomorrow. If you have any nominations, let me have them…though I can't guarantee I'll be able to watch them all. It really depresses me that, as I read about this Path to 9/11 movie on ABC, some people seem to be trying to note the five year anniversary of that awful disaster by seeing how much blame they can pin on their political opponents.