Note: On another sunny Tuesday morning in September, eleven years ago today . . .
For other September 11, posts, check here.
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Normally, I don't get my news from television. I'm not saying that proudly—as though I'm too good to absorb the din and clamor of the opiate of the masses, predigested spin-doctored effluvia that's seasoned heavily with propaganda. Nope, I'm saying that because I have a secret—the images of daily news are too horrific for me. What I see flashes straight through to my soul, bypassing the usual editorial board obstacle course that reason and logic have constructed over the decades. I mostly get my news from online, especially Google News (“untouched by human hands”), Truthout, and from my favorite blogs, Huffington Post, or OpEdNews. I'm also fond of Newsweek (I simply filter out some of their Conservative leanings).
But when September 11 hit with a giant smash on the psyche of the world, I became a televisio-drombie-zoid. I hardly slept or ate for days. I simply stared vacantly at the screen, surfed channels, and cried. The images of those little bodies casting themselves out of the towers into certain death, well, they are seared into me indelibly.
Out of all the troubling events of that day—the ones that actually got broadcast, anyway—the one that haunted me for the longest was the image of then Chief of Staff Andrew Card leaning over Bush's shoulder (as Bush sat in a Florida elementary school, reading "My Pet Goat," no less) and whispering in the presidential ear. The expression on Bush's face—that's what killed me. Card was informing Bush that the secondWorld Trade Center
Out of all the troubling events of that day—the ones that actually got broadcast, anyway—the one that haunted me for the longest was the image of then Chief of Staff Andrew Card leaning over Bush's shoulder (as Bush sat in a Florida elementary school, reading "My Pet Goat," no less) and whispering in the presidential ear. The expression on Bush's face—that's what killed me. Card was informing Bush that the second
No way could I digest that information—that casual, cavalier demeanor of Bush's in any way other than to believe that he knew. The more I thought about how Bush knew about the events of 9/11, the sicker I felt. Months went by before I thought of or even had the courage to do some research online—after all, I was recovering, mourning, in my own way, the loss of innocence and the belief of the
I'm still researching, I'm still learning and wondering, but the most convincing and erudite treatise I have found so far is this: Joseph P. Firmage's Interesting Facts and Theories on 9/11 essay, in which he analyzes the mountainous debris of evidence and pulls out 42 "facts of significance," intersecting them across three possible theories about what happened. The most overwhelmingly cogent theory is the one that, sadly, points to Bush administration officials as having "architected and caused them [the attacks] to happen." Firmage is a heavy—scientist, CEO, writer, visionary of our times—a great thinker. Not the kind of person to be swayed by flighty theories that are espoused by fringe crazies. His scientific pedigree is rock solid. His essay is available online, free, in PDF format at the Journal of 911 Studies. Please read it. Please let me know how you feel. Please tell me I am not alone.
