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6:51:00 PM EDT
Feeling Sad
Hearing Delilah howling at the fire engines
United 93, On Native Ground and Why we Fight
Mandy and I just finished crying our way through the end of the movie about the hijacking of United Flight 93 on September 11. The phone calls to the families of the victims on board made us start crying, and then we seemed to just keep crying. Mandy was sitting on the edge of the couch with her knees drawn up and her fist shoved inside of her mouth.
It is hard to imagine the terror and the bravery those passengers faced.
However, under "special features" on the DVD there were interviews with the families of the passengers and crew of the plane, and they filmed the actors meeting the families of the victims, and this was even more moving and more compelling than the film itself.
David and I watched the film last night when the kids were all asleep. I do not want Shelby to see it. She is way too young to see such violence. I watched it this time with subtitles, which made it easier to follow.
Last week we watched the remarkable documentary On Native Ground, which is about the 9-11 commission report. Shelby was very confused and upset about seeing the planes fly into the World Trade Center (we thought she was asleep on the couch but she had awakened at some point.) She kept saying, "well, it's not real, is it? It's just pretend, right?" and we were trying to find a way to tell her it had happened for real but was not happening now.
How do you explain such hatred to a child?
On Native Soil was very interesting, and it brilliantly shows what a (for lack of any other word that can explain what happened) a cluster fuck our nation's initial response to the horrific events was...the police and the fire department could not communicate with each other in New York, the military and the FAA could not communicate with each other, there was no consensus as to how to handle shooting down the two planes that eventually flew into the Pentagon and the ground...and what seemed the most shocking to me, the second tower had been started to be evacuated, and then the people getting of the elevators and out of the stairwells WERE SEND BACK Upstairs before the second plane crashed.
WTF? As one victims mother said, if the house next to me was on fire, I would want to evacuate it. Why did they send them back into that building?
And of course, the Bush Administration shamefully scrambled trying to cover their own asses rather than start the independent commission until they were shamed into it by determined families.
Amid the bureaucratic confusion and mistakes, there were so many shining examples of bravery and heroism that I was again reduced to tears. The bravery and honesty of the average American citizen is astounding to see...and the police officers and firefighters were truly heroic.
Finally, we also watched the wonderful documentary Why We Fight, and its message was one that I will carry to my grave. Ask the average American why we are in Iraq, and they will say Freedom...but press them, and you will see how conflicted and confused our nation is about this terrible war. That happens when a president attacks the wrong country. The average American knows that Saddam Hussein and Osoma Bin Laden are not the same person.
What this documentary so brilliantly clarified for me was that we are drifting very rapidly away from being a democracy, and more towards being a capitalistic society that is being dominated by corporations, particularly the military industrial complex...
and who warned us about this? Noneelse than the REPUBLICAN President Eisenhower, who warned the United States about what is taking place in his farewell speech to the Nation. This documentary examines how much of our military policy is now defined by money and the military complex..and it is a terrifying truth that young American soldiers pay for in their own blood.
Click here: Why We Fight - A Film By Eugene Jarecki to hear the wonderfully prophetic speech by President Eisenhower...
Examining all this has been exhausting and terrifying.
But, I think, very necessary, particularly as Mandy gets to vote for the first time next month. I was particularly proud of her that she also was able to extend some compassion to the terrorists, because they were so young and so frightened as well...evil as their actions were, they are also the children of God. They were also pawns in this--you do not see the children of Osoma Bin Laden going on suicide missions, do you? Suicide bombers are almost uniformly drawn from the ranks of the very poor and desperate.
I am glad that my child has an open heart.
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You are braver than I. I can't watch those movies. I hate to cry and cry which is what would happen. They upset me for days.
Traci -
I haven't been able to think of going to watch any of the movies...maybe because I know people who have lost loved ones? The father of my kid's PE teacher died, a friend's neighbor lost her husband and her only son and there are more
Becky -
I am unable to watch any of the shows or movies. I also have problems watching true life about the holocaust.
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I felt the same as you did until I saw the interviews with the families. They feel that everyone is already forgetting what happened and they wanted to make sure that people remembered. They felt it was important that the story be told.
10/20/06 5:46 PM
xoxo