A Haunting Front Page -- Before 9/11 Changed Everything

[babylonsister]

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003580937

A Haunting Front Page -- Before 9/11 Changed Everything
Everyone remembers, or may even retain, a front page from the local newspaper on the day after 9/11. But a look at the paper on the morning of the terrorist attacks in 2001 really shows what we have lost since.

By Greg Mitchell

snip//

But what really set me thinking, more than five years later, was this: The killings in America were confined to that day, but within hours of the terror attacks, events were set in motion that would lead to even more Americans perishing abroad in an unnecessary war — not to mention all the dead Iraqis and the wasting of a trillion dollars. As Richard Clarke revealed, before 9/11 was over the administration was already boasting that it would attack Saddam, even without any proof of a connection to that day's terror attacks.

Looking at that front page reminded me of what was lost: the relatively peaceful "normalcy" of our lives then, and the hope that major problems plaguing us here at home (such as health care) could be tackled and resolved.

What was the lead upper-right headline that day in the Times? "Key Leaders Talk of Possible Deals to Revive Economy." Next to that: "Scientists Urge Bigger Supply of Stem Cells." Ho-hum, but a whole lot better than "Surge of U.S. Troops to Baghdad Not Producing Results."

Other front-page headlines from Sept. 11, 2001, reflect an innocence now lost: "School Dress vs. a Sea of Bare Flesh" and "In a Nation of Early Risers, Morning TV is a Hot Market." Oh, for those days when the Times was criticized for running soft news on Page One! If we could only turn back the clock.

This was brought home even more painfully on April 25 in Bill Moyers' PBS special "Buying the War," the most powerful broadcast-TV indictment yet of the news media's role as key enablers in the march to war in 2002 and 2003. While much of the evidence presented of the media's role as cheerleaders for the war was not new, it was skillfully assembled, with many fresh quotes from interviews along with numerous embarrassing statements by journalists and pundits that proved grossly misleading or wrong. Several prominent media figures, prodded by Moyers, admitted the media failed miserably, though few took personal responsibility. In fact, as he pointed out, the many pundits who got everything wrong in the run-up to the war — and then everything wrong about it since — continue to flourish on TV talk shows and with newspaper and magazine columns.

The war continues today, now in its fifth year, with the death toll for Americans and Iraqis rising again. Yet Moyers pointed out, "The press has yet to come to terms with its role in enabling the Bush Administration to go to war on false pretenses." More than just about anyone, many of those in the media no doubt wish they could turn back the clock to the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, and do a lot of things differently in the months and years that followed.

[Red Zelda]

1. Wow ...

I worked the desk the night of 9-10-01.
The AP world budget was led by ... no kidding ... news of the TeleTubbies and their impact.
The Pa state budget was dominated by news of the Powerball coming to the state.
The papers that came off the presses early in the hours of 9-11 were so full of non-news, it's hard to believe what came next. We actually had an editor on the night of 9-9-01 exclaim "Nothing happens anymore."

[democrat in Tallahassee]

2. Dominated by Gary Condit and sharks, lest we forge. n/t

[SharonAnn]

10. When CNN Became ACATT (All Chandra All The Time)

[CJCRANE]

3. Bush changed everything n/t

[unblock]

4. haven't seen moyer's special, but sounds like he didn't talk to the right people

it's not the on-air personalities that matter. it's their employers, who promote the ones who do their bidding instead of promoting the ones who are actually better or more truthful or more accurate. the on-air personalities get called on the carpet on occassion, they get the message one way or another, they know how to play the game. the ones we see on profitable networks are the ones who play the game successfully.

you want real answers, ask the murdochs; or, from a hair over a century ago, the hearsts.

[tomreedtoon]

11. Murdoch will simply say "The public be damned!"

Do you think any of these rich bastards feel they have to justify anything to us little people? Where have you been? Have you even seen them? Aside from imperial decrees (like Donald Trump insisting that Rosie O'Donnell be fired, which was eventually accomplished) they have nothing to say.

[MethuenProgressive]

5. 9/12 Le Monde: "We Are All Americans Today"

And a year later Bush was pushing the Freedon Fries in the WhiteHouse mess...

[formercia]

6. Perhaps the good side of all of this

is that the people of this great country are beginning to awake and realize how much we have been manipulated over the years by a small group of reactionaries, intent on pursuing their myopic agenda regardless of the cost in lives or treasure.

[Duane Behrens]

7. The False Flag

Yep, a "war on pretense." This morning, I penned the following to my local paper. Any of you are free to use it, copy or excerpt from it in any way you wish - I only ask to be credited for paragraph 5. Best. Duane Behrens

Dear Editor:

Although no proof was ever provided, like most Americans I believed my
government and the three major television networks when they told me that 19
Arabs flew planes into buildings on September 11, 2001. I also believed them
when they told me that this horrible act subsequently caused three buildings to
collapse as a result of impact and/or fire.

Slowly, however, doubts began to rise in a few, than in many. In fact, a new
poll by the New York Times indicates that 3 out of 4 Americans believe the Bush
administration is lying about the events of that day. So many, in fact, that
Bush's explanation of those events has come to be known as the "Official
Conspiracy Theory", or simply "OCT."

There are two primary reasons why anger and resentment over 9/11 continue to
rise. The first relates to the crime that was committed in the days following
the buildings' supposed collapse. Incredibly, unethically, immorally and
illegally, all of the forensic evidence - physical evidence that carried the
proof of what really happened that day - evidence we all trusted would be
examined in detail by our government - was instead loaded up, hauled away and
destroyed, as examination by independent or government physicists and structural
engineers was prohibited. (This is one reason why the NIST's eventual report on
the tragedy could not even address the buildings' actual collapse sequence, its
primary mission.)

But the second reason is the real kicker, the inescapable conclusion that must
be made, the most likely reason that all of the evidence was destroyed so
quickly. It is something that any thinking individual can understand on the
most fundamental level. And it is something that is finally gaining public
attention by independent physicists and engineers who have looked at this event.
Here it is:

"On any single floor of any multi-story steel-and-concrete building, it is
physically, mathematically and statistically impossible for dissimilar materials
of dissimilar thickness and temperature to fail at exactly the same microsecond
in time." Duane Behrens, May 5, 2007

I've signed and dated the above because, although these independent
professionals are now providing the experimental and mathematical proof, none as
yet seem to have stated it in a way simple enough for every citizen to
understand.

So let that sink in for a moment, and then ponder the obvious related fact . . .
perhaps the challenge that we all now face:

A small group of criminals have spent a very large number of our own tax dollars
to convince us that World Trade Center Buildings One, Two and Seven fell as the
result of impact and fire . . . they have used the event for political, personal
and financial gain - and they are still free men.

Duane Behrens
Ely, Mn
Rancho Palos Verdes, CA

[glitch]

8. Awesome post. nt

[nashville_brook]

9. welcome Duane...

:thumbsup: