I have two foster children via Plan Canada which I adopted 8 years ago (well, the children have changed over the years... I have sponsored 2 foster children for 8 years). They have done significant work on improving health of children in developing communities as well raising money for mosquito netting.
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It was my wife's birthday, and she was due to give birth to our first child in about two months. We were shattered - I felt physically sick to my stomach all week. What kind of world is this?
Being in a Manhattan bar a few years later, where NY police and firemen frequented, and to see the pictures on the wall, was heart-breaking. It was spooky seeing Ground Zero, and so many speechless people trying to make sense of it.
This isn't an issue with morality or what's more important to humanity, 9/11 is important because of the impact it made on people's lives who until that date only worried if their cable was working.
Malaria is a disease that is common in countries where people are born and raised with it in their consciousness. I'm not saying curing Malaria isn't more important but asking 9/11 not to have the system shock that it did is a little naive.
Even as far as atrocities and acts of violence goe, 9/11 was relatively small compared to what we see happen occasionally in other parts of the world. The ensuing wars that came around after 9/11 saw much greater civilian casualties. Not to diminish the tragedy at all because it was huge and life changing to all of us, and it is inappropriate to put a scale on these events, but the fact that it happened to "us" and that it was partially televised, magnifies the event in a lot of ways. We all caught a glimpse into something evil that usually only people directly involved get to see. We could relate to it more because it was in our neighbourhood, figuratively speaking.
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Last edited by FlamesAddiction; 08-30-2011 at 10:27 AM.
the new World Trade Center looks like an amazing project. I was in NYC about 15 months ago and tower 1 was just a skeleton of beams and concrete, no more than ten floors above ground. Amazing how much work they have done in that time.
The United States is still a MONSTER of economic clout. Their financial assets are $41 trillion dollars. Second place is Japan at only $14 trillion. Germany is third at only $6 trillion. It is the U.S. *government* that is bankrupt. Corporations and their CEO's are doing just fine, TYVM. I mentioned in another thread about recently flying over Chicago and seeing just how many large homes there were - all with huge plots of lands and large swimming pools. There is a LOT of wealth in the United States.
There will always be wealth in the United States, thats never going to change, and its always going to be one of the key World Economic engines, thats never going to change.
However in terms of 9/11 what changed was that it was the death of optimism and the beginning of what could be a generation based on fear and mistrust. Before 9/11 terrorism was something that happened over there, and even attacks on U.S. property like the Cole attack were unsophisticated, small and random.
9/11 bought the concept of large scale well planned terrorist plots that were designed around mass murder. And Al Queda had just proved that they could do it right under the noses of the government. Nobody felt safe anymore, and nobody feels truly safe today. The bluster and confidence that America had on the world stage took a large hit that day, and there was no "day that lives in Infamy" type of rallying speech that people could get behind.
What was even worse for America was that it ripped aside the facade that they were well liked and respected on a world level.
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Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate
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As for September 11th, I've said this before and got shot down for it, but none have adequately address it to my satisfaction. Approximately 3,000 people died in the attacks in NYC. While this is absolutely horrific and obviously and attrocity that cannot be ignored.... 3,000 people is the same number of people that die EACH AND EVERY DAY from malaria. There doesn't seem to be the same call to arms to fight malaria as opposed to the resources that have been spent on the response to September 11th. I'm not exactly sure why that is.
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Honestly I don't think you can equate the two. Malarari while tragic is a natural occuring disease, it just does what it does, like Cancer and Aids, you know its there, but if your an American you can avoid contracting it for the most part so it doesn't have that fear factor. Malari to an extent is just a part of nature to most people
9/11 was a deliberate mass murder aimed at the three biggest symbols in America with the intent of wanton civilian slaughter, and it showed that with determination, some funding and thinking outside of the box that none of us were safe. It was our generations Pearl Harbor, if the Japanese had avoided engaging the U.S. Mililtary and instead had bombed the suburbs to instil terror.
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Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate
What stikes me most about September 11th was the firefighters that KNEW they might not make it through the day, and yet went in anyway. The same way as the workers around the Japanese nuclear plants went to work knowing that they might die, but also knowing that they had to do their job or more might die. That kind of bravery is deserving of every respect possible.
Everyone wonders how they would react in a crisis, would you run towards it, would you dive behind a wall and wait it out, would you run away?
How would you react if following orders would mean that you would likely die?
These guys never hesitated for a second, more then the guy that rushes into a house on fire while everyone else watches, these fire fighters and police as one didn't watch, they moved forward and they for the most part knew that they were probably going to die.
I don't think you can measure that kind of bravery.
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10 years ago already, that's unbelieveable. Man time flies...
And since a few are mentioning their "where were you?" moments, I swear I was the last person in the western world to find out about it. I was in HS finishing up a summer job at Canyon Meadows GC & was doing sandtraps all day, skipped lunch too. I found out when I pulled up to the shop at 2pm. I remember wondering why the course was so empty that day.
At the time, people were focused on the economic destruction that the terrorists inflicted. But I think the 10 years have demonstrated that the terrorists won not by making americans financially poorer, but by turning them against each other.
Fear does a lot of things, but I never thought it was all-consuming.
Disagree. 9/11 set in motion the financial ruin of the USA. That is how the terrorists won and what will be remembered in history.
Disagree. 9/11 set in motion the financial ruin of the USA. That is how the terrorists won and what will be remembered in history.
Its funny that this was an un-intended consequence in Bin Laden's plan. the idea was to draw the American's into a war in Afghanistan and bleed them white.
Bin Laden had no illusions that he was going to win, he also didn't quite have a handle on the American response based on his apology radio message to his other leaders when the American's had him cornered.
Of course the American's then blew it and had to wait nearly 10 years to get him.
At the end of the day Bin Laden and Al Queda had one shot and took it, and have been on the run ever since, they have themselves been bled white and are a shadow of their former power.
The American's had a simple chance for revenge, they could have ended the war on terror very quickly if they had put all of their efforts into Afghanistan and Al Queda and the Taliban, instead they flittered away their strength by trying to fight two wars at the same time.
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Working in a highrise downtown that day was quite unnerving. I watched the second plane hit in the boardroom on the big TV during our morning meeting. Spent most of the day chainsmoking outside the building, looking up at the eerily quiet sky.
Disagree. 9/11 set in motion the financial ruin of the USA. That is how the terrorists won and what will be remembered in history.
Very true, from what CNN was reporting it cost $1million to counter every $1 that the terrorists spend on activities. The total direct costs of the Afghan and Iraq wars were over $1.3trillion and that's not counting indirect costs, lost productivity and stock market crashes.
Very true, from what CNN was reporting it cost $1million to counter every $1 that the terrorists spend on activities. The total direct costs of the Afghan and Iraq wars were over $1.3trillion and that's not counting indirect costs, lost productivity and stock market crashes.
I think linking those things together requires some pretty big leaps. Sure there's impact, everything is interconnected, but I'd argue that the downfall of the American economy has more to do with the mortgage crisis and failures in financial regualtion than it does military spending. Both have contributed, but attributing the economic fallout to 9/11 seems like a bit of a stretch IMO.
It’s odd how I can remember almost every detail from that day.... but the days/weeks/years around it are a giant blank.
Still sends shivers down my spine. Seeing the second plane coming in, the news broadcasters reactions..... then the towers coming down. Holy #### what a terrible day.
10 years ago already, that's unbelieveable. Man time flies...
And since a few are mentioning their "where were you?" moments, I swear I was the last person in the western world to find out about it. I was in HS finishing up a summer job at Canyon Meadows GC & was doing sandtraps all day, skipped lunch too. I found out when I pulled up to the shop at 2pm. I remember wondering why the course was so empty that day.
I think I was the last person to actually see the footage. I was working at Blockbuster at the time and I worked a 10-6 shift. I woke up at 915 and I was still 18 at the time so I got up, showered, went to work. No time to check the news/breakfast. Just up and out the door.
Got to work at 10am PST and both towers had been down and everything was going on and I had no idea. My boss told me about it, but I didn't get a chance to actually watch the coverage until 630pm later that day. Approx 12 hours after the first plane hit. Needless to say, I was stunned and horrified, but I was also glued to the tv for the next 6 hours.
During that day, while working at Blockbuster, we had a lot more customers than we usually did for a random Tuesday afternoon. Plenty of people said they had enough watching the coverage and needed to get away from it with a movie.
In the whole grand scheme of things, my story is pretty boring, but it's amazing how I'll never forget the details about what I was doing on this day.
Disagree. 9/11 set in motion the financial ruin of the USA. That is how the terrorists won and what will be remembered in history.
The financial ruin that you're presumably talking about was all self-inflicted, which is my point.
The economic damage done by the attacks themselves was recovered.
The longer lasting, collateral damage on the economy (through multiple unfunded wars) and civil liberties (torture, eavesdropping, sanctioning the death of US citizens without trial, etc...) was all self-inflicted. Bin-Laden had no idea that these would be the ugly fruits of his labour.
I think linking those things together requires some pretty big leaps. Sure there's impact, everything is interconnected, but I'd argue that the downfall of the American economy has more to do with the mortgage crisis and failures in financial regualtion than it does military spending. Both have contributed, but attributing the economic fallout to 9/11 seems like a bit of a stretch IMO.
Yes it's a contributing factor for sure, but if you look at spending differences between 2001 and 2011 the largest increase in spending in the US budget was 74% increase in defense spending accounted for inflation adjusted dollars of course. At least that's the number thrown around during the recent budget crisis.
It's probably a dualistic problem that's lead to the US economic decline. Their foreign and economic policies both being huge factors. Though the economic problems stem from deregulation of the banks in the 80s. 9/11 really kick started the military portion of the budgetary problems.
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I lived near the airport at the time, I'm still kicking myself as I should have taken a photo of all the planes parked on the runway. Looked like jumbo jet valet parking.
Yes it's a contributing factor for sure, but if you look at spending differences between 2001 and 2011 the largest increase in spending in the US budget was 74% increase in defense spending accounted for inflation adjusted dollars of course. At least that's the number thrown around during the recent budget crisis.
It's probably a dualistic problem that's lead to the US economic decline. Their foreign and economic policies both being huge factors. Though the economic problems stem from deregulation of the banks in the 80s. 9/11 really kick started the military portion of the budgetary problems.
I guess it sort of depends on what aspects of the economic 'collapse' we're talking about. If we're looking at the US government debt and spending then of course the link to 9/11 is far more pronounced. If we're talking about the market collapses and impacts on investors I'd say the tie to 9/11 is pretty weak. Of course you can't really segment things like that if you want a full picture, so your framing it as a dualistic problem is probaby the best approach. I guess when I read economic collapse I think Lehman more than I think military spending, but both play a role.
I was in grade 11, walked into Social Studies which a big smile on my face, said hi to my teacher. My teacher kind of ignored me, I wondered why he looked so down. We ended up just listening to the news on the radio during SS. I then had math next, we had a test... I think my teacher said something like "This is a day all of you will remember. Today is the day you write your first Math 30 unit test!" After that, I had computer programming class, and I was on CP and as a community, there were 1-2 posters who live in NY and hadn't checked in yet... there was a bit of worry, but both posters ended checking in that night and they were ok.
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