Posted on 09/09/2011 6:47:15 AM PDT by Joy Angela
John Ziegler
It has been said many times that the tragic events of 9/11 provided the United States with a tremendous test, and much has been written about whether and how we have passed that examination. While in many ways we deserve credit for having accomplished an enormous amount under incredibly difficult circumstances (specifically in the military realm), in a couple of ways we have failed to rise to the challenges that the attacks presented.
Before 9/11, I was despondent about the state of our country. The Clinton impeachment saga (Clinton should have been removed from office) and the Florida recount (Gore and the media should have been repudiated for trying to steal the election) had left me wondering whether Americans were still capable of meeting great challenges.
Even worse, I had the sense that, thanks to the advent of reality television and the end of serious journalism, we had become a frivolous, celebrity-obsessed nation no longer worthy of the remarkable inheritance that our forefathers had gifted to us through their incredible sacrifices.
I was pleasantly surprised when the country came together after 9/11, even though the sense of unity only lasted for a few weeks. I vividly remember commentators confidently stating at the time that the attacks had made America a more serious nation. There was even a theory that “irony was dead.” While no one would want to live in an America devoid of fun and humor, I too saw 9/11 as an opportunity to reverse our national spiral towards silliness.
I now long for the days prior to 9/11, because Americans are even more inane now than we were then. We are more celebrity obsessed, our news media has stopped even pretending to try to educate the masses and our people are less interested in and knowledgeable about current affairs than ever (hence the election and possible re-election of President Obama).
There may be no better proof of this than Tim Pawlenty’s appearance on Comedy Central’s “Colbert Report” this week, where he joked that he considered “shooting sparks up his butt” to get attention in the all-too-entertainment-oriented presidential race he was forced to withdraw from despite being the most electable candidate in the field. Fittingly, few people paid attention to him saying this.
Or, consider that our schools systems have largely abdicated their responsibility to teach students about what happened on 9/11. My wife is a middle-school teacher who each year around 9/11 gives her sixth-graders a short quiz about what happened 10 years ago. The results have never been remotely good and, as you might expect, they get worse each year.
Today, if 10 percent of her students can tell her how many planes were hijacked or which cities were attacked, she is pleasantly surprised. Most of her students don’t even know why the school has a moment of silence every September 11th. Since 9/11 is not on the approved curriculum, she has no expectation that the results of her yearly quiz will do anything but get worse in the future.
My wife and I met in part because of the censorship of the best movie ever made about 9/11 (ABC’s 2006 docudrama “The Path to 9/11”) which — until the Clintons and the liberal media, as part of a disgraceful and politically motivated witch hunt, basically convinced Disney to kill it — was intended to be used in schools as a learning device.
I went on to direct a first-class documentary for Citizens United on the controversy (Citizens United head Dave Bossie told me it was probably the best film his organization ever produced) called “Blocking the Path.” Unfortunately, because Hillary Clinton didn’t win the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, Citizens United decided it wasn’t in its interest to give the movie much of a push. As a result, the film has largely been ignored (with some notable exceptions).
It’s not a coincidence that American children have little understanding of what happened on September 11th, 2001. In the 10 years since 9/11, we’ve failed to become a more serious nation. And we’ve failed to educate future generations about the day everyone claims changed America forever.
John Ziegler is currently a documentary filmmaker who most recently released a movie on the 2008 election called, “Media Malpractice… How Obama Got Elected and Palin Was Targeted.” He has also been in radio talk show host in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Louisville and Nashville. Ziegler has written two books and has appeared live on numerous national television shows including the Today Show, The View, Fox News Channel, CNN and MSNBC.
So True!
History is non-existent, unless we experience it ourselves,
because the youth of today are TOO YOUNG to have ever known what we will never forget!
This absence of HISTORY is the beginning of a real downspin for America.. and it is certainly planned and a calculated effort by the school system.
Children can not remember 9-11 unless they learn about it.
Children are also not learning the truth of the horrors of Communism and Fascism and Dictatorships either!
(They also don’t know the horrors of going Third Party at
election time...... Watch as The Democrats spin our ignorance into another Presidential Win! )
Remember the 1993 World Trade Building bombing? What went wrong in 1993 in the investigation – which COULD have prevented the 2001 bombing, now called 9/11? The U.S. has been under attack for some time now (from within and from without). You might ask yourself what all of this has to do with the war on terror and the war in Iraq? Pray for America, pray for the U.S.A.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_World_Trade_Center_bombing
http://www.fas.org/irp/world/iraq/956-tni.htm
Ways post-9/11 America has failed- Muslims in America are treated like honored royalty by the government.
- American citizens are treated like scheming terrorists by our own government.
I am SO SICK of hearing people refer to the atrocities committed by the jihadis on 9/11 as "tragic" or "tragedy". 9/11 was not a tragedy; it was and is an ATROCITY. Devestation from a hurricane, or earthquake, or tsunami, or volcano can rightly be considered tragedies. But the acts of jihadis like the 9/11 attacks and the Fort Hood shootings can only be accurately labeled as atrocities and heinous acts of terrorism.
Wilkow made a couple of poignant statements yesterday.
We called them Japs, Krauts, Gooks and Ruskies.
In battle, we killed them, on American soil, we killed them or captured them and killed them.
We evaporated enough matter, organic and inorganic to ubruptly stop a raging lunatic nation.
Our failure today is allowing our language to be hijacked.
The ragheads attacked us and we should be killing the pedophilic camel humpers.
I assure you the info you posted is NOT taught in High School Government classes.
Those who are 18 and of voting age were only born in 1998, and they know NOTHING.
LOOK at all that LOST History!
Patience is on the side of our enemies...
It is not just our language that has been hijacked,
The Conversation itself has been hijacked.
Not talking about, and not knowing about these events,
is truly THE Atrocity of this age!
Depressing. And true.
Nice to see you. Btw, I notice ALOHA RONNIE hasn’t posted since July; do you have any word on him? Thanks.
Yeah, it is depressing. But, the real tragedy is if OUR generation sides with the T-Party (aka... Tea Party... aka Third Party...) in this next election.
If we forget... if we let another Clinton Regime reign, by spliting the GOP, we won’t be able to blame the youth who have IGNORANCE as their excuse.
What’s our excuse?
What... we’re going to let a Cute Chick in a short skirt destroy the GOP’s chance at a Presidential Win??
PALIN... DO NOT SPLIT OFF INTO A THIRD PARTY!!!
And anyone who follows her is to Blame for EVERYTHING that
happens!!!
I agree with you. I don’t trust the coy way Mrs. P drops hints she might run 3rd party. And, I think if the Tea Party is sincere about keeping this great nation true to our principles, they would work WITH and WITHIN the GOP to ensure this... not by forming splinter groups such as Bachmann did with the “tea party caucus.”
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