9/11 Survivors Should Stop Moaning

Let me be among the too-few columnists in this self-absorbed, egocentric, materialistic, pleasure-obsessed, jingoistic country of ours to cry out into the great mindless void that no, in fact, we have not changed in the year since September 11.

Moreover, since I feel so much better getting that off my chest, let me add that I am achingly weary of seeing Americans treat the tragedy as if it outstrips every other contemporary tragedy in our world, and I am irked beyond belief that the victims of September 11 and their survivors are treated with a holy sanctity not afforded to other victims and other survivors of man's horrific actions against mankind.

Indeed, I say without shame to America's ever-growing, increasingly troubling and loudly throbbing Cult of Nine Eleven, "For God sakes, get a grip!"

The media tells us that Lisa Beamer, the angel-faced widow of doomed United Airlines Flight 93 passenger Todd Beamer, is a wondrously courageous young woman because she so quickly and efficiently set up the Todd A. Beamer Foundation to help kids get over horrible accidents and other traumas.

But lately I see her as a crass promotions whiz who has trademarked the "Let's Roll!" phrase on ballcaps and T-shirts, banged out a book about her pain, and created a Web site that flashes "Now on sale!" alternating with the not-so-comforting blinking message "Finding Hope in a Time of Crisis!"

A California housewife who was virtually assured a life of anonymity before September 11, Lisa is a star today, as her Web site informs us with its list of her current appearances on Dateline NBC and Larry King Live. Indeed, groups clamoring for a speaker from the Beamer Foundation can hope only for a visit from one of the founding members, not always the vaunted Lisa herself, and must fill out a form on the Web site to be considered.

Not to be outdone in finding an angle on the tragedy, Larry Silverstein, the developer who held the lease on the World Trade Center when it was destroyed by the terrorists, is insisting that he is entitled to a double payment on his $7 billion insurance coverage for the buildings because his property was destroyed in two "separate occurrences."

Worst of all are the several hundred families of the 2,823 people who died on September 11 and have flatly refused payments offered by the federal taxpayer-funded Victim's Compensation Fund. Many are now represented by Trial Lawyers Care, whose brochure enticing families to join states, "If ever there were a cause that demanded our most magnificent effort as lawyers, as human beings, as Americans -- this is it."

And magnificent the trial lawyers have been. They have persuaded families to sue the bejesus out of everybody from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which built the towers, to those they allege underwrote Osama bin Laden. Thus the families are suing the Sudanese government, the Saudi royal family, banks and charities for more than $1 trillion, and the miners and distributors of the South African gemstone tanzanite -- who allegedly helped bankroll bin Laden -- for $1 billion.

Turning their noses up at the feds' offer of $600,000 to $2 million per family, many relatives have become polished victims who trot in front of microphones to bemoan the stinginess of the government and the unfairness of the courts. Currently they are demanding that a federal judge ignore a New York state law that requires that any lawsuit against the Port Authority be filed within one year of the incident -- by September 10, in this instance.

The mostly timid media have portrayed all this greed, self-absorption and self-promotion in the hushed and funereal tones of a nation still in mourning. But a year of this play-acting is more than enough, already.

I conducted an unofficial survey of friends and acquaintances on this subject, the kind of people I'd talk about it with over drinks. And a surprising number agreed with me.

Frank Megna, founder of Working Stage Theater in West Hollywood, who directed the currently running play The Emissary, about a young Jewish man who flees New York after his mom and his rabbi die on the same day (not to 9/11, thank God), says Americans are addicted to acting out for the media. And when it comes to September 11, he's sick of it, just like me.

"After Baby Jessica got trapped in that hole, private disasters became mini-series for TV, and private citizens began playing to the cameras," says Megna. "The 9/11 victims think they are getting closer to the truth by baring it all, but what we are seeing is a whole distortion of what they are actually experiencing. It's really more like a farce."

Like me, he doesn't like it that the relatives of the 9/11 victims are gaining a sense of entitlement. Once someone bares his or her soul to the camera, that person wants to be reimbursed -- and that's true to the one-trillionth power for September 11 relatives.

At the same time, the audience is acting just as deplorably. God, the treacle and carrying on from perfect strangers as the first anniversary draws near. I would not hold their tears against anyone in America if I thought they gave a rip about even three or four of the very nice people who got squished to bits when 20,023 souls were snuffed out by a quake on January 26, 2001, in India.

Or if they cared about the 1,100 people drowned and trampled to death in Nigeria on January 27 as they fled down two muddy canals to escape horrific explosions at a huge munitions depot.

You see, these disasters happened to foreigners. I don't recall them getting more than a few seconds on the networks. You'd think that here in Los Angeles, in the case of the Indian quake, we'd at least make a mental note: 20,000 dead, 7.7 earthquake, get more bottled water.

But after all, man didn't do that to man. A quake can't be helped. So it's forgotten in an evening or two by us bighearted, courageous citizens of the best country on Earth.

I would argue that most Americans do not even pay attention to the global disasters man rains down upon man. The latest data from UNICEF shows that 90 percent of the victims of armed conflict around the globe are children and women. Last year, several thousand children were slain. Many had been forced to fight.

UNICEF believes that the global age for military recruitment should be 18, not 15 or even younger. According to the Center for Defense Information in Washington, D.C., the United States "stands as the major obstacle to raising the minimum age for combat to 18 years." (One major rationale is that such a move would offend a number of our allies.) Fascinating, no?

It would be lovely if generous September 11 donors -- like you -- who are sending traumatized New York firefighters on their third and fourth trips to Hawaii and Disneyland stepped back and reflected on the relativity of it all. Perhaps you could send a letter to your congressperson calling them a slippery eel for not fighting our support of child soldiers in foreign lands.

Another friend, Kevin Scott, a Westside bond analyst who has watched with interest as New York has slowly rebuilt from the ashes, is as fed up as I with Americans' isolationist attitudes and sacrosanct view of all things September 11.

"For example," says Scott, "we're not supposed to criticize New York, how it handled the crisis, how it is handling it now. Yet there were so many screwups it's incredible, and I'm sick of the silence."

Indeed, it's past time to talk about the widespread incompetence, now coming to light, during the police and fire response on September 11. It turns out emergency radios do not work well at all during disasters -- and the fire officials in New York have known this for years. Moreover, authority broke down completely when firefighters broadly ignored orders (the few they could hear) from their brass not to rush up the staircases -- and many of them died as a result.

I began by saying we haven't changed since September 11, but given the way we've been behaving there's a chance Americans could change -- for the worse.

Partly, what makes us not Bosnia, or Israel, or Angola, or Kashmir, or Palestine is that we do not obsessively nurse our most profound grievances against other peoples from generation to generation, nor turn our worst bloodlettings into our most revered holidays.

Can you imagine how we'd hate the Brits if we were still deeply pissed off about the Revolution? Or how awful it would be if grade-schoolers sang morbid songs about the rotting Civil War dead at Richmond?

We reject the mournful, noir world of self-pitying, self-aggrandizing, excess-testosterone tribalism. We say, let other countries wallow in that if they must. But more and more, I sniff a hint of wallowing. I hear a bit of tribal whining.

So, on September 11, I suggest that you not light a candle for the victims of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Plenty of others will do so for you.

Instead, say a prayer for the 20,000 obliterated in India, or the 1,100 trampled in Nigeria, or the untold dead child soldiers. Do not buy a "Let's Roll!" T-shirt, but do send a dollar to an Afghan group helping illiterate girls and boys learn to read normal childhood books. Play a small part in helping our self-indulgent nation to become a better citizen of the world. You'll feel oh so much better.

It's human nature. When someone's relation dies tragically (is there any other kind?) it's like the survivors have hit the lotto: Everybody's looking for a payoff.

Can't blame them, really. It's a sign of the times. Money is the measure of worth in America. Morals, values, ethics, manners, spirituality, etc., are archaic notions.
You're nobody without money.

It's the worst in California. A friend of mine went to San Francisco from Tennessee. He's walking down the street and a guy pulls a gun and says, "Give me your money or I'll blow your brains out." My friend says, "Fine. Blow my brains out." The robber says, "Why would you want me to blow your brains out?" My friend says, "Because, I learned that, in California, you don't need brains, but you can't live without money."

I think a lot of people here are underestimating the American public’s power to forget. Most members of Free Republic have pretty good memories, but let me to try to refresh a few.

The American people had a choice of who’s cry to listen to after 911.

There was the lady who said “I didn’t send my son off to go to war that morning, I sent him to work”. The fact this women was still sending her adult son to work didn’t bother anyone and her’s was the popular quote directly after 911.

I’m thankful Lisa Beamer has step forward to keep the memories fresh in the public’s mind.Maybe you didn’t notice but it was her interviews that silenced the liberal crybabies in the media singing “we sent them to work not to war”.

Lisa Beamer is a real “Let’s Roll” type of babe, who believes in conservative values.

The American capacity to remember is not what most of the people on this thread believe it to be.

I don’t think any us of would prefer hearing the chant
“ We Sent Them To Work Not To War”
and I believe the minute the media silences Mrs. Beamer that is what we will be hearing.

So I say

Three Cheers for THE “LETS ROLL” BABE!!! Lisa Beamer

I suspect back in the good old days when real men led, the sentiment would be "Let's get the hell out there and get those ####'s!"

...Such as occurred after Pearl Harbor.

Alas, today our country is filled with the whining feminization of our collective psyche.

Why is it that we "girls" have to gather round and psychoanalyze all our hurt feelings all the time? We squat over our pain, poke it with sticks and roll it around in the dust, discussing it ad nauseum.

I'm a girl and I don't like it one bit. It's time for all of us to stand up, roll up our sleeves and get busy kicking some Islamist fanny!

(And pass some laws forbidding anyone from suing any entity whatsoever - as a result of terrorist attacks.)

I dont know, I never trust a columnist that used the word "jingoistic" to describe anything American.

Exactly. That tripped my switch right away.

Another point I didn't understand- she is criticizing the relatives for suing Saudi Arabia? I would say to that- hey, OJ Simpson didn't get put in jail but he was still held to account at least financially. If they can sue the Saudis- I say more power to 'em. Hell, I hope they wind up owning the oil wells.

This babe really thinks she has an insight when in fact what she has is the same old , same old muddled soft toothed liberal thinking that has been fashionable since the 1950's.

I'd like to remind the author (and some of the posters on this thread) that even if she were subjected to reminders of 9/11 every hour of every day for the next 100 years, the sum total of her irritation would not be a thousandth of the suffering endured by a single victim, a single family who lost a member, or a single survivor who has endured with crippling third-degree burns.

So maybe she might want to sit down, reflect on her good fortune, and STOP HER BLOODY SELFISH WHINING.

However, the real question is, would the damage have been the same if only one plane had hit? Is the second his a separate attack? There are arguments to be made on both sides, but I see each crash as a discrete event. But for the second crash, the second tower would be standing.

Do you really believe that the 2nd tower would have remained standing if the second plane hadnt hit it. All of the other nearby buildings became structurally unsound and collapsed within a day of the attack.

You are full of it. I guess you just can't stand that someone has a longer lever than you. I'm here to say that $100K a year isn't going to buy all of the dreams you planned or pay for the loss of a spouse by murdering Arabs. Your bottom line approach based on money is bullshit

A minimum of $100,000 a year is almost three times the median family income in this country and their money is tax free. Sorry but you are not going to get many sobs out of me for their financial condition. Most had insurance in addtion to the funds they are getting from the government and the charities.

As much as I hate paying welfare to the poor, I certainly hate the idea of paying welfare to the upper middle class. You seem to want to make a special class out of the victims similar to giving blacks and women special treatment under the law. So much for conservatism.

No money isnt enough. The victims have received all kinds of emotional as well as financial report during the past year and we are out wreaking retribution on those who made the attacks.

P.S. Why should American Taxpayers pay for their lifestyle? It was freaking Arabs that killed their spouses and children. If you want us to attack Saudi Arabia and take over their oil fields to pay off the debt fine with me but dont ask me to pay for someones dreams when I had nothing to do with their problem.

So are you saying that the plane that hit the Pentagon was also included in the "one event" rule? Because that's what the argument is, one "wave," if you will, of planes. So it would have to include the PA and the DC planes.

No because the two targets were separated by hundreds of miles.

From my laymans perspective if the insured property was the World Trade Center complex then I say one event. If each building was insured separtely than two events, unless the owner can show that destruction of one tower would have lead to the destruction of the other. Remember all of the close in buildings collapsed from structural damage caused by the collapse of the two towers.

You aren't paying attention to the point. You are off on a tangent. Please enjoy yourself when you get where you want to be.

Please tell me oh enlightened one, what is the point? Then I will either agree or disagree or decide not to waste my time.

My only reason for being on this thread was to react to the idiot who questioned how anyone could be expected to live for the rest of their life off a couple million dollars.

If Mrs. Beamer wants to cheapen herself by trademarking "lets roll" which already was in common usage fine, thats her problem. But Im sick and tired of the victims sticking their hands out like they were owed something.

BTW, I am much more sympathetic to the survivors of those on flight 93 who fought back and prevented further tragedy and also the families of the firemen and police who died trying to save others.

One last thought to keep in mind. All the wife of an American Special Forces soildier in Afghanistan gets if her husband is killed is the face of his life insurance which is not much (believe its less than $100,000). Why is a bond brokers wife entitled to more just because her husband happened to be in the wrong spot.

Its important to note that the insurance claim involves the entire complex of buildings, not just the two towers. Perhaps some of those buildings would have survived a single crash.

I think the second tower would have remained, although compromised to what extent I do not know.
If experts for insurance company are persuasive that no additional damage resulted from the second, discrete crash event that occurred, they I presume they will prevail. However, I doubt they will be able to argue that one crash would have caused the total destruction that occurred.

There is a case to be made for either position and this is exactly the sort of thing the courts are for.

I think the controversy was people had donated money for them, and it was being withheld for other purposes.

The monies were collected to give relief to those "brokers widows" and other victims of the attacks.

If the money was not given to the victims and their families, then it was collected under false pretenses.

That said, we are free to give money to be used by the widows of soldiers, too. Nothing stops you from trying to make that happen. But money was raised for the victims and it should be distributed to them.

"Please tell me oh enlightened one, what is the point?"

The point, oh less enlightened one, is that Lisa Beamer is entitled to do whatever she cares to in the aftermath of her husband's death. You, nor I, can control what she does to secure her future. I support the position that I hope she makes millions and millions of dollars as a result. You, on the other hand, are worried that she might be a beneficiary of a few of your tax dollars. The same kinds of tax dollars that routinely go to alcoholics, drug abusers, and general losers in life's lottery.

"One last thought to keep in mind. All the wife of an American Special Forces soildier in Afghanistan gets if her husband is killed is the face of his life insurance which is not much (believe its less than $100,000). Why is a bond brokers wife entitled to more just because her husband happened to be in the wrong spot. "

Mike Spann died in deplorable circumstances as well. So has every armed soldier since the advent of the Islamakazis. You might be heartened to know that Sean Hannity took it upon himself to appeal to his listeners after the relevation of Mrs Spann's limited financial options. I think her plight has been well assuaged with donations from many a listener, not because of pity but because of respect.

My only reason for being on this thread was to react to the idiot who questioned how anyone could be expected to live for the rest of their life off a couple million dollars. "My only reason for being on this thread was to react to the idiot who questioned how anyone could be expected to live for the rest of their life off a couple million dollars. "

I was that idiot. I have raised four children and am contributing resources to two twin grandsons. I have earned at least that amount in the last ten years and I am nowhere near rich. If I kept my largesse from my family who needs help then maybe I would live higher on the hog. But, you see, I do not.

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