9/11 Survivors Should Stop Moaning

New Times ^ | Sept. 5, 2002 | Jill Stewart

[Commie Basher]

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!"

Get a grip, people, before this unholy rapture gets its grip on you.

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.

Don't recall those tragedies very well, do you?

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.

newtimesla.com | originally published: September 5, 2002

[Misterioso]

Yes, yes. Osama and his backers count on our hysterical and manipulative media to help them terrorize us. Good point.

[Dave S]

Wait and see. Sounds like the OKC bombing may have had a lot in common with the 9-11 attacks. In which case, I'd say those folks are entitled to some of that compensation, too. Heaven knows there's enough to go around.

The fund was created by congress to buy off victims families to prevent the complete destruction of American aviation and insurance companies. What do you mean theres enough to go around. Those are my tax dollars that you are offering to give away.

[Howlin]

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."

Evidently she has a problem with an insurance company paying what it's suppose to be paying in the first place.

I saw two planes, didn't you?

[SarahW]

Let me just say that Sept 11 changed ME profoundly.

I will never forget that absolutely perfect late summer day.

My mood was high. It was the optimistic beginning of another "best ever" homeschooling year.

The day was so perfect the whole family decided, on the spur of the moment, to "play hooky" and go on a day trip, to DC.I had a hankering to tour the Capitol building.

DH went to the store to get pet food while I got things ready at home. He never made it to the store...he called on the cell phone and told me to turn on the TV....

The shock of that day is so hard to describe. The towers hit. The Pentagon hit. Then, the horrifying news of another plane headed for DC...

I speak for noone else, and I don't expect anyone else to understand, but if that plane had hit the Capitol or White house.... I just, it just, would have destroyed me too.
Something in my soul would have broken...

I get down on my knees every night and thank God Lisa Beamer helped give her husband the strength to try to stop the plans of the hijackers. He and the others on flight 93 gave me the strength to fight back, too.

[sweetliberty]

"King has written of the "teddy bear brigades," all those people who litter accident scenes with teddy bears and candles and school kids' fingerpaintings."

Have you ever actually been to any of these memorials? I was living in Colorado when the Columbine massacre occured and watched it unfold live. Although I lived over an hour away, I had a very strong need to go there. It felt important. So a few days afterwards I took my grandson and my son-in-law to Columbine. Sure there was media around, but it was peripheral. We wore ribbons and took flowers and pinwheels and silk butterflies. The ground was flooded with people bringing gifts and flowers and notes and poems. People cried and people prayed and people hugged. Many comforted the fellow students of the children who died. But I defy anybody to prove that what was going on there was anything other than genuine. If anything, the cameras were avoided. They weren't even allowed near the hill where the crosses were erected.

Perhaps there is a syndrome such as you say and Columbine is my only first hand experience with such a memorial, but if it is typical I would have to say that when it is close to home, people genuinely ARE involved and do take it very personally, whether or not they actually knew the victims.

[ladysusan]

One can grieve without the cameras being present and they can survive a tragedy without their hands held out in anticipation of financial aggrandizement. This doesn't have to be an orgy of neverending shows of public grief.


There are plenty of people grieving privately. Not everyone in this country is a media w**** or a greedy grasper. I agree that there are looters among us who look upon tragedy as an opportunity to rob the candy store. And I do agree that we need to be on our guard against them, recognize them, and boo them off the world stage. On this we agree.

That said, there are several things that bother me about the original article. The first is the vast sweeping generalizations she makes about the country not being changed. That's just silly. It's a logical error.

Another is that while she says we are *all* guilty of valuing one human life above another, she does exactly the same thing by suggesting that we pray for the people in India or Afghanistan INSTEAD of our fellow citizens. She's, in effect, suggesting that there should be a quota on prayer, and a quote on grief. This is absurd, and can be construed as an extension of the "diversity and inclusiveness" argument.

Something that I find very harmful in her argument is the beginning of the backlash against people who are coping as best they can. It would deepen the tragedy if those who are moving through their grief work were also confronted with "It's time to move on," before they are ready. I think it's dangerous and irresponsible to demand lockstep healing in human beings who have had a profoundly different experience from what the rest of us have had. But this is implied in her article. I think it shows exactly zero
comprehension for the human healing process, and I think
it's ridiculous for some editorial writer to be attempting to speak to such specialized knowledge using a public vehicle such as a magazine. She's simply not qualified. So I approach what she writes with a great deal of skepticism. I mean, who is SHE to say when people should be healed, should move on? Hate to break it to her, but man made trauma is by far the worst kind. People traumatized by man made events sometimes never fully recover. These people deserve our respectful understanding, not our boos and hisses for not moving on in the way we expect.

I also don't appreciate her treatment of Lisa Beemer. Does she know this lady deeply? Until she does, any statements she makes about Ms. Beemer's motives are ridiculous and laughable.

I'll speculate a bit based on her article. She writes:
"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. "

I think Jill Stewart is jealous.

[ladysusan]

Well, I was going more for, "Hell hath no fury like ladysusan's wrath".
My bad.


Oh, blush and tee hee.
You flatter me!

[Dave S]

A couple of million is not much money spread over a lifetime.

So much for economic education in this country. :-(

$2,000,000 invested in non-taxable state and local bonds would produce an annual income of $100,000 a year without ever touching the principal. If she invested part of it (say half) in good mututal funds or stocks she would make 10% per year or $100,000 appreciation on just the stock portion and she still would have $50,000 to live on. Then if she got out and worked like everyone else, she would have even more income.

[88keys]

But let me add that I only agree with the author's characterization of the victims. I do not agree with her moral equivelency of global crisis.

Me too...she weakens her mostly excellent points when she's less than "objective" about other tragedies, global or otherwise.

[Dave S]

Evidently she has a problem with an insurance company paying what it's suppose to be paying in the first place. I saw two planes, didn't you?

Yes two planes hit but I didnt see anyone rebuild the towers or replace his first loss before the second plane hit. He had one loss and thats what he should get paid for.

Say a GI gets mortally wounded. While lying dying he gets hit by a grenade. Is his wife owed double death benefits because he was mortally wounded twice? He died once. (sorry about the disgusting analogy)

[Commie Basher]

I saw two planes, didn't you?

I saw two planes, one event.

Or do you imagine that the two planes wear hijacked by entirely different groups, ignorant of each other? And that the attack was planned by two seperate groups?

For that matter, I remember it being reported early on that many insurance policies (including on the WTC) did not cover "acts of terrorism." Yet it seemed the insurance companies dared not enforce that clause.

Or do I mis-remember?

[mewzilla]

You're right. But they're my tax dollars, too, and I'd rather the money go to the victims than the airlines. Af for the enough to go around, I'm also thinking about the private donations as well as the taxpayers' money. And I'm also hoping that if people don't need the money, they won't take it.

[hole_n_one]

Say a GI gets mortally wounded. While lying dying he gets hit by a grenade. Is his wife owed double death benefits because he was mortally wounded twice? He died once.

Fascinating.

[sweetliberty]

"Let's stop licking our wounds and start licking our wounders."

I nominate that for quote of the day!

[SarahW]

There is a legitimate legal argument about the terms of the insurance policy.

The first crash was a discrete event from the second. It alone was enough to "max out" the policy. However, there was still a tower standing.

The second tower would still be standing but for the second crash.

The insurance company is arguing that the two crashes should be treated like a single disaster, like one big earthquake. After all, they are temporally linked, and the attack was part of a single "plot" to destroy them at about the same time.

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.

[Movemout]

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.

[Howlin]

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.

I happen to personally know people involved in this lawsuit; the insurance companies involved are now claiming that they NEVER understood a policy that they READ AND SIGNED for 28 years and 11 months, up until the second those planes hit those buildings.

[Arkinsaw]

We still remember and mourn the dead at Pearl Harbor. We still see men from the Arizona go back there and cry. We still toss flowers into the oily water. I saw an over 80+ year old woman talking mournfully about her fiance who was killed on D-Day. There is nothing wrong with a foundation designed to promote her husband and what he did on that day. If she doesn't the country will forget him. I suppose that some would prefer that she just shut up and get remarried. How dare she be dedicated to her lost husband's memory. Thats not "feminist" enough.

There is nothing wrong with mourning. The difference is that we paid back Pearl Harbor and justice was done. Thats not the case yet here. I say, we should get off the lady's back and stop being her judge. I'm not sure what it is that sets people off about her and the other widows and friends. I think people just want them to shut up so they won't be reminded or would prefer that she go out and get a real career and join NOW or something. I don't mind being reminded and I think she's doing pretty good for her husband.

[Arkinsaw]

...and some people don't care for American heroes or the promotion thereof.

[Howlin]

I saw four planes; that's FOUR acts.