Maggie's Farm

I love the 'we were told' meme. Yes, we were. But - what could we have done about it?

Did we know specifically what the threat was and how to prepare for it? No.

I know people love the Monday Morning QB stuff, but facts are facts. You can't say we knew, and we could've done SOMETHING, because we have no idea what that 'something' would've had to be.


Stiffen airport security? It may have stopped one, possibly two of the hijackings. It may also have stopped none of them.

Arrest the guys who were taking flying lessons but didn't want to learn to land or take off? Sure - but our legal system would have released them shortly afterward, and 9/11 would have become 10/11 or some other date.

Yes, mistakes were made, but when you raise the specter of mistakes, all you are seeking to do is make yourself seem smart and point a finger at someone you feel 'could've done more'.

I disagree with that assessment at its core. It's all purely hypothetical.

Bruce's point of view is partially accurate, we do need to remain vigilant, and our lack of vigilance did lead to 9/11. But it's also fair to say that our response to 9/11 has been dangerous, too. I consider the Patriot Act one of the most horrendous documents ever passed by Congress.

Vigilance doesn't have to mean reduction in rights. It does mean better planning and preparation.

Bush downplayed it?
So did Clinton. This is a non-partisan issue. You can do the Bush dance all you want, but even Clinton backed Bush on this particular issue. There was no perceived threat for a simple reason - we assumed there was no way for us to get hit as badly as we did.

More importantly, you blithely comment that it was downplayed in favor of Iraq. And you're serious about this?

The real issue isn't what was 'downplayed', it's what could we have done about it, anyway?

Seriously - how would you have prevented 9/11? Specifics, please.

Stop the meme. Start being practical.

You take a few instances of threats and turn them into a concept that 9/11 could've been stopped? That's just an absurdity. You could not have done it. 9/11 was a lucky break for those who perpetrated it, but it was also an unavoidable disaster from the standpoint of maintaining certain freedoms at that point in time.

That's conjecture, purely hypothetical.

Clinton has never come out and said this. Richard Clarke made this claim. Yet, when asked in Congress what could have been done to prevent 9/11, he more or less punted. He knew that as much as he was making claims against Bush, there was little in his 'plan' that would have prevented anything.

So...you're basing your opinion, because that's all it is, on what?

And, of course, you're assuming it was ignored.

Again - Monday Morning Quarterbacking. Not being vigilant does not mean a threat was ignored. You're making that giant leap. You, and many others, are so focused on making Bush look bad, ignorant, or otherwise incompetent, you're ignoring the many other facts which surround this event.

The most glaring fact is that there was plenty of information coming in, but very little linking of that information, and very little of it was specific to a particular type of attack. Running down every lead may have stopped 9/11. But I want an assured answer from you - or anyone else making these outrageous claims - that it would have been easy to stop, and that stopping these events would've been a guarantee.

Without that, I call bullshit. Instead, you make assumptions, apply opinion and assume certain probabilities.

All along, I have said the hijackers got lucky that we, as a nation, were in a comfortable place. Even if we were vigilant, even if we instituted pat-downs at the airports, there is still no guarantee we'd have stopped the hijackers. So, I call bullshit on all this talk.

I love how people can dig up a few random facts and string them together to create a hypotheses which is just believable enough to be treated as a fact.

You know, the "Truthers" do the same thing you've done. Oddly enough, they are somewhat more believable, though they are probably just as wrong.

I was in NYC the day it happened. I'm still here now.

Stronger as a community? For a time.

Today NYC is back to being what it was - feeling superior and strutting around like it's the be all to end all. There is no sense of community, except when a hometown team wins. Even then it's still split between Mets/Yankees, Giants/Jets.

Yes, it was stronger as a community briefly, and every now and then puts on a good show. But it's rotting again, and many of us know it. There isn't much you can do when the patient denies it's sick, though.

Yeah, because living here and seeing the rot is meaningless. I need outsiders to tell me what I'm seeing.

This city has massive problems which it continually patches over. Some of my best friends, liberal - no, ultra liberal, all of them - have moved out and to more rural areas because they "feel safer" or because the lament the loss of community in the areas they once lived.

Manhattan is one thing. It's always going to be a relatively vital place. Even when I was visiting in the 70's and early 80's and it was still eerily reminiscent of "Taxi Driver", it was a fun place to be.

But I lived in Queens for most of the 80's and 90's, and it was a good place to live. That community today is horrendous. My ex-girlfriends neighborhood is a pit, where once families were raised and you could walk down the street and feel safe.

So I guess I should find some solace that there are magazine articles that tell me the city is a great place to live? Explain to me why so many people are asking me what communities are the best in NJ to move to?

Productivity and community are very different things.

You claimed it was stronger as a community as a result of 9/11. In fact, it required massive government intervention and tax breaks to keep businesses in the city - which has helped productivity, but done little to keep communities together.

So I'm confused what your point is. Discussing anything with you is like trying to hit a moving target. You change your focus regularly.

If you're in NYC, and you disagree with me, then perhaps you live in one of the communities which has benefited from the government intervention. Or perhaps you're one of those typical New Yorkers who cannot accept there is anything wrong (or going wrong) here. Usually it takes people who haven't lived here our whole lives to see what the city's issues are.

If you're not here, and you keep getting your information from magazine articles, usually written by the same people I described above, then maybe you should move here and find out for yourself.

I've lived in New York, and I enjoyed my time while I lived here. But that was years ago - and those communities are rats' nests now. Brooklyn, an area where I was looking to buy in 1989, has sections which have revived, particularly areas like DUMBO, which received lots of government money to revitalize. But it's still just as schizophrenic as it was while I was looking, though this schizophrenia has been pushed further from Manhattan than it once was.

I live in a community which was hit extremely hard by 9/11. Percentage-wise, we were hit harder than most communities. My sons went to school with kids who lost fathers.
But nearly everyone here, given the choice, would cease commuting into Manhattan if given the chance. Many have, others have been lucky enough to see their companies move to NJ, and don't have to commute.

NY is not a community. It is not stronger. It likes to put on a show. It's a good show, I'll give you that.

There is no link between economic performance and the stock market. If there was, the market would be around 9,900 right now.

There typically is a link.
That link has been lost due to the manipulation of interest rates to pursue an economic agenda that is going to unwind sometime very soon. In a very ugly way.