You can watch it here:<br> <br> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA1vLDK_gQY<br> <br> Best,<br> <br> _DJA<br><br><b><i>Debbie Gray <graylex@yahoo.com></i></b> wrote:<blockquote class="replbq" style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"> <br>Very moving words....<br>Debbie<br><br>> "We Have Not Forgotten, Mr. President."<br>> <br>> The Nation<br>> Mon Sep 11, 9:49 PM ET<br>> <br>> The Nation -- Keith Olbermann is without a doubt the<br>> best news anchor on<br>> television today. Two weeks ago, echoing the spirit<br>> of the legendary<br>> Edward R. Murrow, Olbermann took Donald Rumsfeld to<br>> task for comparing<br>> critics of the Iraq war to Nazi appeasers. Tonight,<br>> broadcasting live from<br>> above a desolate and still demolished Ground Zero,<br>> Olbermann delivered a<br>> stirring eight minute commentary indicting the Bush<br>> Administration's<br>> shameful
and tragic response to 9/11. The entire<br>> speech is worth watching<br>> and reading, so I'm posting the full text below.<br>> <br>> Half a lifetime ago, I worked in this now-empty<br>> space. And for 40 days<br>> after the attacks, I worked here again, trying to<br>> make sense of what<br>> happened, and was yet to happen, as a reporter.<br>> <br>> All the time, I knew that the very air I breathed<br>> contained the remains of<br>> thousands of people, including four of my friends,<br>> two in the planes and<br>> -- as I discovered from those "missing posters"<br>> seared still into my soul<br>> -- two more in the Towers.<br>> <br>> And I knew too, that this was the pyre for hundreds<br>> of New York policemen<br>> and firemen, of whom my family can claim half a<br>> dozen or more, as our<br>> ancestors.<br>> <br>> I belabor this to emphasize that, for me this was,<br>> and is, and always<br>>
shall be, personal.<br>> <br>> And anyone who claims that I and others like me are<br>> "soft,"or have<br>> "forgotten" the lessons of what happened here is at<br>> best a grasping,<br>> opportunistic, dilettante and at worst, an idiot<br>> whether he is a<br>> commentator, or a Vice President, or a President.<br>> <br>> However, of all the things those of us who were here<br>> five years ago could<br>> have forecast -- of all the nightmares that unfolded<br>> before our eyes, and<br>> the others that unfolded only in our minds -- none<br>> of us could have<br>> predicted this.<br>> <br>> Five years later this space is still empty.<br>> <br>> Five years later there is no memorial to the dead.<br>> <br>> Five years later there is no building rising to show<br>> with proud defiance<br>> that we would not have our America wrung from us, by<br>> cowards and<br>> criminals.<br>> <br>> Five years
later this country's wound is still open.<br>> <br>> Five years later this country's mass grave is still<br>> unmarked.<br>> <br>> Five years later this is still just a background for<br>> a photo-op.<br>> <br>> It is beyond shameful.<br>> <br>> At the dedication of the Gettysburg Memorial --<br>> barely four months after<br>> the last soldier staggered from another Pennsylvania<br>> field -- Mr. Lincoln<br>> said, "we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we<br>> cannot hallow this<br>> ground. The brave men, living and dead, who<br>> struggled here, have<br>> consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or<br>> detract."<br>> <br>> Lincoln used those words to immortalize their<br>> sacrifice.<br>> <br>> Today our leaders could use those same words to<br>> rationalize their<br>> reprehensible inaction. "We cannot dedicate, we can<br>> not consecrate, we can<br>> not hallow this
ground." So we won't.<br>> <br>> Instead they bicker and buck pass. They thwart<br>> private efforts, and jostle<br>> to claim credit for initiatives that go nowhere.<br>> They spend the money on<br>> irrelevant wars, and elaborate self-congratulations,<br>> and buying off<br>> columnists to write how good a job they're doing<br>> instead of doing any job<br>> at all.<br>> <br>> Five years later, Mr. Bush, we are still fighting<br>> the terrorists on these<br>> streets. And look carefully, sir, on these 16 empty<br>> acres. The terrorists<br>> are clearly, still winning.<br>> <br>> And, in a crime against every victim here and every<br>> patriotic sentiment<br>> you mouthed but did not enact, you have done nothing<br>> about it.<br>> <br>> And there is something worse still than this vast<br>> gaping hole in this<br>> city, and in the fabric of our nation. There is its<br>> symbolism of
the<br>> promise unfulfilled, the urgent oath, reduced to<br>> lazy execution.<br>> <br>> The only positive on 9/11 and the days and weeks<br>> that so slowly and<br>> painfully followed it was the unanimous humanity,<br>> here, and throughout the<br>> country. The government, the President in<br>> particular, was given every<br>> possible measure of support.<br>> <br>> Those who did not belong to his party -- tabled<br>> that.<br>> <br>> Those who doubted the mechanics of his election --<br>> ignored that.<br>> <br>> Those who wondered of his qualifications -- forgot<br>> that.<br>> <br>> History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of<br>> a government cannot be<br>> taken away from that government by its critics. It<br>> can only be squandered<br>> by those who use it not to heal a nation's wounds,<br>> but to take political<br>> advantage.<br>> <br>> Terrorists did not come and
steal our newly-regained<br>> sense of being<br>> American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the<br>> Democrats. Nor did<br>> the media. Nor did the people.<br>> <br>> The President -- and those around him -- did that.<br>> <br>> They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that<br>> to them,<br>> "bi-partisanship" meant that their party would rule<br>> and the rest would<br>> have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating<br>> hysteria, as morally<br>> or intellectually confused, as appeasers, as those<br>> who, in the Vice<br>> President's words yesterday, "validate the strategy<br>> of the terrorists."<br>> <br>> They promised protection, and then showed that to<br>> them "protection" meant<br>> going to war against a despot whose hand they had<br>> once shaken, a despot<br>> who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence<br>> Committee, hated<br>> al-Qaida as much as we
did.<br>> <br>> The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped<br>> into supporting a war,<br>> on the false premise that it had 'something to do'<br>> with 9/11 is "lying by<br>> implication."<br>> <br>> The impolite phrase is "impeachable offense."<br>> <br>> Not once in now five years has this President ever<br>> offered to assume<br>> responsibility for the failures that led to this<br>> empty space, and to this,<br>> the current, curdled, version of our beloved<br>> country.<br>> <br>> Still, there is a last snapping flame from a final<br>> candle of respect and<br>> fairness: even his most virulent critics have never<br>> suggested he alone<br>> bears the full brunt of the blame for 9/11.<br>> <br>> Half the time, in fact, this President has been so<br>> gently treated, that he<br>> has seemed not even to be the man most responsible<br>> for anything in his own<br>>
administration.<br>> <br>> Yet what is happening this very night?<br>> <br>> A mini-series, created, influenced -- possibly<br>> financed by -- the most<br>> radical and cold of domestic political Machiavellis,<br>> continues to be<br>> televised into our homes.<br>> <br>> The documented truths of the last fifteen years are<br>> replaced by bald-faced<br>> lies; the talking points of the current regime<br>> parroted; the whole sorry<br>> story blurred, by spin, to make the party out of<br>> office seem vacillating<br>> and impotent, and the party in office, seem like the<br>> only option.<br>> <br>> How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical<br>> advantage of the<br>> unanimity and love, and transmuting it into<br>> fraudulent war and needless<br>> death, after monstrously transforming it into fear<br>> and suspicion and<br>> turning that fear into the campaign slogan of three<br>>
elections? How dare<br>> you -- or those around you -- ever "spin" 9/11?<br>> <br>> Just as the terrorists have succeeded -- are still<br>> succeeding -- as long<br>> as there is no memorial and no construction here at<br>> Ground Zero.<br>> <br>> So, too, have they succeeded, and are still<br>> succeeding as long as this<br>> government uses 9/11 as a wedge to pit Americans<br>> against Americans.<br>> <br>> This is an odd point to cite a television program,<br>> especially one from<br>> March of 1960. But as Disney's continuing sell-out<br>> of the truth (and this<br>> country) suggests, even television programs can be<br>> powerful things.<br>> <br>> And long ago, a series called "The Twilight Zone"<br>> broadcast a riveting<br>> episode entitled "The Monsters Are Due On Maple<br>> Street."<br>> <br>> In brief: a meteor sparks rumors of an invasion by<br>> extra-terrestrials<br>> disguised
as humans. The electricity goes out. A<br>> neighbor pleads for calm.<br>> Suddenly his car -- and only his car -- starts.<br>> Someone suggests he must<br>> be the alien. Then another man's lights go on. As<br>> charges and suspicion<br>> and panic overtake the street, guns are inevitably<br>> produced. An "alien" is<br>> shot -- but he turns out to be just another<br>> neighbor, returning from going<br>> for help. The camera pulls back to a near-by hill,<br>> where two<br>> extra-terrestrials are seen manipulating a small<br>> device that can jam<br>> electricity. The veteran tells his novice that<br>> there's no need to actually<br>> attack, that you just turn off a few of the human<br>> machines and then, "they<br>> pick the most dangerous enemy they can find, and<br>> it's themselves."<br>> <br>> And then, in perhaps his finest piece of writing,<br>> Rod Serling sums it up<br>> with words of
remarkable prescience, given where we<br>> find ourselves<br>> tonight: "The tools of conquest do not necessarily<br>> come with bombs and<br>> explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are<br>> simply thoughts,<br>> attitudes, prejudices, to be found only in the minds<br>> of men.<br>> <br>> "For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion<br>> can destroy, and a<br>> thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a<br>> fallout all its own<br>> -- for the children, and the children yet unborn."<br>> <br>> When those who dissent are told time and time again<br>> -- as we will be, if<br>> not tonight by the President, then tomorrow by his<br>> portable public chorus<br>> -- that he is preserving our freedom, but that if we<br>> use any of it, we are<br>> somehow un-American...When we are scolded, that if<br>> we merely question, we<br>> have "forgotten the lessons of 9/11"... look into<br>>
this empty space behind<br>> me and the bi-partisanship upon which this<br>> administration also did not<br>> build, and tell me:<br>> <br>> Who has left this hole in the ground?<br>> <br>> We have not forgotten, Mr. President.<br>> <br>> You have.<br>> <br>> May this country forgive you.<br><br>> <br>> Copyright 2006 The Nation<br>> Copyright 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.<br>><br>http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20060912/cm_thenation/15120539_1<br>> <br>> Debbie<br>> <br>><br>%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%<br>> Debbie Gray dgray@uidaho.edu<br>> We must be willing to get rid of the life we've<br>> planned,<br>> so as to have the life that is waiting for us."<br>> --Joseph Campbell<br>><br>%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%<br>> <br><br><br>__________________________________________________<br>Do
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