“Two sets of memorials, separated by a quarter of a century, so alike (…) But of course, there is one difference. The forty people killed on Flight 93 were murdered by terrorists from foreign countries. Alex Pretti and Renee Good were murdered by terrorists acting under the aegis of the president of the United States.” I wish there was a way to get this gut-punch of an observation into every single person’s feed. What a beautiful Triad.
One of the things that troubles me recently is the sacrifices that people like Alex Pretti unintentionally made. It seems like a terrible waste.
Trump and the US authoritarian project may ultimately be defeated, but why did this young man have to die so that we'd all step up and realize what we were dealing with? Have we all forgotten our history? If so, what does that say of the state of our education system and the media we surround ourselves with? Why does it take being neck deep in the sewage to appreciate we have a problem that needs to be dealt with? Too often we assume someone else will be the adult and deal with it.
The "daddy" nonsense thinking a pedophile and convicted felon is somehow going to keep the bad stuff away from us is ridiculous. People have been watching too many John Wick movies, thinking the bad guy is somehow a good person deep down.
What a moving piece. I confess that I teared up more than once. I suppose that I will always tear up about that day and the aftermath. Like so many here, I remember nearly everything about that awful day. The way that you described the people of Shanksville reminded me of the Gander, Newfoundland citizens who took care of so many stranded Americans after their planes were rerouted post 9/11. There are still a lot of good people in the world, and I try to remind myself of this when I become disgusted by MAGA.
I can’t either and my sense of grief and loss extends back further. Vividly, I recall a hot humid bright late spring day, New York City in early June 1968. A line stretched from the steps of St Patrick’s Cathedral around and around the block. Six hours we waited in this somber queue immersed in a communion of fellowship to pay respects, to give thanks to Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, awash in a tumult of mercy, love, and grace.
Hopefully, it's the Republican Party that has changed so horribly, the country may be coming back to some kind of sanity. Either way, your comments about the memorials stir my emotions about MAGA's attempted Nazi takeover, and about my own first encounter with the Vietnam Memorial.
I'm a Vietnam veteran and had resolved never to visit the wall because its concept seemed like yet another insult to those of us who served...you know, the suckers and losers. But years later, when I was in DC on business, the cabbie driving me to the airport, a fellow veteran, insisted that I see it, that it was special. He dropped me at one side of the park and picked me up on the other so I could tour the Wall.
It was a rainy, windy, cold November day in the middle of the week, so there were just a few notes taped to the wall, but it was enough, along with the tens of thousands of names. It hit me hard, far deeper than even the flight on the Freedom Bird home from RVN. It was the immensity of it, and the tragedy, the lives lost for reasons that became fuzzier with each passing year. All those children who would never know the parent they lost.
I returned every time I went to DC, including a couple of Monday morning jogs, when the teddy bears and notes and other mementos were still present in their weekend abundance. Still today, all these decades later, I can feel it. More to the point, I can feel what you felt at the monuments to Flight 93, Alex Pretti, and Renee Good.
As one whose adult life began with a war and is now nearing its end, I have come to accept that violence and hatred is part of our makeup, and the best we can do is try to limit how often it occurs and to bring the perpetrators to justice in the most civilized way possible. I would consider my life fulfilled if I live to see Trump and his thugs tried and convicted for their crimes.
I was on another site, where they were defending the USA men's hockey team, yucking it up with Trump while he mocked the women's team. "Boys will be boys" was the gist of it. How celebrating the victory with the president was patriotic. I thought if those boys were really patriotic, they would have not behaved that way and celebrated the win with the people of Minneapolis.
The people that step up - like the men & women on Flight 93, should be thought of when you want to show love for your country. Not the man who incited January 6th.
I watched both towers fall from my window in Williamsburg Brooklyn on 9/11. To this day I cannot bring myself to visit the 9/11 museum.
Hi JVL, Thanks for a truly moving Triad. I want to play by The Secret Podcast rules - just asking questions and open to having my mind changed. I've been thinking about this question for a while and now seems as good a time as any to ask it:
Did Osama bin Laden win?
I know that what has happened to the US since 9/11/2021 isn't exactly what he was hoping for, a global religious war and installation of a worldwide caliphate, but his attacks surely contributed to the deadly split between Americans. DHS is a product of the US response to 9/11 as is the militarization of American police departments. The so-called "warrior ethos" was also developed in our military in Afghanistan and Iraq and that has spread now to DHS and many police and sheriffs across the country. ICE and CBP are openly occupying forces, masked and unapologetically, even boastfully cruel and murderous. Anti-immigrant fervor and Christian Nationalism have been weaponized and exploited to assault our rights, decimate our health, science and foreign aid agencies and convert our government into a cult of hatred and retribution. The Republican-appointed justices on the Supreme Court have given their approval for blatant racial profiling in service of mass deportation. We put legally present asylum seekers, pregnant women, children and even babies into filthy concentration camps denying them proper food, medicine, even clean water and functioning toilets. Our voting system is under full-scale assault with millions supporting denial of the franchise among those they disagree with. The decadence of the Trump administration, his family, his cronies and the American Epstein Class has been on full display. We are on the brink of war with Iran. There are dozens more examples.
Don't get me wrong, bin Laden and al Qaeda are fully responsible for their acts of terrorism. And many of our fault lines started long before the 9/11 attacks. They are certainly not the only reason why we have reached our current state, but one suspects that bin Laden would be happy seeing where we are right now.
Said it before: MAGA is waging war on our country, our way of life out of spite, racial animosity and boredom. The pedophiles running MAGA are in it for the power.
The widening gulf between red and blue America was showing up well before Trump came on the scene; he merely threw fuel on the fire.
At least some of the architects of Project 2025 would appear to seek to end the American republic. One could thus call them counterrevolutionaries. And one could look at Trump's occupation of American cities as the beginning of at least a "cold" civil war.
We haven't gotten to a "hot" civil war akin to the bombardment of Fort Sumter partly because pro-democracy activists have thus far resisted Trump 2.0 through traditional legal and electoral channels. That makes a lot of sense, because middle America doesn't appear to have an appetite for violence.
Of course, it remains to be seen how the Trump administration would respond to potentially losing the 2026 mid-terms. The most positive scenario is that the Democrats take at least the House and the Republicans make ineffectual steps to stop them. That could end the Project 2025 coup attempt.
A more negative scenario is that the Republicans take explicitly extra-legal moves to maintain congressional power. If that happens, then I could see the pro-democracy movement taking extraordinary counter-measures such as launching general strikes.
If the extra-legal Rubicon is crossed, I wouldn't venture a guess as to how things turn out. However, the pro-democracy movement might want to start gaming out how it might respond to various scenarios.
In Portland, Or, the intersection of N. Interstate and Greeley was notorious for accidents. The City wanted to encourage bike commuting and Interstate was a common avenue to get to work. But both Greeley and Interstate fed the industrial and port sector.
In 2007 Brett Jarolimek collided with a truck and died, 11 days after a woman was struck and killed a few miles away on W Burnside.
An old bike, painted white, was chained up at the sites of both accidents. Thieves stole one of them… and returned it immediately and apologized. The memorials were spontaneous and maintained by regular citizens. They became known as “ghost bikes”
Many years later the memorials are gone. But at least on Interstate and Greeley the City changed the traffic flow - no more right turns into the bike lane.
JVL, thank you for this illuminating piece. I have to share an experience. I have a very right wing BIL, who was visiting nearby. He was stricken suddenly, fell, and was vomiting blood. An emergency ambulance fortunately got him to the nearest trauma center, where he was treated successfully for a GI bleed. Fortunately, no surgery was required. I visited with them a few days later, it was miraculous and relieving to see my BIL alive and upright.
However, over lunch, he started in on it. You know, the racist crap about immigrants. He mentioned more than once that while in the hospital, he noticed all these caregivers of different color and cultures. It wasn't a commentary on how wonderful our diverse healthcare system is. We asked him: were you given good care? He responded positively. But then he brought it up again, the different cultures represented among the hospital staff.
There's no fixing this mentality. Even in the face of a life-threatening, near-fatal episode, the bigot will still cling to bigotry.
“Two sets of memorials, separated by a quarter of a century, so alike (…) But of course, there is one difference. The forty people killed on Flight 93 were murdered by terrorists from foreign countries. Alex Pretti and Renee Good were murdered by terrorists acting under the aegis of the president of the United States.” I wish there was a way to get this gut-punch of an observation into every single person’s feed. What a beautiful Triad.
My condolensces, JVL, for the loss of your aunt. ❤ ya big guy.
One of the things that troubles me recently is the sacrifices that people like Alex Pretti unintentionally made. It seems like a terrible waste.
Trump and the US authoritarian project may ultimately be defeated, but why did this young man have to die so that we'd all step up and realize what we were dealing with? Have we all forgotten our history? If so, what does that say of the state of our education system and the media we surround ourselves with? Why does it take being neck deep in the sewage to appreciate we have a problem that needs to be dealt with? Too often we assume someone else will be the adult and deal with it.
The "daddy" nonsense thinking a pedophile and convicted felon is somehow going to keep the bad stuff away from us is ridiculous. People have been watching too many John Wick movies, thinking the bad guy is somehow a good person deep down.
What a moving piece. I confess that I teared up more than once. I suppose that I will always tear up about that day and the aftermath. Like so many here, I remember nearly everything about that awful day. The way that you described the people of Shanksville reminded me of the Gander, Newfoundland citizens who took care of so many stranded Americans after their planes were rerouted post 9/11. There are still a lot of good people in the world, and I try to remind myself of this when I become disgusted by MAGA.
❤️🩹
I can’t either and my sense of grief and loss extends back further. Vividly, I recall a hot humid bright late spring day, New York City in early June 1968. A line stretched from the steps of St Patrick’s Cathedral around and around the block. Six hours we waited in this somber queue immersed in a communion of fellowship to pay respects, to give thanks to Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, awash in a tumult of mercy, love, and grace.
Hopefully, it's the Republican Party that has changed so horribly, the country may be coming back to some kind of sanity. Either way, your comments about the memorials stir my emotions about MAGA's attempted Nazi takeover, and about my own first encounter with the Vietnam Memorial.
I'm a Vietnam veteran and had resolved never to visit the wall because its concept seemed like yet another insult to those of us who served...you know, the suckers and losers. But years later, when I was in DC on business, the cabbie driving me to the airport, a fellow veteran, insisted that I see it, that it was special. He dropped me at one side of the park and picked me up on the other so I could tour the Wall.
It was a rainy, windy, cold November day in the middle of the week, so there were just a few notes taped to the wall, but it was enough, along with the tens of thousands of names. It hit me hard, far deeper than even the flight on the Freedom Bird home from RVN. It was the immensity of it, and the tragedy, the lives lost for reasons that became fuzzier with each passing year. All those children who would never know the parent they lost.
I returned every time I went to DC, including a couple of Monday morning jogs, when the teddy bears and notes and other mementos were still present in their weekend abundance. Still today, all these decades later, I can feel it. More to the point, I can feel what you felt at the monuments to Flight 93, Alex Pretti, and Renee Good.
As one whose adult life began with a war and is now nearing its end, I have come to accept that violence and hatred is part of our makeup, and the best we can do is try to limit how often it occurs and to bring the perpetrators to justice in the most civilized way possible. I would consider my life fulfilled if I live to see Trump and his thugs tried and convicted for their crimes.
I was on another site, where they were defending the USA men's hockey team, yucking it up with Trump while he mocked the women's team. "Boys will be boys" was the gist of it. How celebrating the victory with the president was patriotic. I thought if those boys were really patriotic, they would have not behaved that way and celebrated the win with the people of Minneapolis.
The people that step up - like the men & women on Flight 93, should be thought of when you want to show love for your country. Not the man who incited January 6th.
I watched both towers fall from my window in Williamsburg Brooklyn on 9/11. To this day I cannot bring myself to visit the 9/11 museum.
Beautiful piece JVL.
Hi JVL, Thanks for a truly moving Triad. I want to play by The Secret Podcast rules - just asking questions and open to having my mind changed. I've been thinking about this question for a while and now seems as good a time as any to ask it:
Did Osama bin Laden win?
I know that what has happened to the US since 9/11/2021 isn't exactly what he was hoping for, a global religious war and installation of a worldwide caliphate, but his attacks surely contributed to the deadly split between Americans. DHS is a product of the US response to 9/11 as is the militarization of American police departments. The so-called "warrior ethos" was also developed in our military in Afghanistan and Iraq and that has spread now to DHS and many police and sheriffs across the country. ICE and CBP are openly occupying forces, masked and unapologetically, even boastfully cruel and murderous. Anti-immigrant fervor and Christian Nationalism have been weaponized and exploited to assault our rights, decimate our health, science and foreign aid agencies and convert our government into a cult of hatred and retribution. The Republican-appointed justices on the Supreme Court have given their approval for blatant racial profiling in service of mass deportation. We put legally present asylum seekers, pregnant women, children and even babies into filthy concentration camps denying them proper food, medicine, even clean water and functioning toilets. Our voting system is under full-scale assault with millions supporting denial of the franchise among those they disagree with. The decadence of the Trump administration, his family, his cronies and the American Epstein Class has been on full display. We are on the brink of war with Iran. There are dozens more examples.
Don't get me wrong, bin Laden and al Qaeda are fully responsible for their acts of terrorism. And many of our fault lines started long before the 9/11 attacks. They are certainly not the only reason why we have reached our current state, but one suspects that bin Laden would be happy seeing where we are right now.
This is all good. This is building family/resistance. This has weight.
❤️❤️❤️
Said it before: MAGA is waging war on our country, our way of life out of spite, racial animosity and boredom. The pedophiles running MAGA are in it for the power.
The widening gulf between red and blue America was showing up well before Trump came on the scene; he merely threw fuel on the fire.
At least some of the architects of Project 2025 would appear to seek to end the American republic. One could thus call them counterrevolutionaries. And one could look at Trump's occupation of American cities as the beginning of at least a "cold" civil war.
We haven't gotten to a "hot" civil war akin to the bombardment of Fort Sumter partly because pro-democracy activists have thus far resisted Trump 2.0 through traditional legal and electoral channels. That makes a lot of sense, because middle America doesn't appear to have an appetite for violence.
Of course, it remains to be seen how the Trump administration would respond to potentially losing the 2026 mid-terms. The most positive scenario is that the Democrats take at least the House and the Republicans make ineffectual steps to stop them. That could end the Project 2025 coup attempt.
A more negative scenario is that the Republicans take explicitly extra-legal moves to maintain congressional power. If that happens, then I could see the pro-democracy movement taking extraordinary counter-measures such as launching general strikes.
If the extra-legal Rubicon is crossed, I wouldn't venture a guess as to how things turn out. However, the pro-democracy movement might want to start gaming out how it might respond to various scenarios.
In Portland, Or, the intersection of N. Interstate and Greeley was notorious for accidents. The City wanted to encourage bike commuting and Interstate was a common avenue to get to work. But both Greeley and Interstate fed the industrial and port sector.
In 2007 Brett Jarolimek collided with a truck and died, 11 days after a woman was struck and killed a few miles away on W Burnside.
An old bike, painted white, was chained up at the sites of both accidents. Thieves stole one of them… and returned it immediately and apologized. The memorials were spontaneous and maintained by regular citizens. They became known as “ghost bikes”
Many years later the memorials are gone. But at least on Interstate and Greeley the City changed the traffic flow - no more right turns into the bike lane.
JVL, thank you for this illuminating piece. I have to share an experience. I have a very right wing BIL, who was visiting nearby. He was stricken suddenly, fell, and was vomiting blood. An emergency ambulance fortunately got him to the nearest trauma center, where he was treated successfully for a GI bleed. Fortunately, no surgery was required. I visited with them a few days later, it was miraculous and relieving to see my BIL alive and upright.
However, over lunch, he started in on it. You know, the racist crap about immigrants. He mentioned more than once that while in the hospital, he noticed all these caregivers of different color and cultures. It wasn't a commentary on how wonderful our diverse healthcare system is. We asked him: were you given good care? He responded positively. But then he brought it up again, the different cultures represented among the hospital staff.
There's no fixing this mentality. Even in the face of a life-threatening, near-fatal episode, the bigot will still cling to bigotry.
Hey Jonathan, sorry about the misspellings, grammar and syntax errors too. No excuses. Ha