CNN – When debris rained from the sky in lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001, the first responders to the terrorist attack did not turn away. They rushed to the World Trade Center buildings while the world around them crumbled. Yet now, after all the wreckage has been cleared and the rebuilding has begun, their path is again blocked — not by flying chunks of smoldering rubble, but by space constraints.
The first responders are not invited to this year’s September 11 memorial ceremony at ground zero, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office confirmed Monday. It’s a painful insult for many of the approximately 3,000 men and women who risked their lives, limbs and lungs on that monumental day, puncturing another hole in a still searing wound.
In a statement, Bloomberg spokesman Andrew Brent said the commemoration ceremony is for the victims’ families. “While we are again focused on accommodating victims’ family members, given the space constraints, we’re working to find ways to recognize and honor first responders, and other groups, at different places and times,” Brent said.
But first responder John Feal, founder of an advocacy group for the police officers, firefighters, civilian volunteers and others who worked at ground zero, assailed Brent’s response, saying Bloomberg “lives in his own world.” “The best of the best that this country offered 10 years ago are being neglected and denied their rightful place,” Feal said.
Denise Villamia, a first responder who worked at ground zero for several months, cried over the phone as she recalled her “totally heartbroken” reaction to the news that she could not attend the memorial service. “I’m crying because it’s really a big betrayal on the part of the city, to rob me from my way to pay homage and to find that comfort and healing,” she said. “I feel that I have been robbed of my way to pay tribute.”
Space constraints, riiiiight. Does the phrase “No good deed goes unpunished” spring to mind?
Seems like a reasonable decision to me.
It’s not about them, it’s about victims and their families. Quit whining.
And pay for your own healthcare….
yeah… No good deed goes unpunished.
Typical Progressive attitude. It is not because there is no space/time for honoring first responders (@Dallas while victims were unwilling casualties, those people willingly and selflessly went and fought for safety and lives of others with disregard for their own). It is because of the spin “everything goes”. Some other parts of the same process are refusal to bring surviving sculpture from the center of WT plaza back to the site – “because it is too didactic”, despite vast majority of victim families wanting it there. Or (for now defeated) plan to have apology for wrongs done to Native Americans on the entrance to WT memorial site! It is all about relativising of what and why have happened and who (if anyone in Progressive mindset) is guilty. Blaming not allowed, reminding people of what have actually happened not allowed. Only anonymous memorial to undefined something allowed.
#2 – Yeah, the victims. Like the dozens and dozens of firefighters who ran INTO the building to save lives, but never made it out.
I guess they’re not victims, though. They were asking for it, right?
#5 Mac Guy,
The article doesn’t say relatives of the deceased are not being allowed to attend.
#5 I guess they qualify then, huh? Quit your whining too. You just made a fool of yourself.
They weren’t invited because they have salt in the firehouse kitchen.
Here’s a follow-up:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=K7tjnuG-l6g
[Wrong thread – ed.]
#7. I wasn’t sure until now, but I’m convinced that you are an idiot.
Cue Jon Stewart.
I assume all these “first responders” were paid a wage and were there because their job required them to be there. It is not as if they decided to go help.
They got paid. That’s enough.
1st responders are members of the American labor class and as such they get paid and expect too damn much!
Bloomberg needs to start outsourcing all 911 calls to call centers in India and sponsor H1B Work Visa replacements for every American 1st responders!
This would generate more money for the job creators in this country, rich people! Bloomberg understands this; and it’s about time, lazy Americans understood this!!
There’s never enough detail but surely the key is here:
“In a statement, Bloomberg spokesman Andrew Brent said the commemoration ceremony is for the victims’ families.”
Define: victim. Seems to me the first responders who got killed during 911 are victims? Is the right or wrong? So, if there is a god in heaven, if one of your family members died during 911–you are invited. If there was no death in your family==you ain’t invited.
What’s wrong with that, if that is what it is?
Given each family of each victim got on average about 2.5 Million dollars–it does seem victims have had enough attention.
America: always looking for and pandering to meaningless ceremony and “heroes.”
Oh, Bloomberg is a control freak asshole. What would you expect?
Heck, MikeN might even be right on this one.
Correcting Post #14–seems the average pay out from the “Victims Compensation Fund” was only 1.8 Million according to Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September
But here we have a report that emergency responders got paid on average 1.1 million more than “civilian” victims of the event:
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/defenseandsecurity/a/randon911.htm
the problem is there are an orgy of compensation plans set up to honor these victims.
Sad the country can only do whats right in response to a specific tragedy.
WHY SHOULDN’T ALL PEOPLE GET THE HEALTHCARE THEY NEED ALL THE TIME!!!!
Fricken Idiots.
Above, interesting point all.
How much compensation do the families, boyfriends, girlfriends, receive when a member of the Armed Forces is hurt or killed in action?
If not the same as the victims’ (etc) families, why not?
#17–noname==I return the concurring approval: “Studly American’s don’t need no more health then can pay for!!” /// Sadly, that is the attitude so many have. What else is “Big Government” to the small mind?
VOTE ALL “NO NEW TAXES” POLITICIANS OUT OF OFFICE. THEN—you will be honoring the spirits of the victims of 911. That penultimate sentence is bullshit, but if the first sentence doesn’t appeal to you, maybe the second will?
Ha, ha. Stoopid Hoomans.
YOU KNOW, it rankled me a bit when the President Buses were bought from Canada, but I’m ony assuming we still build buses/motorhomes of some kind here in the GOUSA. Could our Federal Government really not find anything built in the USA to make do with?
But I let it pass.
Now, I see the ML King monument in Wash DC was made by a Chinese Sculptor. As best as I can tell from Wiki, the guy is not “from” China but is still Chinese. Once again–we couldn’t find any artist in and of America to do this?
Its as wrong as City and State governmental functions moving a certain few call center services to India.
One giant WTF to our government. Just seems like part of the issue to me to Promote America First in things that are fungible.
I guess I just don’t understand world wide complex interconnected high finances. Lets see: how does this relate to this thread? Ha, ha.==Well, 911 is all about honoring America and we ought to do it right. Same with everything else we do.
VOTE ALL “NO NEW TAXES” POLITICIANS OUT OF OFFICE
MAKE ROOM, YA SHIT-HEAD!
Doesn’t that make me proud to have lived through that shit.
When the towers fell, I was across West Side Boulevard in my seventh floor apartment in the Gateway complex. I was practically next door. My commute was 150 feet horizontally and 1,000 feet vertically.
When Tower 2 fell, the dust rose up and obliterated the sky.
Nine minutes it took for the dust to settle from the fall of that first tower.
The power went out immediately so I was stuck there without an elevator.
Being handicapped, I was less than thrilled at having to wait in the semi-dark. I wasn’t going to walk down unless if was absolutely necessary.
Then the second tower fell.
The dust cloud lasted even longer that time because it also raised debris from the first tower.
I made my way down slowly, in the dark, (safety lights don’t last forever, ya know!) and emerged to a brilliant blue, cloudless sky.
That was the wrong sky.
It had always been partially obscured by these two huge fucking towers where I worked.
It was only by accident, by dint of an argument with my new, and entirely unreasonable boss, that I had not been at work that day. That I didn’t die there that day on the 83rd floor of Tower 2…
I remember the firemen walking around dust-covered, wraith-like looking like souls as lost as their fellow firemen and the 3,000 or so civilians who had just been crushed by a million tons of falling concrete, glass and office content.
First Osama Bin aden tore a hole in my sky, and now Bloomberg wants to spit on the memory of all of the people who died that day trying to help…
It figures.
# 19 bobbo, how do you know what you know and how do you change your mind said,
Bobbo, all your sentences have an appeal, will they be penultimate or not!
hehe, I’da learnt a new word, thanks bobbo I’da had to thunk some.
To play devils advocate. First responders are trained to respond to any emergency. 9-11 was certainly that. It was a difficult day for anyone including all of America. But the victims in the Towers who job was not as first responders or Police officers. They were unsuspecting victims. I think separate tribute is in order for first responders. But the anniversary belongs to the victims.
Why does there have to be only one observance, i.e. for the victim’s families? Why not another observance including the first responders and the construction/demolition/cleanup workers who spent so much time on the smoldering wreckage to find the remains of those lost?
If its simply a space constraint, have a morning ceremony and an afternoon ceremony. Or have it on consecutive days and then the publicity-seeking politicians get their faces on TV news two days in a row. Win-Win.
Gee–I thought it was AMERICA that got attacked on 911? More than a nationwide moment of silence is not about remembering that day but is all about something(s) entirely else. Kangaroo probably has it. Some pandering of the simple minded to get even more money for the “victims” so that the middle men can rake off their management fees.
None of you pro-events get that same creepy feeling as when you cant find the remote and some asswipe put the tv on the Televangelist 24/7 channel?
Remember America, our History, our Future, our Challenges.
Read a book. ((To that end–thank you no name. Penultimate is one of my favorite words but only because it is more often used incorrectly than per its definition. Always amusing===even when I usually use it wrong. Depends on where you place the “last” emphasis. Ha, ha.))
Words—just a tool. Like punctuation.
# 24 jescott418,
You are quit right. No one wants to sully the life changing occasion, for all involved by inviting the help. It’s too bad if firemen or cops died, it’s just their job to do so! Deceased 1st responders families shouldn’t be so haughty to expect nothing more then behind the counter treatment, after all they are just hired help!
#17 You might want to be careful about what you guys are asking for. The waiting time for many treatments in many of these nations has been growing and the quality of the care given has been falling especially for the elderly. Those who can often fly to India for needed surgeries, etc. The option for getting cataract surgery only exists when it is determined that it seriously gets in the way the of your work but notice the turn of phrase.
noname—and any others
I’ve googled and can’t find it one way or the other but I would be “shocked” if the families of the first responders who died on that day have not been invited to this event.
Who is not invited clearly are those who responded on and after 911 and lost nobody. They are very vocal about wanting more attention after all: they helped.
Two points that never fit: The Chief Fire Fighter said if he had known the building was going to collapse, he never would have sent his guys in. Just correctly so. Most heroism is being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time by someone elses mistake/lack of expertise.
And speaking of expertise, my penultimate point, is the bureaucratic bland evil represented by that blond cocksucking government female who told the nation the air around ground zero was safe to breath. You’d have to be an idiot to think that. And I guess most people are to believe shit like that. Particulate in the air is NEVER “safe” to breathe. Its always an issue of how unsafe it is and what the alternatives are.
So, my last point–msbpodcast: I assume you’ve come to terms with the events of that day. It can be very trying. Find your peace.
If the responders made over a million each, then we are even. There are millions of people who put their lives on the line daily, many giving their lives, who make a regular pay. I thank them for their service, but they have been compensated. They did their job and got paid shitloads more than any other people in the same profession.
Have they sold the TV rights to Disney?
bobbo- “And speaking of expertise, my penultimate point, is the bureaucratic bland evil represented by that blond cocksucking government female who told the nation the air around ground zero was safe to breath. You’d have to be an idiot to think that.”
Most people don’t know this bit of trivia. Part of the big picture that people tend to easily overlook.
Hell, most people don’t know shit about that day. My Ivy League educated friends, have never even heard of Building 7. Apparently, Donald Rumsfeld was one of them.
Thank you McCullough. I have her image in my memory but forgot her name: Christine Whitman. Actually had reports in her hand from the CDC that the air around Ground Zero was highly caustic on the order of breathing draino yet she and others told everyone it was safe.
http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:_KrE2nbralAJ:www.st911.org/MorphJ20.doc+911+%22air+is+safe+to+breath%22+spoke&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESg__WA6k0fDpXABN7kqx7LX2VY7I2dWWZedgGp6-wY4D7f7GrWaVJL3w2L_8np9BfuAyGjsqEvzDsaxIMZImwNR2BI3t2TNsbjSdRtVnh1DmdM69DmMSUdhywe-McVmmK1O5Xn1&sig=AHIEtbQfrBWp9zIxVnEH2_JZUzxMVHdJYQ
Sometimes, knowledge is power.
Or just default to the position that you can’t trust those in power.