I shoudn't have watched that

I made the mistake of watching a clip of video shot from someone's camera phone on MSNBC this morning.

The person shooting was trapped in a tube train carriage next to one of the ones that exploded.  The video shows rescue workers coming to evacuate people from the train.

It has sound too.  Had I know what I was going to hear, I don't think I would have watched it.

People screaming for help.  One voice very clearly screams "HELP........ME!!!!!!"

My god. 

And so the terrible knowledge of what it was like down there finally sinks it.  We pay lip service to the human toll, the people who died or were injured, we see the blood and the burns, but we are, in a way desensitized to it.  At least I was. 

Until this morning. 

2,837 views 22 replies
Reply #1 Top
Unfortunately I have seen those scenes way too often...right outside my front door. It is truly the greatest ugliness one can imagine...man's inhumanity to man.
Reply #2 Top
I think far too many see and hear about these events without ever truly understanding the human tragedy. Casualties are just numbers. They forget that these are real people dying, maimed, in pain and extreme fear. That is what makes these things so horrific.

Perhaps more people need to see and hear these things to understand just how evil these acts truly are.
Reply #3 Top
Perhaps more people need to see and hear these things to understand just how evil these acts truly are.


NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

More people have to start acting to prevent these horrors from ever happening again. Take the word of those that DID see these horrors...I wouldn't wish it on anyone to witness them.
Reply #4 Top
Mano, I agree that no-one should have to see these things, but perhaps if more people did they would better understand just how much these things need to be prevented.
Reply #6 Top

Unfortunately I have seen those scenes way too often...right outside my front door.

I haven't, and that's why this affected me so much.  I don't think you understand that this is, for me quite profound.  It's something that I'm not going to forget, not ever.  the sound of another human screaming in pain and fear, crying our for someone to help them....that hurts my heart.  It wounds me.

Casualties are just numbers. They forget that these are real people dying, maimed, in pain and extreme fear.

Exactly.  We don't see the full impact, we just see 'X number of people were killed'.

 

As I mentioned on my "Goodbye, Fort Walton Beach" thread, there seems to be no human tragedy that others wont use to make a political point,

I know, and that irritates me.  For christ's sakes, not everything is about freakin' politics. 

Reply #7 Top
I don't think you understand that this is, for me quite profound.


I understand it very well Karen... that's why I said I wouldn't wish seeing those things on anyone.
we have trauma centres here for people that have witnessed those horrors. It's just awful.... and

there seems to be no human tragedy that others wont use to make a political point,


that's unforgiveable.
Reply #8 Top
that's unforgiveable.


But people still do it. You should have seen the Democratic Underground the other day after the London attacks....and the comments left on the blog of the man in Idaho who raped and killed those girls.
Reply #9 Top
But people still do it.


I know...its a sad testement to the state of the mentality of those people.
Reply #10 Top
There was a documentary shown about 9/11. It was originally supposed to be about a guy who was just becoming a fireman in New York.

There's a scene there you can hear the *pop* of people jumping onto the ground. It's disturbing, considering it's heard several times.

It's one thing to see a picture but it's quite another to actually hear sounds and watch the videotape.

Reply #11 Top
It's one thing to see a picture but it's quite another to actually hear sounds and watch the videotape.


My neighbours son was a passenger on one of the planes that crashed into the Towers...every time they show those videos on TV they have to relive their tragic loss...it is truly a nightmare for the survivors.
Reply #12 Top

There's a scene there you can hear the *pop* of people jumping onto the ground. It's disturbing, considering it's heard several times.

That's the kind of experience I had watching this clip.  It's just awful.  I can't adequately describe the feelings it stirred in me.  It makes me want to use pages of the koran as toilet paper.......

Reply #13 Top
Dharma: Seeing and hearing the atrocities does indeed wound one's heart. I'm so sorry you're hurting,

I was at the Mpls. St.Paul International airport one day and a woman was struck by a car, she was struck and then pinned
by it and her screams still echo in my mind sometimes. Not the same thing, it's just the sounds are similar and sad.

There was a documentary shown about 9/11. It was originally supposed to be about a guy who was just becoming a fireman in New York.

I saw that, it was awful to hear the sounds when a person landed or rather crashed through glass, or hit the floor. Wasn't it his first
day on the job too?
Here in Mn we just got mass transit up and going and now I wonder if these events will affect ridership and with the government
shutdown we just had, what changes might be made for safety there.
Reply #14 Top
It makes me want to use pages of the koran as toilet paper.......


I know you better than that Karen...I know that you really don't mean that. Those that truly believe in the Holy Scriptures of the Koran are not responsible for those attrocities.
Reply #15 Top
Dharma, I'm curious: has the experience changed your mind at all, about the problem of terrorism or how to solve it? Or do you remain steadfast in the conclusions you've already reached on those issues?

I'm not saying this should change your mind, any more than a General's first-hand knowledge of the carnage of war should change his mind about the necessity of assaulting enemy strongholds.

I'm just curious, really.
Reply #16 Top
has the experience changed your mind at all, about the problem of terrorism or how to solve it? Or do you remain steadfast in the conclusions you've already reached on those issues?


I'm not sure. I know that it's lead me to question a lot of things, not just the terrorist activities and how to solve them. I still hold certain ideals, but i realize that those ideals are just that - ideals. The world requires us to be practical....I'm still not through with the thought process yet, but once I am I'll let you know. I'd prefer to do it away from JU, if you don't mind...so if you want to drop me an email ([email protected]) I'll send you a response.

...I know that you really don't mean that. Those that truly believe in the Holy Scriptures of the Koran are not responsible for those attrocities.


I'd like to do it to the fuckers that perpetrated this 9/11 and 7/7 stuff. They hit us where we live, so I'd like to return the favor.
Reply #17 Top
I'd like to do it to the fuckers that perpetrated this 9/11 and 7/7 stuff.


those bastards are not the ones I speak of.
Reply #18 Top

those bastards are not the ones I speak of.

I know that, and I'm not tarring all of them with the same brush.  Just the ones who like to blow up innocent people in the name of Allah.  Those ones.....i have this raging defiance I'd like to show them.  A 'you killed my people, but you'll never break us...see, we are still defiant'  kind of attitude. 

Reply #19 Top
I saw a photo album a while back that one of our judge maintains of all the inquest he has worked over the years. Hundreds and hundreds of accident victims as well as murder and suicide victims including small children. Not long ago I saw in real life a girl who overdosed and died, her "kit" still laying on the bed beside her.

Creepy stuff...
Reply #20 Top

Hundreds and hundreds of accident victims as well as murder and suicide victims including small children.

I can understand why he does something like that.  It's as a reminder, I guess, to not get too jaded and regard the victim as just a name.

It's easy to become desensitized to things like that.  We have so realistic effects on horror and gore movies that it's almost a weekly thing for us to see someone being maimed or mutilated.

I think that everyone who says that Osama is just giving as good as his gets or who sympathises wil Al Queda in any way should be made to sit and watch/hear things like I saw this morning.  They should have to spend time with the familes of the dead and injured, they should be made to see the human face of these atrocities.

Reply #21 Top

Not long ago I saw in real life a girl who overdosed and died, her "kit" still laying on the bed beside her.

A couple of years ago there was an anti-drug campaign poster that was an actual photo from a crime scene.  This girl had OD' on smack, and she was in a kneeling position with her head on the floor in front of her, needle still in her arm and her gear on the floor next to her.  She'd been that way for a couple of days, so livor mortis had set in and her lower extremities were purple, as was her face and hands (from where the blood had pooled).  Her parents agreed to let her image be used in the hopes that it would deter someone else from using....

Reply #22 Top
Seeing and hearing the atrocities does indeed wound one's heart


I agree. Once the wounds are healed, we can become stronger and wiser souls. It's only temporary, this suffering lark. In the midst of this life, we need to feel our feelings, cry our cries, and honour our truths. Yet when the emotion is done, in the words of God: "Be still and know I am God." (Dharma, as a Buddhist, I'm sure you understand the deeper meaning of that statement.)

As for those who died in the recent terrorist attacks, they are safe as houses now. And as for those who are presently suffering, they can take comfort in the fact that our lives down here are merely blinks of an eye in context with our eternal journey. Someday soon they’ll realise that they have become stronger souls than if they hadn't faced suffering at all - even if it doesn't seem that way at the moment.

“Fear not, for I am with you”, are the comforting words from our Lord. Even in the midst of our trials and suffering, God is with us. And when Jesus faced suffering, pain and death, his words on the cross can be a lesson for us all: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

In face of the recent terrorist attacks, is it possible to forgive them? It seems like such an impossible thing to do. Yet when we move into God consciousness, we can do it. (“These things and more shall you also do”, Jesus said.) It so happens that it’s more a question of spiritual growth, but it’s certainly within the human potential.

it's lead me to question a lot of things, not just the terrorist activities and how to solve them. I still hold certain ideals, but i realize that those ideals are just that - ideals. The world requires us to be practical


All of life is spiritual, and therefore all of life’s problems are spiritually based, and spiritually solved. I believe that what is needed primarily is not a change of circumstance, but a change of consciousness. The circumstances will then begin to change naturally for the better. The bombs and guns aren’t the problem. It’s the minds and attitudes of the people who use them. As long as we have an attitude of “revenge is sweet”, “might is right”, or “let’s show them”, we perpetuate the friction and misunderstandings that cause violence in the first place. A safer world isn’t something that can be achieved over night. But before we can make a change to the outside world, we first need to make a change within. I think that each of us can begin to do this, in our own little way. The consciousness that will save us is a shift toward love.