I’m not sure if this is a “factual” question, but I’ll give it a shot anyways.
This is something I’ve been turning over in my mind a bit lately. What if the 9/11 attacks never happened? Maybe the bad guys overslept and missed their flight, or the FBI had gotten lucky and caught them while they were still messing around in that flight school in Florida. Regardless of the how, what would things be like if it didn’t happen? Would Bush’s popularity be even lower without that brief “Great Leader” phase? Would we still be going to war with Iraq? If so, maybe there might actually be more support for it? And what of North Korea?
And what of the domestic side? I recall hearing some newscaster or another on Fox News in the weeks after 9/11 saying how we, as a society, can’t ignore the world in favor of our ‘self-absorbed interests’ (or words to that effect). I believe he was referring to our entertainment industry and such if I remember the context correctly. If the WTC was still standing, maybe we would still be obsessing over the Oscars, and absorbed in reality TV… um, okay, maybe that happened anyways.
Even our personal lives. I guess I was lucky in that I didn’t lose anyone in the attacks, but I know people who did. I imgine they’d be doing things a little differently if their friends and family had lived.
Well, I thought it was a good question. Anywho, since I think my thread’s been overlooked, I’ll take a stab at my own question.
Without out “War on Terrorism”, we would not have approved of sending troops into Afghanistan. Not to mention the administration wouldn’t even have thought about it. All those injustices the Taliban committed to their own people? Wouldn’t even make the back page of the local newspaper. Those guys would still be in charge over there. Pakistan would still be under sanctions from the US without the change to ‘prove itself as an ally against terrorism’. Obviously no Office of Homeland Security or Patriot Act. With a still sluggish economy and no attack on America, I imagine Bush’s support number would be even lower faster than they are now. Perhaps, he’d still try to oust Saddam, although they’d have to invent another reason other than a flimsy connection to bin Laden. Ironically, I think nations like France would be more supportive of a coalition attack in that instance because they wouldn’t feel that their earlier support after 9/11 was being hijacked for Bush’s pet peeves. The “worst”
news would probably be the same Israeli-Palestinian violence that we saw throught the '90s.
Basically in America, life would be like what it was before 9/11. With the Middle East and Chandra Levy getting the headlines. The war on terror and I’m pretty sure Iraq wouldn’t have happened.
I missed this thread the first time around. Since any answer would be speculative, this isn’t really a factual question. I’ll move this thread to IMHO.
The guy 5 doors away from me would still be alive. His wife & 3 children would see the world quite differently.
Around the corner is a family that lost their daughter & son-in-law. They would not have a candle lit in her old bedroom window every day.
My friend D’s brother would not have been killed.
The father of my daughter’s friend would still be alive.
My old neighbors from across the street would not have had their son killed.
i’m not trying to come off as cold or uncaring but i wasnt affected directly, i didn’t lose anyone. The only thing i can see that has changed is that now we have the term"9 11". i mean i hear snatches of conversation in which poeple say things like, oh the last time i was here it was 9 11, i feel so creepy. i just want to say shut the fu*k up.i mean really, give me a break. if anything i feel a bit more paranoid, but as far as the event forcing me to look around or love something more in my life, no, it just didn’t do that for me. I never watched reality tv, gave a shit about oscars and whatever else is so trendy and mainstream. Sure i’m a consumer, but the destruction of the trade centers and senseless murder of thousands honestly didn’t cause me to reevauluate my life, and quite bluntly i really detest the fact that so many claim it changed them. I’m sure it did affect many, but the majority were affected briefly and have since moved on. its sort of like that diet many try, they feel energized and pumped for the first two weeks and openly preach to all. but as time goes on they fall back into the sam routine…i say dont wait for something so tragic to happen in order to make a change, do it now. dont make another slogan and pretend it means something to you…
If the attacks had not happened on 9/11, they would have happened at some later date. Remember that this was not the first attempt. You did know there was an earlier attempt to topple the Trade Center, didn’t you? Had the pond scum missed their flights, etc., on that day they would have tried again another day.
I guess I am glad for those of you who, like Bindrah, can pass off the event as something to just get over and forget because it didn’t affect you personally. I did not know anyone personally who died – a couple of close calls, though. But the fact is this was not an attack just on NYC and Washington DC, and those affected were not just those in the buildings and on the airplanes. It could have been you, or the city you live in, just as easily.
One thing that would be different is that children in Afghanistan would still be prohibited from flying kites, to give one example. That country still needs help, but I don’t think a reasonable person can say things were better there before the U.S. took out the Taliban.
Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq would have happened. The Taliban would still be in power, at least nominally, but would control very little in actuality due to crumbling infrastructure, teh Northern Alliance, and other warlords.
The North Korean crsis would be huge, and the main headline, perhaps after the crumbling economy.
The Democrats would have gained some (although perhaps not much) ground in the '02 elections, and most observers would state that the '04 elections was their’s to lose. Bush would be much more unpopular. Ashcroft would be hated by most parties.
It’s really hard to imagine. In most of my life I try to ignore all the “What ifs” because there’s really no magic way to know exactly what would’ve happened. I mean people say everything happens for a reason…so everything that either went wrong or right after 9/11 still could have happened anyway. At first I was going to say the economy would probably be better because consumer confidence wouldn’t have dropped as much but then you never know if there wouldn’t have been something else to affect it…
The biggest difference would be the news. Instead of hearing about Iraq Iraq Iraq every day, we’d be up-to-date on the criminal trials of Enron, Worldcom & Adelphia CEO’s. You never hear about them today, do you? We’d certainly know more about Bush & Cheney’s involvement in Enron, hell Cheney might have resigned by now and Bush might be looking at impeachment. Of course the Administration might have tried a bit of “wagging the dog” with North Korea or even Iraq to distract people from the REAL evils of our society, but without the threat of terrorism, people (and the media) probably wouldn’t care. Bush and Cheney probably thank God every day for 9/11.
The economy would still be in the toilet, as it was going downhill fast since '00. Gas prices might not be so high, but they’ve been seesawing for years anyway, so who knows.
The Catholic Church scandal probably wouldn’t have gotten as much attention. Isn’t it interesting how the biggest social stories after 9/11 were about protecting our children? That and the little girl abductions which received major press.
I have to agree with this one. One case of particular distate is Monica Iken’s “September’s Mission.” She feels that since her husband died there, she & her coalition had some automatic right to decree what can & can’t be built there. Talk about gross misuse of public sympathy! She ought to be incarcerated for it (her plans clearly provided comfort & aid to Osama’s --The Enemy-- plans for removing part of lower Manhattan.)
I am astounded that the greatest loss (and thus the real damage inflicted to our nation) of the day (The Towers themselves & the economy they built & supported), has gone virtually unoticed in light of all this humanistic garbage.
End Rant.
Well, that’s an interesting question. As for the actual styling of the selected structures, I think they could have done better. A lot better. While they are not that bad in of themselves, I do know enough about modern archtiecture to know that Liebskind more or less completely failed to consider something called “Urban Context.” In other words, the structures are out of place. While they would be at home in Hong Kong or Nagoya, they do not mesh appropriately (If at all!!!), with lower manhattan. Deconstructionist towers like that have their place in more spread out locals (Like Houston or Los Angeles), or in denser areas where other structures of their type abound (Many Asian cities.) If it was a fresh, modern approach he was trying to take, Mono or Duolithic minimalism (Like the originals), is clearly the way to go.
To wit, the original twins inspired a no-compromise, commanding presence, but still retained approachable humanity with their neo-gothic entrance facades. They were the type of buildings that would not be out of place for God him/herself to manage the world from (Imagine being able to convey that sense to the “smarter” of the religious fundementalists who destroyed the originals! Talk about regret!)
There was only one design of the more recent offereings that approriately conveyed that in more recent offereings. That was the design by Norman Foster. The design offered the neccessary space, strucural upgrades, and transportation accomodations required for a World Trade Centre to be just that. It also had the requested accomodations for memorial space, but incorporated them with out making worship of morbid sentiment. In other words, you could work there without feeling the weight of all that sadness, everyday, and if you were so inclined to visit a memorial, it was made avaiable too. Most of all, it much better incorporated forward thinking. The “winnner” here seems to have not taken into account that demand for office space in LM will pick-up in the coming decades (every year this country graduates 4% more High School students than the year before. They have to work somewhere! Some of them anyways, lol)
Above all, they can not hope to come close to adeqeucey when it comes to filling in that horrible void between Church & Vessey streets. I can only hope that in the coming years will bring some insight into the repopulating of the site as the need for space becomes more apparent.
Anywho, since I think my thread’s been overlooked, I’ll take a stab at my own question.