Paths to the ‘Path to Sept. 11’
by John Mathis
I have to tell you that this anniversary of Sept. 11 was not at all what I expected it to be. In fact, it was riddled with disappointment. Like so many Hoosiers, Sept. 11 changed my life. Unlike my fellow Hoosiers, the building I was working in was less than 4 miles away from the WTC. My job back then was flying around the world teaching a unique type of software to people in the pharmaceutical industry. I was very glad to have not been in the air that day.
Until that day, I was very interested in carving out my own little Rockwellian future with my new wife and daughter. Paying off college debts, saving for a house, buying a car … all the things you do when you’re in your 30s. My own little soap opera of life did not include politics. As an Independent, I watched the news about a month before the elections and then voted for the person I thought to be the least idiotic. The events of Sept. 11 changed that. Both the horror of that day and what happened that evening. That evening my 12-year-old daughter looked into my eyes with passionate concern and asked the million dollar question: Dad, why did they do this to us?
To this day I still don’t know why. But what has happened to me is that I am much more judicious in my acceptance of reported politics. Living abroad for a while taught me that “impartial” news outlets are rarely that. So, when I can, I read CNN, MSNBC, BBC, “The Independent,” Information Clearing House and the “Herald” in New Zealand.
When it all seems too much, I escape to The Daily Show.
So, when “Path to Sept. 11” was brought to my attention via MoveOn.org, I looked into it. I quickly became outraged. ABC was wrapping a product in history and then rewriting it to suit their own agenda. How sacrilegious to use our generation’s Pearl Harbor to slander an ex-president. To make it even more insulting, ABC was teaming up with Scholastic in order to promote their revised history. You don’t use the American flag as a blindfold to the truth. It seemed to me as though ABC was trying to brainwash the American public.
State dependent learning, as I remember it, is that when you learn something in a particular state of mind, you can recall that information more readily when you are returned to that state of mind. Reliving this most horrific national tragedy would surely agitate and frighten Americans. Then, in that state, we are learning, courtesy of ABC, that the Democrats are inept and encumbered by red tape and self-preservation. The only thing needed to complement this negative reinforcement would be to add some positive reinforcement. (That would follow a few days later when Mr. Bush would take 15 minutes out of the show to tell us were safer but not as safe as we could be if only we would permit further erosions of our civil rights.)
Still, I am trying to carve out a decent living. As hard as it is for everyone in the family, I am going back to school to earn my RN. School is a lot easier at 20 than when you’re 40. Car payments, mortgage payments and student loan payments are just the tip of the familial responsibilities that need to be satisfied. Add 200-plus pages per week of reading on top of that. Still, in the middle of the soap opera of life, I was too offended to passively stand by and not take a stand. So, I wrote Don Lundy, station manager for WRTV, and told him that I did not approve of the “Path to Sept. 11” and thought there had to be a better way to commemorate the fifth anniversary of Sept. 11.
I was surprised to receive an e-mail the next day from him. He invited me to attend the Monday viewing of the show and to be part of a discussion panel following the show. Highlights of our discussion would be aired on the Monday evening news. My first inclination was to decline. I had way too much going on here at home to get involved that deeply. I decided to sleep on it.
I had a hard time sleeping that night. I kept thinking about the saying that “the right thing isn’t always the easiest, otherwise more people would do it.” I thought about all the times I spoke to my daughter about the importance of standing up for your beliefs, being true to yourself and helping others in need. I even thought of my old high school motto: Dare to be different — when it is good, when it is right, when it is necessary. OK, I finally acquiesced and thought, fine, I’ll take a hit on my studies and weekly test and do the right thing. The next day I told Mr. Lundy I would be there.
Here’s where the disappointment kicks in. I contacted MoveOn with a response form they provided and told them I had heard from Mr. Lundy and had been invited to be part of a discussion group. I then asked if they had any discussion points they could forward to me. I had learned about discussion points by watching Bill O’Reilly’s show and seeing his Talking Points. Fox News is well known for “reporting” the news by following the discussion points some Republican entity has given them. Surely the Democrats have the same process. I was becoming anxious as this was Thursday and the show started on Sunday.
Having little time myself, I jumped into this with both feet. I tried to find a phone number for MoveOn. Nothing on their Web site, nothing in their e-mails, nothing in the Yellow Pages either in hard copy or online. As close as I could come to a phone number was a story in Salon.com about how MoveOn went after Tom Delay and someone on Tom Delay’s staff leaked the private numbers of some of the MoveOn editors. Maybe that’s why it was so hard to find a phone number.
Growing desperate now I called the DNC on Pennsylvania Street here in Indy. Surely they would know someone who had the phone number. I got as far as the voicemail of the communications officer. (She never called me back.) I tried to get the office of Harry Reid. His phone numbers were only for state residents.
To the Internet I went. I tried to get as close to the original source of the information I would quote so that even though I was only John Q. Public, my information was as accurate as possible. I used comments from Madeline Albright, Harvey Keitel, Cyrus Nowrasteh, Mark Platt, Greg Mitchell, Richard Ben-Veniste, Richard Clark, ABC, CNN, MSNBC and Reuters. During this search I found an interesting tidbit. Nowrasteh, the “Path to Sept. 11” screenwriter, was doing research for his movie, “The Day Reagan Was Shot.” He said he “made a conscious effort not to contact any member of the [Reagan] administration because I didn’t want them to stymie my efforts.” I tried desperately to get to source material and I was just preparing talking points … not scripting a movie!
Thankfully, enough of us stood up and made enough noise that ABC backed down somewhat. The association with Scholastic was halted. The blog on ABC about the show was taken down. ABC aired a disclaimer that was as detailed as any new pharmaceutical commercial. But still it aired. Those images were flooded into the airwaves and as many people know, we remember images more often than facts. My hope was that more people would be interested in the “Manning Bowl.” (Still, Monday night ratings were a 45 / 7.3 … good numbers according to WRTV.)
The final disappointment was the discussion after the Monday airing. Due to time constraints our interview lasted about five minutes and was edited down to about eight sentences given by four people. The real discourse happened after the cameraman and news anchor left. We all agreed that errors were committed by both political parties. However, I still had grievances. One of the discussion group members said, “There was enough truth in it.” My question back to her was when is there enough truth? Something is either truth or it is not. The library of propaganda has truth as its bookends.
The feeling I got from this experience is that the Democrats are still not ready to run the show. When John Q. Public steps forward from the faceless crowd, they need to be ready to equip them with what they need. They need to be supported so that, hopefully, two things will happen. One, the person stepping forward will feel supported and will step forward again when the time arises. Two, others will see their success and think to themselves, hmm, maybe I will step up next time. I hope that this happens soon. I have to be hopeful and believe it will happen soon. But to borrow from John Mayer, belief makes for sturdy armor and a heavy sword.
PS: MoveOn never did respond to my e-mail. Their automated e-mailings asking for $10 here or $25 there have continued. For the time being, I delete them as soon as they arrive.
