Why I made
http://thankyoukeitholbermann.org.
I remember walking out of my house in Brooklyn the morning of September 11th, 2001.
My car, my neighbor's cars, were covered in ash.
I remember my Palestinian neighbors closing their shop, loading up their car, driving out of town.
I bicycled down to the Promenade by the East River, for a view of the Manhattan skyline.
I remember looking at this plaque in the street, showing the Manhattan skyline circa 1970.
With the WTC's removed, I found it interesting that the skyline had reverted to the 1950's plaque.
A column of smoke rose above the skyline, with the bright sun hitting copier paper thousands of feet up, caught in the updraft, reflecting like glitter.
On 9/12, I caught a ride with a cop across the Brookyln bridge to Manhattan, over to Chambers street, fairly close to the trade centers. I wanted to see if I could help somehow.
I remember the wrecked cars, the ash everywhere.
I remember hundreds and hundreds of shoes. Initially, I thought that hundreds, if not thousands had died as far away as Chambers street, and that ambulances had come to take them all away to the morgue in the night. I later put it together that a stampede of people had literally run out of their own shoes trying to escape the oncoming wave of dust, ash and debris when the towers finally collapsed.
I remember the first time I turned the corner, and saw the twisted, smoking wreckage of building 7.
The smell of burning plastic will always mean something different for anyone who was in New York on that day. It brings you back instantly.
I remember that first night after the attacks, back in Brooklyn. Everyone in New York City was one person, together. Everyone was in the bars, getting shitfaced with each other. We were all just trying to be with someone else. I remember getting back together with my ex-girlfirend Amy that night. Everyone just needed to be with another human being.
I worked one building over from the trade centers. We went back to work October 8th. While this pic was taken earlier than that, this was pretty much the view.
The pit smoked for weeks and weeks after the towers came down.
We'd watch them take away human remains in ambulances almost daily at first, then less and less as the pit was cleared.
Construction workers would form a line, and give a salute to the remains before they were put into the ambulance for their trip to the morgue.
I remember Bush starting to politicize all of this.
Bush came to the WTC pit, mouthed his prepared speech through a bullhorn, and left. Like so many New Yorkers, I had to work next to it. All day, every day.
I can no longer count the amount of times I've heard this administration basically tell me I'm a bad person, that I appease terrorists, that effectively, I'm not a real American.
The frustration I feel. There were days there where I have felt like a crazy person.
I don't fear terrorists, even after the 9/11 attacks. America has faced attacks before, we'll face them again, bravely, without shredding the Constitution.
I do fear this coward of a President. I hate what George Bush has done to America. He has hurt us more than Osama Bin Laden could have ever hoped to.
Keith Olbermann seems to get all of this. He speaks for me, gets my situation. He seems to be the only non-fake-news reporter who does.
Thanks Keith.
http://thankyoukeitholbermann.org