- An Open, Non-Partisan Plea to all Members of the News Media From
a 9/11 Mother:
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- by Donna Marsh O'Connor
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- OpEdNews.Com
Rumors abound in post-9/11 America. Rumors abound about both of the
two candidates for the presidency. And much of America is
blaming the media for not doing its full job, or for overstepping its
rightful bounds. In addition, our media stars (on all
networks and in all forms of media) spend much of their time covering
or clammoring over what others in the media have produced--both the
content and the methods of that production. I don't think I need
to list, though I certainly could, each of the points of difference
and the hot spots in our general state of political affairs. In
fact, in order to avoid, for this short moment in time, any
partisanship, I will not list those hot spots. That, as succinctly as
I can explain, is the starting point I want to address in this letter:
Not the media culpability in the rhetorical war we now find ourselves
in, but the need I have as a citizen to move this quagmire into a
productive discussion, a discussion that is extremely important to
have. The lives of future generations in general and our
children in particular are at stake.
Why I want to address this now is as follows: On the morning of
9/11/2001, my daughter, Vanessa Lang Langer (four months pregnant and
fifteen minutes early) arrived at work. She worked in Tower II
of the World Trade Center. No one should have died that morning
in those buildings. No one. But those in Tower II could
have been evacuated if there were any, any advance indication
that would have countered the word in the building that morning:
Stay at your desk. You are safe. Vanessa's fate
that morning was odd. Hers was one of only about four hundred
whole and intact bodies kept in the morgue for identification.
She did make it out of Tower II, only to be crushed by debris as the
towers fell. She was early to work. And five minutes late
to the rest of our lives. She has two brothers. One was
her best friend and biggest supporter in the world. He is
seventeen. She has another brother, an eleven year-old who asked
me in July of 2001 to hang a big American flag on our front porch,
only to eventually retract that request on September 14, 2001 when he
came to associate that flag with her death. The pain of knowing
that my daughter is gone for now, is compounded by my own culpability.
I never called her on her cell phone and told her to run. I
watch my sons futures unfold, tinged with grief that I can not shield
them from.
There is a natural (I am told) desire in me to lash out and blame:
the airlines for that 18 minute gap without warning, the presidents
Clinton and Bush (not in this letter), the CIA, the FBI, the NYC
Medical Examiner who kept her body for four months before notifying
the family. But right now, I am more interested in pointing to a
fixable flaw that will give us ample warning for the immediate future
than I am in blaming individuals or institutions for actions in the
past.
You in the media have the power to continue to dig for what may indeed
be important details about the past. You can and will certainly
do this.
But you can also take as solemn, as your number one responsibility,
the hunt for opportunities to ask right now, in this
time and this place, the questions that we American citizens
need to have answered so that no individual feels after the
election when it is too late: I have not been provided the
right information.
We must all agree that it has never been so pressing, so serious
and somber a time for choosing the right candidate. Never in our
lifetimes.
Please, when you have the chance or when you feel strong enough to
make the chance, ask the candidates this:
If you are elected on November second, 2004 and you take office on
January 1, 2005, what will you do about this war?
If you are elected on November second, 2004 and you take office on
January 1, 2005, what will you do about a draft? Have you
thought, Mr. Candidate, of this? What do you think of this now,
today?
Under what circumstances will you grow this war? Reduce this
war?
I don't expect that the candidates will be able to foresee every
possibility, every circumstance that might befall us, but certainly, absolutely
I expect their responsibility is to try. And certainly I expect
each to be honest about this very important detail.
If I had known some of the details that were missing to me as a
parent, no matter who is to blame for my not having key details, I
would have called Vanessa at 8:45 and said, run for your life.
Please, let me have access to the candidates answers to the above
questions. But especially, right now, to the best of your
knowlege: Will we have a draft? Are there plans for
a draft?
See me as the canary in the mine: I will not let my family
diminish further in number without first begging for and demanding
answers to questions that may determine this outcome. Yes, I
care about the past and future integrity of the candidates. Yes,
I care whether data is genuine or rumor. Yes, I care about bias
in the media.
But if American citizens don't demand that you do your jobs, that you
ask these questions, then those flags, waving beautifully in the wind
will be as endangered as we all were on the morning of September 11,
2001.
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