Toys Depicting 9/11 Attack Recalled- Page 2

Posted: 8/27/04 at 11:08pm

bythe sword84 - I disagree with you completely - if 'the idea of human decency' did not matter anymore, then no one would be upset by this. And the reason to shine a light on it - and the reason to say NO ABSOLUTELY NOT to it - is to show that it is NOT acceptable. I absolutely refuse to roll over and say, "Ok, that's it, the world has gone to hell and I should just accept it." I AM A PART OF THIS WORLD, and as such, I will forever be vocal in my denunciation of that which is not humane. Your arguement sounds very much like people who don't vote because 'what difference does it make' - it is an abdication of your participation in the human race.

And as for your expressed opinion that those of us who are upset by this are ridiculous - I'd rather be seen as ridiculous than complacent - because that complacency implies consent - AND I DO NOT CONSENT TO THIS, AND NEVER WILL!!!!!!!

[nystateomind04]

Posted: 8/27/04 at 11:18pm

Amen to that, Dgrant

[Rose_MacShane]

Posted: 8/28/04 at 1:40am

It's things like this that make me ashamed to be human. How can anyone be so cruel as to market this kind of s**t and, moreover, who's so sick that they would buy it?
As for the trading cards: Oh, please tell me you're kidding. Not that I especially want to see it...I'll just take your work for it. It would probably be deleted anyway.

[boborunstheshow]

Posted: 8/28/04 at 1:47am

I think we should all take comfort in the idea that the people who made these things, probably don't have many friends.

Posted: 8/28/04 at 1:50am

Rose - I truly, honestly believe that that's why we need to speak up and against this type of thing. There is no reason to be ashamed - for this doesn't HAVE to represent what is possible in humans, only what they can choose to be. For some, it is inevitable that people will lower themselves to these depths. I, for one, absolutely refuse to accept that we must accept it all and turn a blind eye. If you must debase your humanity by producing such filth, feel free - that right should be inherrent. BUT, there is NOTHING that says the rest of us have to acknowledge it, or even allow it into our daily lives. And I can assure you, that is a choice that I DO make each and every day. If I run into someone wearing one of those shirts, you can rest assured that my thoughts on the subject will be made very clear there and then. If they have the right to present it, then I sure as hell have the right to respond. May grace and peace be in the soul of someone who lost a loved one in that experience should they happen to run into someone wearing that shirt. Updated On: 8/28/04 at 01:50 AM

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 8/28/04 at 2:02am

may grace and peace be in the soul of someone who lost a loved one in that experience should they happen to run into someone wearing that shirt.

i respect your attitude, d, and really appreciate your sensitivity in these matters of dealing with these heinous pieces of less than dung. i would, however, being the radically violent war monger that i am, hope that any poor soul who lost a loved one who had the misfortune of running across a miscreant adorned with this kind of artwork would be armed as no court in the land should be able to convict them for making room for a more thoughtful soul by clearing such vile fools from the earth.

Updated On: 8/28/04 at 02:02 AM

Posted: 8/28/04 at 2:04am

papa - being a pacifist can be a real BITCH

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 8/28/04 at 2:07am

d, that's why ya have friends like me who have no qualms about busting a cap or two.

Posted: 8/28/04 at 2:08am

papa - I would say 'if you've got my back, I've got yours' - but the last person I said that to got REALLY nervous.

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 8/28/04 at 2:11am

lol, no worries, d. i'm pretty secure and always welcome another ally, even a pacifist.

Posted: 8/28/04 at 2:17am

It should come as no surprise that one of my favorite pictures EVER is that young man in China standing in front of the row of tanks. The Dalai Lama, Gandhi and King are heroes of mine for a reason

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 8/28/04 at 2:25am

just as nathan bedford, black jack, ol' blood and guts, dougie and stormin' norman are heroes of mine. and before you go kkk on nate, he was the best pure cavalry warrior the nation ever produced.

[Marquise]

Posted: 8/28/04 at 2:28am

dgrant imgoing to have to echo your sentiments on this whole "situation".

im f*c**g piss'd these things are out there. how someone could even take the time out to make these things in the first place baffles me. there are some truly sick f**ks out there.

my cousin was a victim of this tragedy. she survived. but she worked just two blocks from the WTC and saw the whole thing from the company's board room bay windows, which faced both towers. she ran down 58 flights of stairs and headed straight for battery park with a whole slew of other people trying to avoid a large cloud of debris, body parts, etc that were headed in their direction (the first tower had just collapsed when she got to ground level) she finally made it to the wiliamsburg bridge and walked over to brooklyn.

she has not been the same since.... she had to go to therapy and to this day she wont even tell me the full details.

how do the people that come up with this sh*t look themeselves in the mirror?

Posted: 8/28/04 at 2:30am

papa - I accept that agression is something that seems to have come along with human existence. I also believe, however, that if we are to have a future at all worth living in, we need to find a way to move beyond that urge. Where to draw that line is always sticky, of course, since no one wants to lay down their weapon first and become vulnerable. But I am happy to be at least a bearer of the torch for a more enlightened and noble existence. To not even acknowledge its possibility is a fatalistic stance that makes no sense to me at all.

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 8/28/04 at 2:37am

d, i welcome your stance and will be behind you with a c*cked and locked .45 (ok, if you isist i'll take a .40 cal or 10mm s&w) just in case somebody doesn't quite understand that we're moving toward an enlightened future. i wish that it was possible for me to envision a future in which violence was obsolete, unfortunately i think that it's inherent in animals and we are just smart ones that look good in suits. maybe in the next evolution.

Updated On: 8/28/04 at 02:37 AM

Posted: 8/28/04 at 2:52am

papa - I choose to consider myself part of the evolutionary process. Not that I'm not mindful of my own safety, but I'm not going to passively sit back and accept this as the only way for things to be. If you don't change anything, the reaction stays the same.

bythesword - I understood your position on that. What I didn't agree with was just sitting back and not confronting it. You said it would involve addressing their 'free speech' perogative - I disagree. I believe if someone thinks like that, then that expression is what will result - and they have that right. But the rest of us have a CHOICE in how we react to it. And I EMPHATICALLY SAY NO !!! Just because someone makes it doesn't mean it has to be distributed or marketed. And if it is, and someone actually buys it, the rest of us can very definitely register our discontent with that choice. Not inhibit it, but register our disgust at the choice.

[bythesword84]

Posted: 8/28/04 at 2:54am

It's not just sitting back, it is being dealt with. It's being recalled. Sitting back would be if I saw it and didn't do anything about it, but it's already being taken care of, they can't do much more than take it back.

Posted: 8/28/04 at 2:59am

bythesword - you are right, on an official level it is being addressed. But you seemed to be saying they should have just done it quietly and not 'stirred the pot' of people's emotions. Again, I disagree. In these times of unrest and confrontational attitudes, I think anything that makes people confront how they think and feel is a good thing. We have led ourselves - especially in America - to a place of uncertainty and unrest. Trying to 'keep peace' will do nothing but allow things to simmer - and eventually boil over. Anything that can be the catalyst for public discourse and evaluation has relevancy to me - and many others who are tired of living with this nonsense.

[bythesword84]

Posted: 8/28/04 at 3:02am

I am saying that it shouldn't have stirred people up. I'm saying that because the last thing these people need who were involved in it, is to see this. I don't see why people who were put through hell and more should get it shoved in their faces that these things even exist. Publishing an article about it is like saying "It was bad enough to call back, but not bad enough where we want to spare people from knowing about it." I think it is as damaging to people to know it happened, as it is to get the toy/shirt/whatever in the first place.

[boborunstheshow]

Posted: 8/28/04 at 3:03am

Im telling you guys. Its some nerd looking for some attention. His girlfriend is probably really ugly and picks her nose. And his nose.

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 8/28/04 at 3:14am

d, lead on brother. you don't mind i if i bring this .38 (c'mon, a .38 5-shot detective special, man, it's almost not even a gun) along just in case, do ya?

look, i respect your adherence to evolution, however, i feel that big guns and mass carnage are yet to be a part opf humankind's history. especially right now when we see an ugly strain of religious fundamentalism that seeks to constrain all that some of us find holy. it's been 1200 years, d, it was swords and spears back then, before that it was rocks and sticks. i hope that your ideals take hold and there is no need for weapons eventually, but i just think that time is a long way off. although, and please don't laugh too loudly, i do pray for peace daily.

Updated On: 8/28/04 at 03:14 AM

Posted: 8/28/04 at 3:19am

bythesword - that's an incredibly valid point, and I would be callous in the extreme not to be sensitive to the pain and anguish that survivors would suffer. In response, I'll share a little story from my past. I lived at the Grand Canyon for quite awhile, and was in a management capacity. We had a very unfortunate incident where one of the employees fell and was killed. Not too long after, someone actually arrived there who tried to sell t-shirts with a cartoon depicting someone photographing someone on the edge with the caption ' just take one little step back.' Now, we could have dealt with this quietly, and had the situation just disappear. But, we made the very conscious choice to go public with our interference, precisely because we wanted it to be public knowledge that this type of thing was hurtful and not to be tolerated. An interesting side effect was someone who came to me afterward (who had been a close friend of the person who died) and said 'thank you' for our action. It made them feel like their pain was acknowledged, and that they weren't alone in there anguished response to the insensitivity of someone else.

What it boils down to for me, I guess, is this: We have so little to hold onto as we stumble through the process of existence - everything, it seems, is designed to cause fear. One thing we can give to each other is awareness of each other's individual experience. While I understand the pain you describe that survivors might experience in having that shown to them, I feel it is outweighed by their knowledge that they are not alone in their desire to have this never happen again - and that, even in a VERY small way, can be shown by confronting the ignorance and stupidity inherrant in these creations head on. Updated On: 8/28/04 at 03:19 AM

Posted: 8/28/04 at 3:25am

bobo - as I understand it, these items came from somewhere in the far east - where there is a HUGE Al Quida base. It wouldn't surprise me at all to find out that there was some connection there.

papa - pray away - and I would NEVER laugh at that suggestion. For myself, one of the few things I've heard associated with a 'god' is the notion that 'god helps those who help themselves' - so on I charge, blindly (or blinded) at times, but head held high and heart full of hope none-the-less And by the way, if time is getting more and more constricted concerning our physical 'development' (more has happened in the last century than in the entirety of recorded history that preceded it) why can't our emotional and spiritual development accelerate as well?

[bythesword84]

Posted: 8/28/04 at 3:30am

I am all for showing support for people and for showing them that their pain and suffering is acknowledged and that people are standing up for them. My belief in not putting it to them comes from this:

One of my cousins (I actually have three who were involved in the post 9/11 clean up but this only has to do with one of them) is part of the FDNY and was one of those first groups there who lost almost everyone. Thank God he wasn't one of the one's lost. He then was put on the special task force and so was there for every single thing that happened. As a result, he's got a lot of things going on inside him that have changed him- which anyone can understand. His mother, my aunt, went into full patriotic mode. The ribbons, the God Bless Those Who Were Lost, all that kind of thing. It was her way of showing support. When my mother called his house one time to see if his wife needed help with their kids and just to see how he was doing, she was told by him that sometimes the only way to move on is to not have it continually brought up. To acknowledge that it happened and show support is one thing. To him and his co-workers and friends, everytime it gets brought up they get immediately brought back to it or something pertaining to it. That's not to say they're ignoring that it happened or trying to block it out, they're just trying to move on.

Based on that, and to a lesser degree the experiences I've had with other relatives and friends which where involved more so than I was, is where my belief that now- coming up on three years later if you can believe it- these people are finally putting it behind them and I just hate seeing them be reminded of how awful human beings can be.

That being said, DGrant, all points on all sides are valid.

Posted: 8/28/04 at 3:39am

bythesword - thank you for sharing that - it is a perspective that I can't have being removed from the immediate experience of it like I am - and I'm very sorry that you and your loved ones have had that to deal with in your lives.

I think my own perspective is coming from a selfish sense of frustration concerning the state of the world. I am ready to rant and rail at the ignorance and stupidity that seems to run rampant. And even more enraging to me is the complacency that many people seem to have concerning it all. It is obvious that there are some truly impactful things going on in the world right now - even in our own backyard - and so many seem willing or capable to just go about their business with blinders on, unaffected by it all - or not caring. Maybe I'm jealous. As an empath, it is impossible for me to just ignore the reality we're living with.

Your points are well taken, and have given me things to think about - and in the end, maybe that's the most important thing of all.

Peace.