Something I have been thinking about for a looong time.

Veeolin:

So it's hard to say. I guess the best we can do is adopt a "live with no regrets" policy.

I agree, we're never gonna change it, so lets just hope nothing like this ever happens and enjoy the fact we have MCR to catch us! =D

Cyn Cyanide:

What would ove happened if 9/11 didnt happen?
Many of us probably would have lost our lives.

Your problems can't be that bad if some music can save you...

blargh:

Your problems can't be that bad if some music can save you...

actually, i can attest to the contrary - that music can save ur life, so to speak. Smthing Gerry said - just a line or two - actually made me take a 2nd look at my self destructive nature. now whenever i beat myself up too hard, i remember those words and i stop. it's hard, it's just too easy to fall back into a destructive but familiar habit, but i'm that much more conscious of it now.

So yeah, bit by bit, MyChem has changed my way of thinking & living for the better. I'm still reckless & stubborn, but I don't do things just to punish myself anymore.

Sometimes it's the small things that make a big difference. Such is the unpredictable nature of life as humans make it.

Vacant3by4:

You know, i've been thinking this for awhile.
I see it as something amazing came out of something bad.

I agree.
I don't really know what to say.

I think if 9/11 didn't happen, Gerard would of eventually realized that art wasn't what he really wanted to do. It might of been a couple weeks, months, or years later when he realized it, but I think he would of formed MCR somewhere down the road.

Collision Kiss:

blargh:

Your problems can't be that bad if some music can save you...

actually, i can attest to the contrary - that music can save ur life, so to speak. Smthing Gerry said - just a line or two - actually made me take a 2nd look at my self destructive nature. now whenever i beat myself up too hard, i remember those words and i stop. it's hard, it's just too easy to fall back into a destructive but familiar habit, but i'm that much more conscious of it now.

So yeah, bit by bit, MyChem has changed my way of thinking & living for the better. I'm still reckless & stubborn, but I don't do things just to punish myself anymore.

Sometimes it's the small things that make a big difference. Such is the unpredictable nature of life as humans make it.

But if such a little thing can save you, the problems you have in life aren't that bad.
Oh and to stay on topic:
9/11 was bad, sure, but what's happening in Iraq is worse. Hell, the situation in most african countries are far worse. 9/11 just get so much media coverage because it's people from the USA dying.

blargh:

But if such a little thing can save you, the problems you have in life aren't that bad.

The only judge of that is the person who is experiencing the problems. Sometimes a small thing can make a huge difference in a person's life. It just depends on how their mind reacts to what they take in and how their chain of thoughts goes.

And I agree about 9/11 vs other countries' situations. Sometimes I feel that our media blows everything far out of proportion, selfishly, just to get ratings and stir everyone up. In fact, I know that's the case. And I feel that by other countries' media reacting to it, they are just fueling the fire. But I never really agree with how the media handles human aid situations or anything in that category. D:

Cyn Cyanide:

So pretty much all of you know that the band started after Gerard witnessed 9/11.
That's when My Chemical Romance started.
But with 9/11 , came the war, and many lives were lost.
But with MCR, many lives were saved.

What would ove happened if 9/11 didnt happen?
Many of us probably would have lost our lives.
Do you think it's a good thing that 9/11 happened or not?
And what if Gerard wasn't on the ferry at the time that it happened?

damn...Thats a good question.
But i think its just fate

Yeah I asked my friend this once and she just gave me a blank stare.
I obviously don't think that 9/11 was a good thing at all. And to be honest I would much rather of spared those lives instead of MCR being created. But as people have said it's just how it happend. I know many people would have lost their lives without MCR but I doubt the number would be any where near the vast amount that lost their lives as a result of 9/11.
MCR would not have existed without 9/11 as that was obvioulsy what provoked Gerard into forming it.
This is actually horrible to say but MCR is just one of the good things that managed to be formed out of something so horific.

ya know I don' even want think about this...

9/11 only gaave Gerard the inspiraration for skylines and the war was already taking placebefore then it just got larger ...if Gerard hadnt witnessed ithed probably be thinking up a different song for something else...a meer coiscidence that he was there but MCR were destined to be and they would be around deffinatly !!! xxxx

Well I think probably Gerard would still be an alcoholic.Probably the band would start but they wouldn't be as famous or they wouldn't have as nice songs or they wouldn't have the song skylines and maybe they would have never discovered Bob.But sooner or later they would have formed.

Honestly, it's a good thing 9/11 happened.

Everything happens for a reason and I personally believe that 9/11 happened partially because so many kids were suicidal, including myself, and they needed someone to lift them off the ground and we couldn't tell anyone about it because we were too ashamed and didn't want to be a burden on anyone.

Yeah,., I wrote in my diary a couple months ago "Note to self-is it wierd that without 9/11 I'd be dead?"

It's wierd that I'm alive cause so many are dead. I guess that's a good thing coming out of such a tragedy. It's good Gerard made SOMETHING out of the horrible deaths in 9/11.

Guys -- we didn't just lose lives on 9/11. America lost its innocence. Its people lost their privacy. We've lost the ability to just trust that people are inherently good. We lost so much more than lives that day. Can many of you really remember the world before 9/11? This was 7 years ago, many of you were still children. You have little to no recollection of how life was before. Yes, it got a lot more media coverage than a lot of terrible things that are happening in other countries. But a big part of that is that America had been so different than everyone else, then got a big punch in the face when 9/11 happened. Before 9/11, America was completely different. A few ideas, but nowhere near everything:

You could get on a plane with minimal hassle. None of this 2 hours at security, putting liquids into a quart baggie, taking your shoes off at the x-ray machine. Every person made to feel dirty, every person suspect. There is no more trust. There never will be again.

You could walk into Walt Disney World without security searching your bag. Not even there are you able to forget it, because it's right there at every front gate. The "Happiest Place On Earth" is tainted by one of the most horrific events in recent history.

The Middle East was fighting amongst themselves, but there was no need to get several countries' governments involved in a full-scale war based on one person's notion of WMDs.

There were no such things as WMDs, and if there were, we didn't live in constant fear of them. The war in Iraq had ended, and what troops we had there were there in (mostly) a peacekeeping capacity. They weren't there to kill.

There was no Patriot Act. You could talk on the phone without worrying that the FBI was tapped into your call.

There always has been and always will be suffering. It's part of the human condition. For generations before and generations to come, we will be born, we will grow, we will go to school and be miserable, we will move on, and we will, most importantly, live. 9/11 won't change that. It will be a defining moment in history for many of us. It will be a day that many of us remember as the day of our greatest loss. People were suicidal before 9/11, and they will be after. The only people who can help a person who is truly suicidal is themselves, and the people who love them. You can draw strength from others, you can take inspiration from the muse of your choice, but the decision to save yourself has to come FROM YOU. Yes, there have been times when I have drawn strength from MCR's music. There have been times when playing one of their songs helped me to keep going when I wanted to give up and quit. I have a lyric from one of MCR's songs tattooed on my ankle, a line that was the catalyst for me to change my life. Note my words: the *catalyst* for me to change my life. Yes, MCR provided that catalyst, they play the music I can draw strength from, but *I* had to be the one to decide to change, *I* was the one who had to pick up the pieces and keep going. They couldn't do it for me. They can start the ball rolling, but is up to *you* and you alone to change, to save yourself, to become a better person for it.

I have friends who lost their loved ones. Children who are growing up now without fathers and mothers. Spouses, sons, daughters, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, friends, gone. Lives put on hold for agonizing weeks wondering if their family members were okay, then slowly falling apart as they realized that they weren't coming home, that now they had to rebuild their lives because that person that they loved is no longer there. Finances gone, homes lost, what they had built as a family gone because that person is no longer there to provide, to shelter, to love. Some of the families never even got the comfort of a burial, because nothing of their loved one was able to be recovered. Hundreds, thousands of witnesses whose minds will relive that day over and over again, seeing the bodies fall, smelling the burning, feeling helpless. Do you really think that you can just forget something so horrible? It's burned into your psyche and will affect you forever. Watching a person die is terrible. I've seen it. I know. There is a face that haunts me, I remember it clearly, how he looked, the sounds he made as I performed CPR on him and prayed for him to live, the helplessness I felt as I watched him die in my arms. I will see that face in my mind for the rest of my life. I can hardly imagine seeing the bodies as they fell, possibly seeing their faces, multiply what I have times hundreds. It makes me ill to even think it.

Think, really THINK, about the words in Skylines and Turnstiles. Do you really think that Gerard wants to think about that daily? Do you think he wants to relive that day, over and over again? Do you not hear the sadness, the anger, the hurt in that song? Now multiply that by every single person who witnessed the Towers fall. You say MCR changed your life. Think about the lives that were changed watching the Towers fall.

How many thousands of soldiers have we lost in this war? It's surpassed the death toll of the Towers, certainly. Even more families torn apart, more broken hearts, more anger, more children growing up without parents, more parents putting their children in the ground before their time.

To pit one band against that? Are you kidding me? Don't get me wrong, I adore MCR as much as anyone here. But look at the big picture. Look at lives other than your own. Look at the world. Think about it. What would you truly rather have? A band? Or to have those people, those soldiers back. To be able to live in a world without constant fear and anxiety.

To be able to live freely again.

There is no contest.

Thank you Tabitha - just thank you!

On the morning of 9/11, I could not reach my best friend who lived in Cranberry, but worked in NYC. I knew she took the train and got off at the WTC. Her phone rang busy for hours. Her father called me from Toronto, frantic, because they couldn't reach her. She finally called later that evening, and I felt guilty because I was so relieved she was alive, while so many others died.

I can remember driving down Telegraph Road and seeing Firemen asking for donations for the fallen. When I handed the man the funds, I broke into tears.

I can remember being afraid, and my parents saying it reminded them of WWII -- just a constant fear. We never shut off the television. There were no planes. The country had stopped.

At Thanksgiving, I drove up to Jersey to see my friend. We went to the City. There were flyers everywhere, and little stands to fill out applications for the fire and police departments. We went to Ground Zero and to this day, it makes absolutely no sense. The smoking hole made no sense.

No more sense than any other action founded in violence. The same is true of killing innocent people whether it be in NYC or Iraq. There is no justification whether it be based on religion or other.

But the truth is that America lost so much more that morning. We lost all sense of safety, our government became a dictatorship, dissent was silenced. Our fears were used to justify a movement to conquer other nations. Our fears were used to justify a war for oil.

We solve no problems by allowing fear to control us.

psychochip:

Think, really THINK, about the words in Skylines and Turnstiles. Do you really think that Gerard wants to think about that daily? Do you think he wants to relive that day, over and over again? Do you not hear the sadness, the anger, the hurt in that song? Now multiply that by every single person who witnessed the Towers fall. You say MCR changed your life. Think about the lives that were changed watching the Towers fall.

There is no contest.

That entire post was...golden....

I agree, it makes the song almost iconic, as if it was predicting the future.
And I always found it interesting that, right out there, he says he's sorry. I wonder what he was apologizing for specifically and whether he felt the USA had done anything beforehand that needed an apology. If anything, it shows he's a different person than those who say that 9/11 was a result of people who were "just jealous of our freedoms."

Maybe he has experience being the kid always "spit on and shoved to agree" like how a lot of Middle Easterners feel and knew they had to be taking revenge for something.

EDIT: Also consider that he has to relive that moment over...and over...and over again for all those who are constantly asking him about it, especially the interviewers from foreign countries who think it makes them more American. And some people wonder why he doesn't act like our little trained puppy in all of them.

ignore

wickedjulesesq:

But the truth is that America lost so much more that morning. We lost all sense of safety, our government became a dictatorship, dissent was silenced. Our fears were used to justify a movement to conquer other nations. Our fears were used to justify a war for oil.

We solve no problems by allowing fear to control us.

Exactly! To continue on a little: Remember what happened with The Dixie Chicks? How their fanbase and the nation turned on them because they had the audacity to speak out *against* our president? Our right to free speech, gone. We can speak freely -- as long as we don't speak out against the government. In early 2002, there was a billboard in downtown Orlando that was basically propaganda: "The Women of Orlando Support President Bush." Next to that some brave soul had spray-painted "Because we're too scared to say otherwise." In a "free" country no one should be too scared to say what they want to say, they should not be forced to stand as a group out of fear, when their hearts are telling them otherwise.

Since 9/11 people have been afraid to say anything for fear that they would be seen as unpatriotic, as terrorists themselves. The political climate is changing now that we are so close to electing a new president. After 8 years of keeping silent, we can now lift our voices to make change. President Bush recently made headlines: his approval rating is officially the lowest of any president in our history.

Again I say, to compare the forming of a band against so much loss, so much death, so much betrayal -- I stand firm in my belief.