Your Boarding Pass To United 93 Is Ready, Whether You Want It Or Not.

There is much comment and indeed, a lot of handwringing due to the premier of the 9-11 movie United 93. As everyone knows, Flight 93 was intended to crash somewhere in Washington D.C. From what we know, the passengers, who were aware of the other attacks that day thanks to cell phones, chose to try to retake the plane and it ultimately crashed in Pennsylvania.

Of course, the Blogiverse is where one finds the most thoughtful comments.

Gagdad Bob at One Cosmos discusses the concept of "envy" causing us to be where we are and points us to some of the more unhinged reactions to the film.

ShrinkWrapped discusses the movie's portrayal of evil and man's reaction to it.

John B. at Blog Meridian provides his usual thoughtful take on the role of art and film in helping us look at and deal with national trauma.

I have not seen the movie. I am ambivalent when I think about seeing it. There is something to the currently circulated meme that it's "too soon" to be subjecting the American public to a dramatic portrayal of the events of that day.

It is difficult to put my feelings about this into words. I remember once, my dad tried to explain to me what the country was like on December 8, 1941. He described the rage people felt, the desire to do something. Indeed, he said that on the afternoon of December 8, the Missouri School Of Mines faculty convened a grand assembly for the express purpose of dissuading the student body from enlisting en masse in the military. The faculty was worried there wouldn't be a university left.

Listening to those stories, I always felt a disconnect from the reality my father had experienced. For me, it was historical anecdote. It was far in the past, and with exception of the fact that Dad didn't drown in the Bering Sea during the war, it did not affect me personally in the slightest.

In my life, September 11, 2001 is my December 7, 1941, as cliche as that observation has become.

What happened then and what has followed and what may follow tomorrow cause thoughts I'd rather not have.

It's spring. Yesterday was the official middle son's tenth birthday. We were at church to hear him sing in the morning and play handbells in the evening. In between, the family gathered at a restaurant for lunch. Baseball was discussed. Albert Pujols' exploits were celebrated. Frankly, I'd rather spend my time doing these things and thinking about my next trip into the outdoors.

Instead, United 93 reminds me that there are people in this world who want to kill me and my family simply because of where we were born and because of what we believe. During the cartoon flap a few weeks back, I mentioned our core American values: Life, Liberty, Pursuing Happiness, Governing Ourselves To Protect those rights. Pretty simple stuff really. And that's what these people hate.

I know there are those who believe that if we just stopped meddling in the Middle East and told the Israelis to bugger off, everything would be swell. It's our fault or it's Bush's fault or it's somebody elses fault and if we could just sit down and talk things through, we'd figure out why people are pissed off at us and we'd make it better, JUST TELL US WHAT TO DO, DAMN IT.

I doubt it. The evidence doesn't support that conclusion.

Recall the protests in Denmark demanding that free speech be censored. Remember the brutal murder of the Dutch film maker who had the audacity to make a movie critical of Islamic treatment of women. Know that in Sweden there is an epidemic of rapes and robberies of native Swedes by Muslim immigrant youths who are being taught that their behavior is acceptable because it is being perpetrated against infidels. I mean, the Swedes, for heaven's sake. They haven't annoyed anyone since Gustav the whatever went at it with Russia in the 17th Century.

I think we could give in to their every demand and they would still hate us. They would hate us because our existence and lives and freedoms demonstrate conclusively how bereft their own societies and philosophies are, what failures they are. Our existence shows them that their "prophet" was nothing more than a two-bit carnival fraud. Acknowledging that is too painful a prospect. So they focus their hate on us. We're the obvious target.

On a macro level, that's why United 93 is uncomfortable.

It's also uncomfortable to me on a micro level. ShrinkWrapped points to a scene in the movie where passengers are preparing to retake the plane. Obviously, we don't know precisely what happened beyond the "Let's Roll" last words of one of them. But I speculate that the actual number of participants in retaking the plane was a very small percentage of the total number on the flight.

This means each of those passengers was faced with a choice. To be active regardless of the cost or to be passive and pray or hope for the best. United 93 puts the necessity of making such choices at front of my conciousness.

Back to World War II for a moment. We've all read books or seen movies about the Holocaust. Schindler's List comes to mind. Of all the players in that twelve year nightmare, the ardent Nazis are the easiest to understand. They are evil. And there is no negotiation with evil. Reason doesn't sway it. Rather it laughs at reason and mercy and whether from ideology or self-interest or desire for sadistic pleasure, evil pulls back the slide on the pistol, puts it to the head of a grandmother or father or child and, with a smile, pulls the trigger.

More difficult to understand are the others, the Jews and the ordinary non Jewish peoples of the world who watched it happen. With the exception of individual escapes from the camps, the revolt at Sobibor, and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the victims of 20th Century fascism went to their deaths with nary a whimper.

As for the rest of the world, with the exception of the Danes and the Finns, there was either open collaboration or passive indifference to the plight of their fellow men on a massive scale.

As with my father's tales of Pearl Harbor, I can read the stories of the Holocaust with a detachment. I'm not German. I'm not a Jew. That couldn't happen to me. Surely, it would never happen again. And, by the way, I'm sure I would have never collaborated and indeed, I would have spoken up or hid unfortunates or whatever. Yes, between 1933 and 1945, I would have been a hero.

Easy to say in 2006, sitting in my family room, typing on my computer in the middle of the most free, most prosperous place the world has ever known.

Flight 93 makes those personal choices more real. I could have been on that flight. What would I have done? Maybe I would have fought for my life and the lives of those around me whom I didn't know; maybe I would have cowered in my seat and let others try to save me. I like to think I'd be a hero. But given human history the numerical odds are against that.

Yes, I think it's too soon for a movie like Flight 93. It's too soon and too real for me to be smug about my own actions were I to be confronted by such a horror.

And maybe that's why I need to see it.

R. Sherman