Tenure

[AFK]

At this point it is seemingly impossible to avoid the massive build up to the anniversary of that thing that happened.  That thing that has apparently been permanently burned into the lexicon of American History.  Whether we like it or not, it is going to be rubbing elbows with Paul Revere, the "shot heard around the world", the assassination of JFK, landing on the moon, etc., etc.,

Americans seem to enjoy wallowing in this rather perverse celebration of massive death at the hands of a rag-tag group of malcontents.  A group that specifically intended the outcome that our country chooses to perpetuate.  

They wanted this event to be permanently etched into the American psyche.  And it happened.  
They wanted September 11th, 2001 to be forever associated with terror and death.  And it happened.
They wanted us to go into knee-jerk mode to help fuel their recruitment drives.  And it happened.
They wanted to die for a cause that would allow them to live in infamy.  And it happened.

You will not be able to avoid what has already begun.  You could bury your TV, avoid all of the print publications, turn off your radio....but you'll still have your neighbors.

And your co-workers, and your family, and your mailman, and your meter-reader.  They will suck you into conversation.  They'll ask you where you were.  They'll ask you if you knew anyone.  They'll ask you if you are going to watch that movie about that I-beam that is wandering around from town to town on a flatbed truck making appearances at your local State Fair.  Right next to the stand where they sell deep-fried Milky Way bars.  

It's already begun.  The stories about the kids who were born days after 9/11 where their Dad was killed.  The stories about the old lady who lost her husband.  The stories about some farmer who saw the hole that that plane in Pennsylvania made.  The stories about the stories.  

To be clear, we should not begrudge the families who lost friends and loved ones their time to reflect.  For most it is likely to still be a very raw and tender set of feelings as that day arrives.  But that's just it, this day should be left to them.  To allow them to remember those they lost.  But that is not what has happened.  This country uses that pain as a way to justify wallowing in jingoist, saber-rattling reflection.  To get lost in this weird violent nationalistic and xenophobic pornography.

We want to never forget, we want to remember, but not because we want to remember the tragedy of those who perished.  No, we want to remember to justify the hot, seething hatred many in this country have for those people.  Because this country wants to continue to insist those 19 assholes were speaking for everyone else who kinda looks like them or has a similar accent.  

And anyone who will take 5 seconds to think about it knows its beyond fucked up.  They know that every god-damned thing we do to enshrine this event is exactly what those fuckers wanted us to do.  The smart thing to do, the thing to do that would actually emanate from a true sense of pride would be to brush it the fuck off and just move on.  To stop dwelling.  To no longer allow it to dictate our politics and our policies.  To stand up and decree that this country isn't some pathetic daisy that will just wilt and buckle.  But those of us who realize this are going to be deemed "insensitive".  We have a "lack of empathy".  

Well, fuck no, I have empathy.  That's why I want us to fucking just stop.  JUST FUCKING STOP IT NOW!!!  Let's pull up our god damned big-boy pants and focus on the stuff that is breaking and falling apart NOW!  

[Disco Pickle]

Well said, punster.

[Luna]

Oh, yes.

[Adios]

I couldn't agree more.

I'll save most of my empathy for the 6,000 deaths that happened because of the over-reaction and wars.

[Eater of Clowns]

I feel like there's so much I have to say on this, but that none of it can add anything to the OP.

[LMNO]

[AFK]

I just hate how this day has turned into a kind of perverse Fourth of July.  It's the kind of day the people who wander around wearing U.S. Flag t-shirts look forward to remembering.  And now they even have a fucking flag for the day.  Seriously.  Go to your local Lowe's and you can buy your very own Official 9-11 Flag.  

[Adios]

I just hate how this day has turned into a kind of perverse Fourth of July.  It's the kind of day the people who wander around wearing U.S. Flag t-shirts look forward to remembering.  And now they even have a fucking flag for the day.  Seriously.  Go to your local Lowe's and you can buy your very own Official 9-11 Flag.  

Are they made in China?

[Disco Pickle]

I have to wonder whether it was like this the first 10 years after Pearl Harbor. 

[AFK]

I have to wonder whether it was like this the first 10 years after Pearl Harbor. 

Probably.  But at least they didn't have fucking Twitter and Facebook and Fox News. 

[Don Coyote]

I fucking hate this day.

[AFK]

I just hate how this day has turned into a kind of perverse Fourth of July.  It's the kind of day the people who wander around wearing U.S. Flag t-shirts look forward to remembering.  And now they even have a fucking flag for the day.  Seriously.  Go to your local Lowe's and you can buy your very own Official 9-11 Flag.  

Are they made in China?

I dunno.  I didn't get close enough to look.  It was making my eye twitch so I had to keep my distance.  

[Cain]

9/11, like the Holocaut, has been built up into a monument of Absolute Evil.

This process invariably steals the true tragedy and horror of the situation from its real victims. 

It also obscures how common place this evil really is.  I just started reading Nir Rosen's Aftermath today, and, as always, he lays it out in stark and uncompromising terms:

I am often asked now if it was all worth it.  Would it have been better to leave Saddam in power?  Are Iraqis better or worse off than they were before the American war.  I never know what to say.  How do you compare different kinds of terror.  Those who spared Saddam's prisons and executioners may be better off, though they have not been spared the American prisons or attacks, or the resistance's bombs, or the death squads of the civil war.  The Kurds are certainly better off, on their way to independence, benefiting from their relative stability and improved economy.  But the rest of Iraq?  Under Saddam the violence came from one source: the regime.  Now it has democratically distributed: death can come from anywhere, at all times, no matter who you are.  You can be killed for crossing the street, for going to the market, for driving your car, for having the wrong name, for being in your house, for being a Sunni, for being a Shiite, for being a woman.  The American military can kill you an operation, you can be arrested by militias and disappear in Iraq's new secret prisons, now run by Shiite; or you can be kidnapped by the resistance, or criminal gangs.

[...]

Imagine bombs raining down on your city, the ground shaking, the walls reverberating.  Imagine your city losing its power, its water, its security, its communications and its government.  Law and order disappear, weapons abound, machine guns rattle and bullets fly.  Mountains of garbage grow higher on the street as goats, donkeys and children sift through them, dispersing the waste everywhere.  Rivers of sewage cut through neighbourhoods and roads, and people wade through them.  The food supply dwindles, dead dogs litter the streets, their legs frozen in midair with rigor mortis, and a modern city becomes a jungle.  Hundreds of thousands of foreign occupiers are ensconced in the bedrooms and barracks of the former dictator, their leviathan tanks dominating traffic, but the newcomers do not replace the system they destroyed.  Armed gangs roam freely and dogmatic religious organizations attempt to fill the power vacuum, though they too have no experience in governance and espouse an intolerant and regressive political ideology.

Will March 19th 2003 live on in the same way 9/11 does?  I doubt it.  March 19th still belongs to its victims, at least, though I doubt that is comforting for those who still live through its consequences.

9/11 almost has no connection to what actually happened that day.  It's now something else.  A word to explain why you can't wear shoes on a plane anymore, and why perverts from the NSA are monitoring what porn you download.  A word to show how the government is really behind every evil act in the world, and why you must listen to X Radio Personality.  A reason why the Muslims must be shown who is boss, and treated like chattle.  The reason why cages in Cuba must stay there, and be filled.  A reason to strap people down and slice their scrotums open with a scalpel and subject them to simulated drownings.  A way to make a killing on advert sales, or weapon sales, or intelligence contract sales or...

And on and on and on.  And it wont ever stop. 

[LMNO]

Well, fuck.  Now I need a drink.

[Adios]

This thread exemplifies The Horrible Truth™.