Why is it “news” that five years have passed since 9/11? Why do we have to spend all day rehashing all the same shit that no one has really ever stopped talking about anyway? Why is 5 more significant than 4 or 6? This whole thing seems so contrived to me. It’s just an arbitrary excuse to wallow in sentiment. It reminds me of the teenaged girls who would go see Titanic over and over again and bring a box of Kleenex with them to mop up the tears. It’s recreational grieving.
I blame the media for a lot of it. The media creates artificial significance out of an event that actually has none (the anniversary, that is, not 9/11) and milks it for all it’s worth so they can sell more tampons and Happy Meals. And we fall for it. We’re made to feel like we have some kind of moral duty to watch this shit and participate in it or else we’re bad Americans who are likely to “forget” that 9/11 ever happened. Obviously, no one is going to forget but can we at least change the subject please? It’s been five years, isn’t it time to move on?
I don’t agree with you. I read what you’ve written and my reaction is that “move on” is pretty much functionally synonymous with “forget it happened.”
Thousands of Americans were murdered. I believe it’s appropriate to remember the anniversary of that for the same reasons we remember marriage anniversaries, birthdays, and the like: we pick a day to do this, and the logical day to pick is that same day it happened. There’s no logical reason to celebrate July 4th, and even if we are going to do it, there’s no reaosn it HAS to be on July 4th. But we do, and I think it’s a good idea.
As is this. If you don’t like it, merely remain quiet and wait. It will be over soon, and you can go back to “moving on,” whatever that means in your world.
I completely agree. I turned on the TV while I was getting breakfast this morning and said to myself, “Oh crap, I’ve got to watch the building fall another 1,000 times.”
Why do we have a 50th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor or a 200th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independance or a 5th wedding anniversary or next August will be the 30th anniversary of the death of Elvis and it WILL be in the news. Newsworthy events are always marked by anniversaries. I personally think that 9-11 was more newsworthy than the death of Elvis, but that’s just me.
We don’t. I don’t give a shit about any of that stuff. I think anniversaries are stupid unless they have some kind of personal significance like a birthday or wedding anniversary and in those cases, I don’t expect anyone else to give shit but me. Anniversaries are not newsworthy because nothing new has happened.
We have moved on. We will continue to move on. That doesn’t mean that significant (albeit arbitrary) anniversaries like the 5th, 10th, 25th, 50th, whatever, should not be commemorated. There are still people that commemorate the attack on Pearl Harbor, and that was 65 years ago. This is my generation’s Pearl Harbor.
Since you want the subject changed, what should we change it to? Given the alternatives I have no objection to what you perceive to be maudlin sentimentality but most people see as genuine emotion. You want more stories of kidnapped and raped children? How about how depressing things are in the Middle East? Oh, I know, let’s talk about abortion, gun control, and a myriad of other things that we’ll never agree on.
Or, just perhaps, you can let people be people for a change instead of berating them for their human weaknesses.
Not for the first time, I reflect at how happy I am that your personal preferences are not shared by a majority of people in this country, and that your personal views of how things should be viewed, said, and done are sui generis Diogenes, rather than the norm.
Dio, while i share some of your sentiments, i don’t think it’s the sort of either/or situation that you seem to imply.
Remembering anniversaries is something that humans, for whatever reason, seem predisposed to do. It’s only natural that we remember the anniversaries of big, life-changing events like those of September 11, 2001. To be honest, i don’t think i could forget it even if i wanted to.
It is, however, possible and (i think) desirable to remember those occasions without all the self-serving maudlin sentimentalism that gets injected into such occasions by the media, politicians, and other publicity seekers and self promoters. It is also possible, while remembering such events, to retain one’s critical faculties and not be lulled into a myopic and one-dimensional view of the history surrounding those events.
Unfortunately, that’s what often happens, leaving us with occasions like the 50th anniversary of Hiroshima/Nagasaki when there were many Americans who were unwilling to look critically and honestly at the history, and instead wanted it portrayed as nothing but an event to be celebrated. I suspect September 11 will turn out the same way—if, indeed, it hasn’t already hapened.
I’m somewhere in the middle. Watching the buildings fall over and over is a bit macabre, but remembering the event in the same manner as Pearl Harbor or D-Day seems perfectly appropriate. Some perspective is in order, though. 2,973 people were killed 9/11/01. If such an attack happened every sincle day since then, it still wouldn’t match the Holocaust. Not to diminish what happened 5 years ago, but when compared to the Holocaust or the siege of Leningrad or the Civil War, it isn’t quite the world-changing all-important event that we often think.
Football? Pussy? Iraq? Whatever is actually NEWS. There must be a missing blonde somewhere. Anything is better than this crap they’re going wall to wall with today. I’ve seen this movie. Watching the news today is like reading the old magazines in a hospita; waiting room.
You could say that about any complaint ever posted in the snarkpit. This is really a media complaint for me. I turned on the news this morning and realized that I was going to have to put up with this shit all day without reprieve.
I agree with all this but there seems to be something kind of condescending and presumptuous – even authoritarian about the way the media and elected officials feel the need to tell us WHEN we have to think about 9/11, much less HOW. I choose to reflect on those events organically, in my own time, on my own terms. I don’t appreciate waking up in the morning to a bunch of smarmy newsreaders and douchbag politicians shaking me and screaming “Remember 9/11! Think about it now! Wasn’t it sad? Why aren’t you crying? You just want to forget it ever happened, don’t you? Why do you hate America?”
I’ll think about it when and how I feel like it. I don’t need the reminders or the finger pointing.
I saw it happen, live on TV. I watched the news for days afterwards. I felt very sad for all the people who died, and all the people who had to deal with the mess, and I was a little bit worried about what might happen next. It was definitely a stressful experience, even for me, way up here in Montreal with no direct connections to anyone involved. But you know what? I can remember that on my own. Trust me, the image of those towers coming down is in my head already, and will never ever leave. You don’t need to spend three weeks before the anniversary showing me clips of the disaster and repeatedly reminding me that the anniversary is coming up. I know.
Remembering that it was five years ago is fine. It’s actually a good thing, because I don’t think anyone should ever forget that it happened. But starting the media frenzy about it at the beginning of August, showing the images over and over again in a buildup to the anniversary, as though it were a movie premiere - it just seems a little bit wrong to me.
Yes, commemorate the day, remember the dead, rebuild, and erect monuments. But making the 5th year anniversary into a huge month-long media event is cheap and wrong.
I know what you mean. I didn’t appreciate being woken from my nap by the air raid horn at the fire station two blocks from my house being blasted for a full minute at 9:59am.
Seriously, no one has forgotten September 11. Wall to wall rehash television coverage of the events serves no purpose other than securing ratings.
Its only news because some empty-shirted politicos can whore some votes out of it. Don’t kid yourself that its one iota more. I was stuck in a waiting room this morning before a doctor’s visit and I was force-fed ABC’s live coverage of this whoredom; I didn’t even have the option of turning it off or changing the channel. Al I can say is that “A Clockwork Orange” got it wrong: I feel plenty of rage.
Memorable Quotes:
Reporter Drone: “So, mayor Bloomberg, there have been rumors that there may not be such a large event scheduled for next year. Any comments?”
Ole Lizard Face Bloomberg: “Well, we’ll just have to see what happens and how this all plays out…”
In other words, he’ll have to see how much the polls shift 50-60 days before Election Day to see whether his party will need anymore free publicity. Good old ‘cut and run’ Bush, who hid during 9-11 and cut the defense budget for NYC significantly this year, was there for a sound-bite yesterday…but today, to mark the 9-11 Aniversary, ABC treated its viewers to a listing of his breakfast menu…what he was eating at firehouse 14. Yeah, that’s must-see news alright.
I Hate all the scumbag politicians trying to make votes out of this; there aren’t enough guts between all of them combined to resect a bowel. Yet, they are as American as Apple Pie and we have to take the good with the bad to live here. Still, we shouldn’t have to put up with the shit-sandwiches that they offer out as ‘pâté’…
It is curious that it is you that have brought it to the forefront of this domain and have dwelt on it for the large part of the morning. “I’m sick of seeing and talking about this everywhere I turn sooo…”.
I think time dilutes our memories of events and the pain associated with them. Some are better forgotten in personal life and some need to remain fresh to a Short-Attention-Span, 15 second sound-bite antion that was brutally attacked.
If a moment of silence by the Nation is honorable for the survivors and families of 9/11 and rememberance of the losses and heroism of that day will help us remember then I don’t feel that this is asking too much.
Trying to make it into a DoC moment is hardly worth of the effort.
Suck it up. Your important stuff like pussy and football will be back shortly.
