# Never Forget 9/11 **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 11, 2013, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-forget-9-11/668580 "2013-09-11T16:51:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-forget-9-11/668580/41 "2013-09-11T21:25:58Z")
In Europe, do they observe 9/11 two months later than in the US? ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-forget-9-11/668580/42 "2013-09-11T21:49:36Z")
SO, this is the Pit and there is language we may use and language we may not use in here. So I’ll proceed with great caution. Feels pretty good, huh? Being a smug snarky ironically detached subhuman? Crowing over other people’s terrors because they’re not yours and really what the hell, enough is just fucking enough right? Because the news cycle demands that we collectively move along and forget about it and stop revisiting something that happened that was terrible for millions of Americans. Because, you know, it’s a lot more fun to sit in the smug snarky armchair and take pot shots at others who will always mourn. Those of you rolling your eyes as this post and other posts in here defending not only Americans’ but everyone’s right to stop and mourn and remember, well you sleep well tonight in your smug snarky irony. Those of us possessed of both a brain and a heart will, if it’s all the same, continue to make proper use of both as we see fit. Since I stood at the mouth of Hell itself as it burned and consumed almost 3,000 lives that day, I chose to mourn. See? A thoughtful post that never told anyone to go fuck themselves. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-forget-9-11/668580/43 "2013-09-11T22:19:58Z")
> [@Cartooniverse](#): > > SO, this is the Pit and there is language we may use and language we may not use in here. So I’ll proceed with great caution. > > Feels pretty good, huh? Being a smug snarky ironically detached subhuman? Crowing over other people’s terrors because they’re not yours and really what the hell, enough is just fucking enough right? Because the news cycle demands that we collectively move along and forget about it and stop revisiting something that happened that was terrible for millions of Americans. > > Because, you know, it’s a lot more fun to sit in the smug snarky armchair and take pot shots at others who will always mourn. > > Those of you rolling your eyes as this post and other posts in here defending not only Americans’ but everyone’s right to stop and mourn and remember, well you sleep well tonight in your smug snarky irony. > > Those of us possessed of both a brain and a heart will, if it’s all the same, continue to make proper use of both as we see fit. Since I stood at the mouth of Hell itself as it burned and consumed almost 3,000 lives that day, I chose to mourn. > > See? A thoughtful post that never told anyone to go fuck themselves. Thank you. I spent a week on Staten Island unable to leave and utterly terrified. They wouldn’t let us to leave because they thought the suspects were hiding out there. My husband saw the second plane hit from the Staten Island ferry. He would wake up screaming in terror several times a week for months afterwards. We didn’t deserve that. Neither did the twenty million people in the metro New York-New Jersey area who also suffered. Or the brave firefighters and police officers who rushed into the towers and lost their lives. FYI, I voted against Bush twice. I hate him. I oppose the invasion of Iraq. I get the criticism here. But this is very recent history for many of us. Allowing us to remember and mourn does not mean anything at all for many of us other than sharing the memory of a terrible, awful, dreadful, horrifying experience. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-forget-9-11/668580/44 "2013-09-11T23:08:10Z")
> [@LavenderBlue](#): > > Allowing us to remember and mourn does not mean anything at all for many of us other than sharing the memory of a terrible, awful, dreadful, horrifying experience. And you know what? That’s totally cool. Grief, PTSD, whatever else you go through as a witness to something horrible is quite personal and **you** need to get through it at **your** own pace. There is irreverence in this thread, and a degree of mockery. Most of that, however, is not directed at those who are deeply affected by witnessing the events. I read the mockery as being largely directed at our own government and it’s manipulation of a horrific event for political expedience and farther reaching injustices that have done more damage to us as a nation, and ruined far more lives abroad. So to **LavenderBlue** and **Cartooniverse** : if you were to utter the phrase, “Never Forget,” what would you mean by that? Does it mean “Never let the wounds close”, “never forget who did this” “never forget how our politicians used our grief as a gag to silence us while they raped our rights and opened up two mutually devastating wars”? What would YOU mean by saying that? What would you have me never forget? ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-forget-9-11/668580/45 "2013-09-11T23:45:25Z")
> [@Lute Skywatcher](#): > > AQ did have a not insignificant presence in Northern Iraq. No idea if anyone in Duhbya’s administration knew they were there. They did? Before the 2003 Iraq war started? I knew they were there after the fact, and I heard a lot of “We’re in Iraq so Al Qaeda will attack our soldiers over there instead of attacking us here” talk at that point, but I didn’t know they were there before the war started…? ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-forget-9-11/668580/46 "2013-09-11T23:51:38Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Why would you want to remember an urban legend? > > [Snopes is your friend.](http://www.snopes.com/rumors/flights.asp) Michael Moore, not so much. Well, I think the cite from Snopes is debunking something that neither I nor Moore claimed: From the Snopes link: Claim: Secret flights whisked bin Laden family members and Saudi nations out of the us immediately after Sept 11\*\* while the ban on air travel was still in effect \*\*and before the FBI had any opportunity to question any of the passengers Status: False I did not claim this. Neither did Moore. I believe that Moore NEVER CLAIMED that the Saudi nationals were sent home _while the airlines were grounded._ [Let me check](http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/fahrenheit-911-facts/what-fahrenheit-911-says-about-the-saudi-flights-out-of-the-country-after-september-11): > [@](#): > > " **After the airspace reopened** , six chartered flights with 142 people, mostly Saudi Arabian nationals, departed from the United States between September 14 and 24. Unfortunately, some news organizations have misinterpreted what the film says. Some have said Fahrenheit 9/11 alleges that these flights out of the country took place when commercial airplanes were still grounded. The film does not say this. The film states clearly that these flights left after September 13 So to recap: You have put a false statement in my mouth and in Moore’s film and then debunked the false statement. Congratulations. Oh, and also from the same link: > [@](#): > > Most Saudis who left were not interviewed at all by the FBI. In fact, of the 142 Saudis on these flights, only 30 were interviewed. **National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Threats and Responses in 2001, Staff Statement No. 10, The Saudi Flights, p. 12** ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-forget-9-11/668580/47 "2013-09-12T00:03:07Z")
> [@LavenderBlue](#): > > Allowing us to remember and mourn does not mean anything at all for many of us other than sharing the memory of a terrible, awful, dreadful, horrifying experience. I have no problem with people remembering, mourning, etc. What I hate is the way that some people want to force everyone to do so. It was terrible, awful, dreadful, and horrifying, even from thousands of miles away (as I was). BUT: I don’t want to remember it every year with some sort of solemn ceremony or something, any more than I want to remember any other massacre on its anniversary. And I certainly don’t need people looking down their noses at me or calling me unpatriotic or any other epithet because I don’t have the same level of grief or a need to express it once a year. I also don’t mourn my family members who have passed away on the anniversary of their deaths, not even the ones who died tragically. I don’t forget them, but I have no need to pointedly remember their deaths. ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-forget-9-11/668580/48 "2013-09-12T00:15:16Z")
I don’t think anyone is intending to mock those who suffered or put their lives on the line to save people. We’re deriding the politicians who want to use that suffering and sacrifice to advance their own agendas, and possibly random douchebags who like sing about it. ---
**Author:** ![Werekoala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/7993a0/32.png) [@Werekoala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Werekoala)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-forget-9-11/668580/49 "2013-09-12T00:38:03Z")
Well, it’s still a free country so far - you don’t have to participate if you don’t want. As so many are so fond of pointing out regarding other things that people find offensive - change the channel. Turn off the radio. Watch Netflix. Take a walk. Sleep. There are tons of options to avoid being offended or upset by 9/11 memorial services and stories. In other words, deal with it and move on, and let others deal with it and move on in their own way. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-forget-9-11/668580/50 "2013-09-12T00:44:53Z")
Same with this thread. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-forget-9-11/668580/51 "2013-09-12T02:25:59Z")
> [@For You](#): > > In Europe, do they observe 9/11 two months later than in the US? “Remember, remember, the ninth of November . . .” ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-forget-9-11/668580/52 "2013-09-12T02:37:05Z")
I was going to avoid chiming in on this today, despite the dozens of requests I got to “never forget” (though what I’m supposed to remember, and to what purpose were never made clear), made ever more heartfelt with pictures of the buildings that were destroyed, American flags, and crying eagles. But, I just read a post of a friend of mine (and many responses in agreement) who is upset that her sons’ middle school didn’t have a moment of silence today. Really? We are 12 years out, most of the kids in that middle school weren’t even born yet, and we need a school-wide moment of silence for a tragedy that happened 300 miles away? I get that some people were maybe changed forever by that day. I’ll even concede that some of those people might not have even been anywhere near the event (though I think it takes a special kind of selective empathy to still be bleeding about 9/11 this far out, unless you were there or lost a close friend or family member). But what good does it do to hold a national pep-rally about it? What is the purpose of getting our children, who at this point weren’t alive or were too young to remember, to participate in this both self-pitying and self-aggrandizing act of remembrance? ---
**Author:** ![black\_rabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f19dbf/32.png) [@black\_rabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/black_rabbit)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-forget-9-11/668580/53 "2013-09-12T02:48:50Z")
Twelve years ago today, I thought the Strokes were overrated before anybody else did. ---
**Author:** ![Werekoala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/7993a0/32.png) [@Werekoala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Werekoala)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-forget-9-11/668580/54 "2013-09-12T03:33:32Z")
Don’t get me wrong - I hate many of the things that have happened to our country, and indeed the world, in the years since 9/11. I’ll never forget how every hackle I had was raised when I heard of the proposal for a Department of Homeland Security - never had I thought my country would be called the “Homeland” any more than the Fatherland, or Motherland. I do think that to an extent, the annual reopening of the wound is used and abused by some for their own gain, but I won’t hold tuck with anyone who has a problem with individual people (especially those directly affected) remembering the day. I was maudlin all day about it, more so towards the evening - not just because of 12 years ago, but thinking about how so many things have changed since then. So remembering it helps to understand how we got to where we are - if you forget how we got here… well then, you might not have such a problem with it. As such, maybe it’s a good idea to help those too young to remember understand that we weren’t always this way, and that things used to be better, instead of letting them be indoctrinated into a System that feeds itself by counting on younger generations to not raise a fuss because “that’s how it’s always been”. No, puddin’ - it wasn’t always this way… ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-forget-9-11/668580/55 "2013-09-12T03:54:27Z")
In the '70s and '80s, a common attitude towards the Holocaust was “Forgive but don’t forget.” On the grounds that if we forgot, it might happen again. Except, it did happen again. In Cambodia. And Rwanda. And Bosnia. Yeah, different cultures being targeted by different regimes. But they were still genocides. And in the last twelve years, there have been other terrorist attacks. Remembering didn’t stop those either. OTOH, **Werekoala** ’s post has merit. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-forget-9-11/668580/56 "2013-09-12T03:55:51Z")
Oh by the way, It’ll be Christmas slightly more than 3 months from now. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-forget-9-11/668580/57 "2013-09-12T12:06:48Z")
> [@Rilchiam](#): > > In the '70s and '80s, a common attitude towards the Holocaust was “Forgive but don’t forget.” On the grounds that if we forgot, it might happen again. Except, it did happen again. In Cambodia. And Rwanda. And Bosnia. Yeah, different cultures being targeted by different regimes. But they were still genocides. And in the last twelve years, there have been other terrorist attacks. Remembering didn’t stop those either. > > OTOH, **Werekoala** ’s post has merit. But many others were in fact stopped. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-forget-9-11/668580/58 "2013-09-12T12:39:21Z")
I don’t object to anybody’s commemoration of 9/11, public or private. If they were personally affected & not just posturing for political gain. Down here in Texas, I did take a silent moment to remember. But I also can’t forget [how many died in the Iraq War](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War)–the Bush regime’s shameful exploitation of the deaths of 9/11. (No, I wouldn’t bring that up at a memorial service.) Every day is the anniversary of sad, tragic & even horrific events that other people must remember in silence. ---
**Author:** ![Cinnamon\_Imp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@Cinnamon\_Imp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cinnamon_Imp)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-forget-9-11/668580/59 "2013-09-12T13:46:55Z")
> [@Southern\_Yankee](#): > > I’m gonna blame that on board problems… 😃 And I’m going to believe you 😉 > [@YogieBear](#): > > The number of fake pseudo-Scots who claim glory from the Scottish Wars of Independence, but whose forebearers were either not there or fought on the side of the English always amazes me. > > Just sayin’ like. What the fuck, dude? I was born in Scotland, raised in Scotland, live & work in Scotland and I’m posting from Scotland. And no, I’m not talking about [Connecticut](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotland,_Connecticut). Admittedly, I’ve no idea which side my ancestors fought for. Most likely they were peasant farmers toiling in the mud with no idea what was going on over half a days walk away from their village. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-forget-9-11/668580/60 "2013-09-12T13:59:45Z")
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