[puckerman]

This is about the only post where I'll post this on the Net, and I suspect even some people here will complain that they are "offended" by it. But I'm saying it now.

I'm sick and tired of all this "9-11 Never Forget" crap. My response in one discussion group was this: "The buildings fell. The people are dead. Get over it." And that's exactly how I feel--there is nothing we can do about what happened on 11 September 2001. We can't change it or undo it.

In many respects, it shows what kind of society we have become. The day represents a day when Americans can be self-righteous and wallow in self-pity. The tragedy of the WTC is the perfect excuse to do so. It's a day when Americans can be "right" about everything and remind themselves of how "wrong" the rest of the world is.

I said nothing to my friends. But I have been more critical of people I don't know. It came up in several places where it didn't belong, and I asked why it was there.

And these people are wrong about one big thing. No, 9-11 did NOT "change everything." However, the pathetic reaction of the servile and slavish American people DID change everything. That was a choice, and the American people showed exactly what kind of choices they will make when something like this happens again.

I'm 44 now and was 30 when it happened. It's safe to say that America has declined more in the past 14 years than it did in the previous 30.

[Fortis]

You must be a real hit at parties.

[Grodin]

Never forget Pearl Harbor.

[IvanDrago]

Never forget to wash your hands after handling raw meat

[britchard]

I dislike people using it to get likes and attention on social media, particularly those who are Islam apologists.

But we should never forget. It didn't change 'everything', but it did change a lot.

[Captainstabbin]

"It is the doom of men that they forget."

Ever hear an old adage about forgetting the past?

[rpg]

It was a sign of the times. Our government was convinced terrorism would never make it to our shores and it did. It will come again.
9/11 is a call to be ever vigilant.
My gut tells me all the planes that went down over the Atlantic were suicide bombers. Shoe bombers. Swissaire, TWA etc.
We had been getting our ass fucked and just looked the other way.
The world is a fucked up place. Stay frosty.

[GoldHawkStar]

When 9/11 happened, I was in 1st grade - So I was too young to really comprehend what was going on. I even remember being excited to go to school the next day to tell all my friends everything my parents were telling me about it. I wasn't scared or frightened. To me, it was just something that happened on TV, real or not. Something to talk about with my friends on the playground. That's how insignificant it was to me; because at the time I was too young to understand and fully take in the event for what it was. By the time I was old enough to actually understand its impact, it was years afterwards.

If I was older (like you were at the time), I would have been terrified, and it would have been a day I would have never forgot. Watching a second plane hit a building live on TV. Seeing people, real people, people in our country, jump out of burning buildings because they couldn't breathe. Realizing that there were real people in those planes that were just going about their regular lives. Some families. Realize that it could have been you or someone you love. To most Americans, they hadn't yet experienced a nation-impacting event that occurred on American soil. The last "9/11"-esque event was the JFK assassination almost 40 years prior, and even that wasn't a terrorist attack, but rather just a guy with mental issues. This was bigger. Almost comparable to Pearl Harbor. Most Americans live under the illusion that we are safe simply because of the country we live in, but this was a reality check, an unexpected slap in the face.

That's why it was such a big deal, and that's why it's not something Americans can just shrug off and forget about.

[The Beast1]

The irony is, I still think the powers that be used 9/11 to further their own agenda. They knew what was going to happen.

Remember right after it happened how patriotic everyone was? I could've sworn I saw "God Bless the USA" on every fast food, gas station, bill board, whatever for a solid 2 years.

What a solid way to have ended the party the 1990s was. It was peak optimism and then we got that.

One of these days i'm going to get super cut a la Zyzz and go through airport security in a speedo. Bet they'll love that.

Even more of a kicker, I bet there are some posters here who were too young to remember. Shame you guys missed the best decade ever.

[puckerman]

(09-14-2015 11:11 AM)The Beast1 Wrote:  

What a solid way to have ended the party the 1990s was. It was peak optimism and then we got that.

Actually it ended a little earlier, as the economy was tanking. NASDAQ peaked in April of 2000.

[puckerman]

(09-14-2015 11:05 AM)rpg Wrote:  

It was a sign of the times. Our government was convinced terrorism would never make it to our shores and it did. It will come again.
9/11 is a call to be ever vigilant.
My gut tells me all the planes that went down over the Atlantic were suicide bombers. Shoe bombers. Swissaire, TWA etc.
We had been getting our ass fucked and just looked the other way.
The world is a fucked up place. Stay frosty.

How exactly is taking off my shoes at the airport vigilant? How is putting people who have done nothing on no-fly lists vigilant?

And why is flying still much safer than driving a car?

[puckerman]

(09-14-2015 11:11 AM)The Beast1 Wrote:  

The irony is, I still think the powers that be used 9/11 to further their own agenda. They knew what was going to happen.

Remember right after it happened how patriotic everyone was? I could've sworn I saw "God Bless the USA" on every fast food, gas station, bill board, whatever for a solid 2 years.

That's exactly what it accomplished. Nobody benefitted more from it than they did.

[WanderingSoul]

I think you're being overly dramatic to get attention, just like the people you are complaining about.

[The Beast1]

(09-14-2015 11:18 AM)puckerman Wrote:  

And why is flying still much safer than driving a car?

Numbers.

If there were as many planes in the air as there are cars on the ground it would be a disaster even if all of the "pilots" were experienced.

[Quintus Curtius]

Remember this:


1840s: Remember the Alamo!


1890s: Remember the Maine! [Ship that was blown up in Cuba]


1917: Remember the Lusitania!


1942: Remember Peal Harbor!


2001--now: Remember 9/11!

[AFS]

Yes - thank you. I thought I was the only one who felt this way. For people who lost family and loved ones, I can understand why they remember. But for everybody else, exactly WHY are we remembering this event? 30,000 people die in car accidents every year. Totally preventable accidents because most people are too stupid to learn how to drive properly - where is the outrage on that?

Are we remembering the fact the terrorists attacked us? Why is this worth remembering? We were attacked by a terrorist organization we trained ourselves and because of our retarded middle east foreign policy. The CIA and the president all knew the terrorists were here and what they planned (this is not conspiracy theory shit, it was in the NYTimes and other papers), and they let it happen for political purposes.

Literally every day Bush would get a memo that a plane would fly into a building, and they ignored it. Then they obstructed the 9/11 commission until it was a total farce. If people really wanted to remember the "tragedy" of 9/11, why didn't they impeach Bush and throw him in jail? Why did they elect him a second time? Obviously, they don't give a shit about the root causes of 9/11 or whose to blame, they just want to feel good about being angry!

The very same day 3000 Americans died, him and Cheney had a meeting on how they could pin the attack on Iraq. They launched a BS war that left thousands of soldiers and civilians dead. The constitution and bill of rights were completely trashed - and we still have the Patriot Act to this day. Again, why the hell do I want to be reminded of this?

Do we remember it because we "all came together?" Again, Americans coming together gave us the Iraq War and Patriot Act. We just acted like total bloodthirsty, ignorant morons.

The quicker we forget about 9/11, the better.

[PolymathGuru]

9-11 was more bizarre that something to be afraid of. I was in middle school at the time. I remember hearing two announcements over the loud speaker. Everyone was confused because hearing such an announcement was unusual.

Keep in mind, what the difference between a bombing in NYC is and Pearl Harbor. Both are obviously attacks American grounds. One was an attack on against a military base, the other is on a civilian sprawl. NYC is also a significant city in the world. While we as Americans see it as another major city in our country, the rest of the world would be puzzled why NYC isn't the capital of the United States. I remember being asked frequently by foreign students why it wasn't the case.

I didn't really see what the big problem was at the time. I remember Columbine High School Massacre was just a two years before hand. By that time, I had to accept there is violence in the world. It was the question on how we deal with it is what still puzzles me to this day.

[Dr. Howard]

(09-14-2015 12:02 PM)AFS Wrote:  

Yes - thank you. I thought I was the only one who felt this way. For people who lost family and loved ones, I can understand why they remember. But for everybody else, exactly WHY are we remembering this event? 30,000 people die in car accidents every year. Totally preventable accidents because most people are too stupid to learn how to drive properly - where is the outrage on that?

Are we remembering the fact the terrorists attacked us? Why is this worth remembering? We were attacked by a terrorist organization we trained ourselves and because of our retarded middle east foreign policy. The CIA and the president all knew the terrorists were here and what they planned (this is not conspiracy theory shit, it was in the NYTimes and other papers), and they let it happen for political purposes.

Literally every day Bush would get a memo that a plane would fly into a building, and they ignored it. Then they obstructed the 9/11 commission until it was a total farce. If people really wanted to remember the "tragedy" of 9/11, why didn't they impeach Bush and throw him in jail? Why did they elect him a second time? Obviously, they don't give a shit about the root causes of 9/11 or whose to blame, they just want to feel good about being angry!

The very same day 3000 Americans died, him and Cheney had a meeting on how they could pin the attack on Iraq. They launched a BS war that left thousands of soldiers and civilians dead. The constitution and bill of rights were completely trashed - and we still have the Patriot Act to this day. Again, why the hell do I want to be reminded of this?

Do we remember it because we "all came together?" Again, Americans coming together gave us the Iraq War and Patriot Act. We just acted like total bloodthirsty, ignorant morons.

The quicker we forget about 9/11, the better.

This is exactly why I think we SHOULD remember 9/11 I feel like the 9/11 attack was the day that conspiracy came out of the shadows. Before 9/11 I feel like conspiracy theorists were regarded as total whackjobs, but after 9/11 and the obvious contradictions that come up they became much more credible.

9/11 should be remembered as the day that the population in general stopped trusting the government. They were either in on it, or totally incompetent. Thats what you should never forget.

[Deepdiver]

On a thin molten crust of a planet of finite resources hurtling through space around a fusion star with nearly 7 billion humans growing out of control towards 9 billion by 2050 give or take a few global wars or epidemics or a coming ice age - it is only going to get worse. The Countries or cultures with over 1 billion 300 million plus souls each China and India and Global Islam have evolved to become extremely aggressive in order to carve out enough future resources to survive.

The lands with plenty of resources and weak cultures will be subsumed if not outright consumed by the more aggressive invasive species. Mother Nature throughout millions of years of evolution has show how smarter, stronger more aggressive more disease resilient species always evolve and overwhelm the weaker species.

To believe that Western European culture is immune to the laws of Mother Nature and evolution is to accelerate the demise of and eradication of Western European Culture.

[Rutting Elephant]

Any tone other than hushed solemnity, preferably with jingoism, is inappopriate.
thread-39947.html

[WalterBlack]

(09-14-2015 11:35 AM)The Beast1 Wrote:  

(09-14-2015 11:18 AM)puckerman Wrote:  

And why is flying still much safer than driving a car?

Numbers.

If there were as many planes in the air as there are cars on the ground it would be a disaster even if all of the "pilots" were experienced.

That's why I'm against the idea of mass ownership of flying cars. Can you imagine the amount of deaths and destruction caused by one of those falling out of the sky every few days? If a car has an accident on a freeway then a couple of cars get destroyed. If you have flying cars they could be dropping on houses, schools, malls etc.

As for 9/11 I think people don't care about it as much any more. I've been at my current employer for a couple of years now and on every Sep 11 there was a mention about 9/11 on the company homepage. This year - nothing.

Also, there's a lot of younger people in my office and they never discuss current events. They just don't "care" about anything, they have no passion, no beliefs and all they do is talk about frivolous crap. They're also too young to feel any connection to 9/11.

You would be surprised at how ignorant some people are in the US....I know a Californian woman in her 30s who remembers 9/11, but she admitted that she had never heard of the World Trade Centre before 9/11.

[LINUX]

What a shame this thread is.

[Oz.]

Never forget Little Dark.

[RoastBeefCurtains4Me]

I'm tired of the 9-11 hype too. It was the better part of a generation ago. It's a historic event. It was certainly a big deal, but it was a real long time ago by this point. I can see mentioning it, but still having moments of silence at public events and the like? I think it's over the top. I think the 10 year point was when observances should have began simmering down.

[Alsos]

I had my "never forgettery" tempered early on.

In the leadup to the second anniversary, a 20-something self-described "commie" (what we'd now call an SJW) from NYC lectured me over how no, 9/11 didn't happen to America, no, we aren't all New Yorkers now, and no, if you didn't live in NYC or originate there you had no business feeling anything about 9/11. He felt the rest of the country was obliged to pay for the cleanup and recovery and reconstruction of lower Manhattan, of course, no complaint there, but we should all just shut the hell up and not intrude on New Yorkers' sense of martyrdom and self-importance, and certainly stop coming to see Ground Zero and stop offering to volunteer and just generally stop sullying his city with our unwanted flyover-prole presence.

At which point I remembered that prior to 9/11, I despised NYC and everything to do with it. Precisely because of that sense of self-importance and disdainful elitism.

Which is not to say that I don't "remember 9/11" - it's hard not to, it has the same significance to my generation (GenX) as Pearl Harbor did to my grandparents'. Just that I'm not inclined to be emotionally manipulated by others who try to annually reopen those wounds or exploit the attacks for whatever personal or political ends. (Oh, and Truthers...good Lord, what is wrong with those people? Having doubts or unanswered questions is one thing, diving headfirst into the epistemological sewer is another.)