(no subject)
This time-ish yesterday, five years ago, some bad stuff went down. A lot of people died in America, and yet...how was it any different from any other day? 3,000 people died in the attacks, but what does that really amount to in the grand scheme of things? How many people die of cancer every day? In car accidents? From the flu? Stalin was right ("A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.").
People ask as though America's innocence was lost that day, that no one EVER thought this sort of thing could happen here. Never mind that it already had in 1993. Never mind various other attempts to pull off similar attacks (most notably Samuel Byck, who hoped to assassinate Nixon). All that was really served by the terrorist attacks was to incite terror, to disrupt the day to day affairs of America, to accomplish everything they'd set out to do. The terrorists won, and they got away with it, too.
The United States does tend to think of itself as invincible. We never expected an attack during World War II (until Pearl Harbor was bombed), we fully expected a quick and easy victory in Vietnam (it would prove neither quick nor easy nor a victory in any sense), we thought ourselves invincible after the fall of the U.S.S.R. (9/11 simply served to shatter this myth once again). Invariably, there will be a slow return to normalcy, and one day, despite our promise to "never forget", 9/11 will fade to a distant memory, like the Kennedy assassination (which is perhaps when America truly lost it's innocence. Or maybe when Nixon resigned?).
9/11 as an idea has been hijacked. What is a terrific tragedy (any loss of innocent life is) has become a symbol, utilized by people from politians to oil companies to country singers for their own personal profit and gain. We entered one war with help, to free a country from a brutal dictatorship, then we basically dropped the ball after getting distracted by a nearby, far more shiny object that, while run by a brutal despot, had nothing to really do with anything (mostly we wanted to beat them up because they had something we wanted, and our dad had too). There was, during the discourse leading up to the invasion, promises that "oil revenues would pay for the war" after we invaded. Obviously, this is why gas prices have become so high (for the oil revenues to pay for the war, the oil companies would have to raise prices.), and the oil companies posting record profits are simply a case of finally managing to outsource their labor and give their executives massive bonuses (this all helps them drill for oil better). And I'm not getting started on the plethora of heavy-handed 9/11 songs that simply served to make their singer even more famous.
There are of course people who state that the attacks were a series of elaborate hoaxes (I'm curious where exactly the government stashed 3,000+ people), all part of an effort to turn us into an Orwellian fascist state (an idea that's been hijacked by another side entirely of the political spectrum). These wild "theories" detract from those who died, and those that will, due to the events of 9/11. It's when I hear about these, about whatever the idea is supposed to be, that I actually feel strongest about what occured. It's as though their trivializing the deaths, something that I very do myself, though is it any worse than profiting off it? It's not as though it's only one party or the other that profits politically (although, arguably, one side uses 9/11 to better effect), it's both.
I hope then when I die, it's at least for a cause I believe in, and that those who follow remember who I was and why I died, and don't twist it to their own purposes. I suspect that is, of course, simply an ideal, not really to be...
People ask as though America's innocence was lost that day, that no one EVER thought this sort of thing could happen here. Never mind that it already had in 1993. Never mind various other attempts to pull off similar attacks (most notably Samuel Byck, who hoped to assassinate Nixon). All that was really served by the terrorist attacks was to incite terror, to disrupt the day to day affairs of America, to accomplish everything they'd set out to do. The terrorists won, and they got away with it, too.
The United States does tend to think of itself as invincible. We never expected an attack during World War II (until Pearl Harbor was bombed), we fully expected a quick and easy victory in Vietnam (it would prove neither quick nor easy nor a victory in any sense), we thought ourselves invincible after the fall of the U.S.S.R. (9/11 simply served to shatter this myth once again). Invariably, there will be a slow return to normalcy, and one day, despite our promise to "never forget", 9/11 will fade to a distant memory, like the Kennedy assassination (which is perhaps when America truly lost it's innocence. Or maybe when Nixon resigned?).
9/11 as an idea has been hijacked. What is a terrific tragedy (any loss of innocent life is) has become a symbol, utilized by people from politians to oil companies to country singers for their own personal profit and gain. We entered one war with help, to free a country from a brutal dictatorship, then we basically dropped the ball after getting distracted by a nearby, far more shiny object that, while run by a brutal despot, had nothing to really do with anything (mostly we wanted to beat them up because they had something we wanted, and our dad had too). There was, during the discourse leading up to the invasion, promises that "oil revenues would pay for the war" after we invaded. Obviously, this is why gas prices have become so high (for the oil revenues to pay for the war, the oil companies would have to raise prices.), and the oil companies posting record profits are simply a case of finally managing to outsource their labor and give their executives massive bonuses (this all helps them drill for oil better). And I'm not getting started on the plethora of heavy-handed 9/11 songs that simply served to make their singer even more famous.
There are of course people who state that the attacks were a series of elaborate hoaxes (I'm curious where exactly the government stashed 3,000+ people), all part of an effort to turn us into an Orwellian fascist state (an idea that's been hijacked by another side entirely of the political spectrum). These wild "theories" detract from those who died, and those that will, due to the events of 9/11. It's when I hear about these, about whatever the idea is supposed to be, that I actually feel strongest about what occured. It's as though their trivializing the deaths, something that I very do myself, though is it any worse than profiting off it? It's not as though it's only one party or the other that profits politically (although, arguably, one side uses 9/11 to better effect), it's both.
I hope then when I die, it's at least for a cause I believe in, and that those who follow remember who I was and why I died, and don't twist it to their own purposes. I suspect that is, of course, simply an ideal, not really to be...