"We overcome. We own the finish line.” —VP Joe Biden
September 11, 2022 3:36 PM Subscribe
President Joe Biden commemorated the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks at a remembrance event Sunday at the Pentagon,
"Rudy Giuliani: 9/11 Was “In Some Ways” the “Greatest Day of My Life”
"'Former MLB pitcher Anthony Varvaro dies in car crash on way to 9/11 memorial'
'The mystery of Dr. Sneha Anne Philip - the woman who disappeared night before 9/11.'
"Rudy Giuliani: 9/11 Was “In Some Ways” the “Greatest Day of My Life”
"'Former MLB pitcher Anthony Varvaro dies in car crash on way to 9/11 memorial'
'The mystery of Dr. Sneha Anne Philip - the woman who disappeared night before 9/11.'
"We do not scare easily, we never bow, we never bend, we never break when confronted with crisis. No, we endure, we overcome and we always, always, always move forward," he said of the United States' strength. "That's why I can say, with absolute conviction, I am more optimistic about our chances today then when I was elected as a 29-year-old kid to the Senate."
"We are America, second to none, and we own the finish line," he said. "Don't forget it."
posted by chavenet at 3:59 PM on September 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
"We are America, second to none, and we own the finish line," he said. "Don't forget it."
posted by chavenet at 3:59 PM on September 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
Museum employee tracks down missing photograph of 9/11 victim.
posted by gudrun at 4:09 PM on September 11, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by gudrun at 4:09 PM on September 11, 2022 [4 favorites]
Ari Fleischer has decided not to do his annual tweeted timeline of the attacks. Coincidentally he has just taken a job with the Saudi LIV Golf organisation.
https://twitter.com/samthielman/status/1569086331493707776?s=20&t=AO5PxKYa6YKfLELFbDnf1Q
posted by awfurby at 4:58 PM on September 11, 2022 [27 favorites]
https://twitter.com/samthielman/status/1569086331493707776?s=20&t=AO5PxKYa6YKfLELFbDnf1Q
posted by awfurby at 4:58 PM on September 11, 2022 [27 favorites]
Coincidentally
(Thx for the link)
posted by armoir from antproof case at 5:15 PM on September 11, 2022
(Thx for the link)
posted by armoir from antproof case at 5:15 PM on September 11, 2022
Mod note: Fixed link!
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 5:21 PM on September 11, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 5:21 PM on September 11, 2022 [3 favorites]
Here is a livejournal entry I posted on the fifth anniversary, in which I write about that day and the days that followed.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 5:33 PM on September 11, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 5:33 PM on September 11, 2022 [3 favorites]
i know it's a little morbid, but every few years when it's linked I re-read the 9/11 thread to relive the experience and remember how chaotic everything was at the time. It's so weird going through it with everything we know now that happened in the days/months/years afterwards. That thread should seriously be preserved as an insightful primary document about how people reacted in real time online before all the contemporary social media sites existed.
posted by andruwjones26 at 5:53 PM on September 11, 2022 [21 favorites]
posted by andruwjones26 at 5:53 PM on September 11, 2022 [21 favorites]
I simply do not understand the annual performance of patriotism on 9/11. It was obviously a tragedy, particularly to those who died or lost loved ones. But warmongers and profiteers didn't even wait for the bodies to be picked out of the wreckage before they started using "REMEMBER 9/11" as a thought-terminating cliche to justify wars of aggression, and to sell "THESE COLORS DON'T RUN" beer koozies, tacky T-shirts, and jingoistic TV fantasies.
If you aren't old enough to have experienced it firsthand, then you can't imagine how all-encompassing it was. It was almost like mass hysteria – people were into Remembering 9/11™ the way that people are fanatically into Star Wars or Marvel movies. It was the most popular entertainment franchise in the country – complete with heroes, villains, a revenge plot, and shameless, relentless merchandising. For years.
By waving the flag and cheerleading for The Troops™, random schlubs could identify with the troops – just as people come to identify with their favorite sports team. And by identifying with those Real American Heroes, they could imagine that they, too were kind of heroic. After all, they were on the same team!
And they fucking loved that. They ate it up. You could sell anything by slapping "SUPPORT OUR TROOPS" or "NEVER FORGET" on the box. Socks, motor oil, frozen chicken nuggets – you name it.
It's no wonder that the Bush administration saw an opportunity to get away with an unprovoked war – a lot of Americans wanted Muslims as a group to pay for 9/11, and they didn't particularly care which country those Muslims were from.
And for years, the right flogged "9/11!!" as a bludgeon to accuse their opponents (people who opposed the Iraq war, people who opposed Islamophobia, etc.) of being unpatriotic, or even traitorous.
(Hence the old joke: what's the difference between a cow and 9/11? Eventually, you have to stop milking the cow.)
That never really ended. It just petered out into an annual event.
So, yeah. Maybe I'm cynical – but after living through those surreal years, I reflexively roll my eyes whenever I hear "Remember 9/11". If you, personally, lost loved ones on that day – then, of course, you have every right to mourn. But as for the collective
posted by escape from the potato planet at 6:00 PM on September 11, 2022 [110 favorites]
If you aren't old enough to have experienced it firsthand, then you can't imagine how all-encompassing it was. It was almost like mass hysteria – people were into Remembering 9/11™ the way that people are fanatically into Star Wars or Marvel movies. It was the most popular entertainment franchise in the country – complete with heroes, villains, a revenge plot, and shameless, relentless merchandising. For years.
By waving the flag and cheerleading for The Troops™, random schlubs could identify with the troops – just as people come to identify with their favorite sports team. And by identifying with those Real American Heroes, they could imagine that they, too were kind of heroic. After all, they were on the same team!
And they fucking loved that. They ate it up. You could sell anything by slapping "SUPPORT OUR TROOPS" or "NEVER FORGET" on the box. Socks, motor oil, frozen chicken nuggets – you name it.
It's no wonder that the Bush administration saw an opportunity to get away with an unprovoked war – a lot of Americans wanted Muslims as a group to pay for 9/11, and they didn't particularly care which country those Muslims were from.
And for years, the right flogged "9/11!!" as a bludgeon to accuse their opponents (people who opposed the Iraq war, people who opposed Islamophobia, etc.) of being unpatriotic, or even traitorous.
(Hence the old joke: what's the difference between a cow and 9/11? Eventually, you have to stop milking the cow.)
That never really ended. It just petered out into an annual event.
So, yeah. Maybe I'm cynical – but after living through those surreal years, I reflexively roll my eyes whenever I hear "Remember 9/11". If you, personally, lost loved ones on that day – then, of course, you have every right to mourn. But as for the collective
badass_bald_eagle_with_single_tear.gif ritual every year – yeah, I mean, I can't help but remember 9/11, because people won't freakin' let me forget it.posted by escape from the potato planet at 6:00 PM on September 11, 2022 [110 favorites]
Only 491 comments on that 9/11 megathread. Can you imagine the megathreads if 9/11 happened today?
posted by escape from the potato planet at 6:01 PM on September 11, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by escape from the potato planet at 6:01 PM on September 11, 2022 [7 favorites]
But warmongers and profiteers didn't even wait for the bodies to be picked out of the wreckage before they started using "REMEMBER 9/11" as a thought-terminating cliche to justify wars of aggression, and to sell "THESE COLORS DON'T RUN" beer koozies, tacky T-shirts, and jingoistic TV fantasies.
Yup, that's America.
posted by sundrop at 6:07 PM on September 11, 2022 [4 favorites]
Yup, that's America.
posted by sundrop at 6:07 PM on September 11, 2022 [4 favorites]
"Knock knock"
"Who's there?"
"9/11"
"9/11 who?"
"9/11 you liar. You said you'd never forget"
posted by othrechaz at 6:10 PM on September 11, 2022 [19 favorites]
"Who's there?"
"9/11"
"9/11 who?"
"9/11 you liar. You said you'd never forget"
posted by othrechaz at 6:10 PM on September 11, 2022 [19 favorites]
othrechaz, 9/11 jokes are just plane wrong.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 6:13 PM on September 11, 2022 [15 favorites]
posted by escape from the potato planet at 6:13 PM on September 11, 2022 [15 favorites]
that is one of my most vivid memories of 9/11 - many of the phone lines were down, no cell service, and people were still lining up to use payphones because nobody knew what was going on. so, i let myself into a client's office in SoHo (they had leased line internet and phone) and was frantically refreshing mefi trying to get news. even news sites like cnn were crushed, so mefi was about the only way i learned what was going on.
posted by rye bread at 6:18 PM on September 11, 2022 [12 favorites]
posted by rye bread at 6:18 PM on September 11, 2022 [12 favorites]
i also do not understand the performative patriot day. at my workplace, 10 years after and 1500 miles away, i was greeted by the most traumatic imagery of the day in a hallway posterboard mural. it made me squeamish to remember all of the ash falling on my neighborhood, the silence of the city (except for the sirens), and all the other uncaptured moments i don't need to hang on to.
posted by rye bread at 6:24 PM on September 11, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by rye bread at 6:24 PM on September 11, 2022 [4 favorites]
Wow, that day-of Metafilter thread is .... well, it's something. My first time seeing it. Wow. It's amazing how in just four hours, they ran the whole gamut of discourse that would dominate the next ten+ years. Plus a sidebar about Palestine and freakn Yasser Arafat.
I've been seeing more 9/11 jokes, here and there, from the younger generation, and I fully welcome them. I think that's a very encouraging sign.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 6:48 PM on September 11, 2022 [6 favorites]
I've been seeing more 9/11 jokes, here and there, from the younger generation, and I fully welcome them. I think that's a very encouraging sign.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 6:48 PM on September 11, 2022 [6 favorites]
Looking back on it now, it's striking to me how long it took me to find out about it that morning. I had gotten up for my 8am class, walked all the way to campus and happened to see a simple printed note on the door of the Memorial Union that said "Coverage of today's events in the Great Hall." I wasn't aware of any planned event, so I walked into the Great Hall and saw CNN footage of the plane impacts and flaming towers projected on a movie screen. I didn't even have a conversation about it until I decided to skip class, and found my roommate at home with the TV on.
Had this happened today, I would have known about it within minutes of waking up, and would probably have been engaged in conversation about it almost immediately.
posted by TrialByMedia at 7:39 PM on September 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
Had this happened today, I would have known about it within minutes of waking up, and would probably have been engaged in conversation about it almost immediately.
posted by TrialByMedia at 7:39 PM on September 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
A lot of how I remember 9/11 centers around the then-dominant factors in my life:
- I had just separated from my wife and moved into my own apartment
- Things weren't going great at work, either
- Due in part to the above factors, my drinking was starting to ramp up
- I'd also joined the Warren Ellis Forum a few days before
So, yeah... heck of a timing there, al-Qaeda. Only heard about it in the elevator on the way to work; my boss, who had problems of her own, insisted that we treat it "like a normal day", as if. I kept refreshing the NYT page, which miraculously stayed up. The WEF also had a decent thread, with updates from members in NYC and elsewhere. (At least, that's how I remember it. In theory, the WEF archives are still available--last time I checked, anyway--but you have to be a paying subscriber to the Delphi forums to access them.) I don't remember if I'd even heard of MeFi at that point. I also don't remember what I did after work; probably involved getting drunk. (I was already becoming that sort of drinker.)
So, that's the context that I'm reading the bit about Dr. Philip, linked above, in. The Wikipedia article on her has more meaningful context; in particular, it details the police report, which doesn't seem to think it odd that someone who was having problems with alcohol abuse would not only leap on the chance to disappear amid the chaos in Lower Manhattan on that day, and apparently successfully do so, but also that they would be canny enough to leave behind their glasses, ID, and credit cards, to make it seem more plausible, I guess. There are people who faked stories of surviving 9/11, sure, but no one AFAIK who provably used it to fake their death, and there are over a thousand still-unidentified human remains recovered at the site.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:59 PM on September 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
- I had just separated from my wife and moved into my own apartment
- Things weren't going great at work, either
- Due in part to the above factors, my drinking was starting to ramp up
- I'd also joined the Warren Ellis Forum a few days before
So, yeah... heck of a timing there, al-Qaeda. Only heard about it in the elevator on the way to work; my boss, who had problems of her own, insisted that we treat it "like a normal day", as if. I kept refreshing the NYT page, which miraculously stayed up. The WEF also had a decent thread, with updates from members in NYC and elsewhere. (At least, that's how I remember it. In theory, the WEF archives are still available--last time I checked, anyway--but you have to be a paying subscriber to the Delphi forums to access them.) I don't remember if I'd even heard of MeFi at that point. I also don't remember what I did after work; probably involved getting drunk. (I was already becoming that sort of drinker.)
So, that's the context that I'm reading the bit about Dr. Philip, linked above, in. The Wikipedia article on her has more meaningful context; in particular, it details the police report, which doesn't seem to think it odd that someone who was having problems with alcohol abuse would not only leap on the chance to disappear amid the chaos in Lower Manhattan on that day, and apparently successfully do so, but also that they would be canny enough to leave behind their glasses, ID, and credit cards, to make it seem more plausible, I guess. There are people who faked stories of surviving 9/11, sure, but no one AFAIK who provably used it to fake their death, and there are over a thousand still-unidentified human remains recovered at the site.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:59 PM on September 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
I happened to be at work and had someone walk by and tell me in a sort of gossip-y way that a plane had crashed into the WTC. I remember thinking of the B-25 that had crashed into the Empire State Building in WWII, assumed it was a small plane of some kine, and kind of rolled my eyes at the kind of ghoulish excitement someone was showing over an event that had likely killed several people.
When I heard someone talking about a second plane, I realized all my assumptions were wrong.
I spent most of the rest of the day at home, occasionally glancing at the news, but really trying to block it out even though I had this weird feeling like our culture demanded that I performatively stay glued to the TV set.
Me being me, I could partially manage to abstract the events of that morning away as a brief but terrible event and was already worried for the future.
posted by Ickster at 9:01 PM on September 11, 2022 [5 favorites]
When I heard someone talking about a second plane, I realized all my assumptions were wrong.
I spent most of the rest of the day at home, occasionally glancing at the news, but really trying to block it out even though I had this weird feeling like our culture demanded that I performatively stay glued to the TV set.
Me being me, I could partially manage to abstract the events of that morning away as a brief but terrible event and was already worried for the future.
posted by Ickster at 9:01 PM on September 11, 2022 [5 favorites]
You monster, it's the 49th anniversary of the Pinochet coup.
posted by CrystalDave at 9:26 PM on September 11, 2022 [7 favorites]
/sposted by CrystalDave at 9:26 PM on September 11, 2022 [7 favorites]
I was thinking today that there are two 9/11's. There's the actual event, and then there's everything after. When people talk about 9/11 these days, it seems like they're always talking about the "everything after." That makes sense, because the after was a lot, and it was very bad, worse than it needed to be. So there's this sense of eye-rolling about 'never forget' and the jingoism and I agree with all that. But that makes it hard to mourn the actual event. I was in Soho that day and didn't lose anyone. I'm not remotely one of the people most affected by the actual event. But, man, it was fucking traumatic. It's hard to have those feelings every year and also have all the well-earned disgust about everything that came after. It's like there's not space for the actual event anymore.
posted by Mavri at 10:00 PM on September 11, 2022 [29 favorites]
posted by Mavri at 10:00 PM on September 11, 2022 [29 favorites]
Wow you folks are striking me as really callous.
Knock knock jokes about terrorists killing 3,000 people who were just showing up for work? Planes full of people plunging into the Twin Towers in NYC and covering the town for weeks in ash so gritty that we couldn't open our windows. Uncaptured moments we don't need to hold onto? Thinking it's encouraging that younger people are making jokes about this?
Do you make jokes and want to forget Pearl Harbor as well?
How far back in history would you like to wipe unpleasant memories because they are boring or distasteful?
I marched against the war in Iraq and stood against the anti-Muslim sentiment.
But this horrible attack did happen, and I lived through it and I personally don't think it's something to be dismissed, laughed about or forgotten. Perhaps some of you were personally spared the horror of trying to reach a spouse who worked downtown, friends and family members, and learning that 13 members of the fire squad 2 blocks away had perished. But it was very real to me. I am sorry to be almost incoherent, but many comments astonished me. Also it took me fracking forever to tap this out with one index finger -- not sure why I bothered. Not sure I belong here anymore.
posted by alwayson_slightlyoff at 10:09 PM on September 11, 2022 [16 favorites]
Knock knock jokes about terrorists killing 3,000 people who were just showing up for work? Planes full of people plunging into the Twin Towers in NYC and covering the town for weeks in ash so gritty that we couldn't open our windows. Uncaptured moments we don't need to hold onto? Thinking it's encouraging that younger people are making jokes about this?
Do you make jokes and want to forget Pearl Harbor as well?
How far back in history would you like to wipe unpleasant memories because they are boring or distasteful?
I marched against the war in Iraq and stood against the anti-Muslim sentiment.
But this horrible attack did happen, and I lived through it and I personally don't think it's something to be dismissed, laughed about or forgotten. Perhaps some of you were personally spared the horror of trying to reach a spouse who worked downtown, friends and family members, and learning that 13 members of the fire squad 2 blocks away had perished. But it was very real to me. I am sorry to be almost incoherent, but many comments astonished me. Also it took me fracking forever to tap this out with one index finger -- not sure why I bothered. Not sure I belong here anymore.
posted by alwayson_slightlyoff at 10:09 PM on September 11, 2022 [16 favorites]
Do you make jokes and want to forget Pearl Harbor as well?
The longer time goes on--and it's now been 21 years--the numb-er people get to that long time ago pain. Most people who weren't around at the time don't even think of Pearl Harbor much, I certainly don't.
it doesn't seem like 21 years to me--I was in a much better career then so I was more involved--but time crawls along.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:17 PM on September 11, 2022
The longer time goes on--and it's now been 21 years--the numb-er people get to that long time ago pain. Most people who weren't around at the time don't even think of Pearl Harbor much, I certainly don't.
it doesn't seem like 21 years to me--I was in a much better career then so I was more involved--but time crawls along.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:17 PM on September 11, 2022
Well I'll just say I wasn't alive for Pearl Harbor -- but my Dad was, and at 17 he went off to become a paratrooper. Never spoke about what he endured, but was badly wounded. That's why I remember -- maybe these things have to be personal, or people don't care.
Santayana said: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
Which is why we've seen our world leaders fist bumping those who should be our enemies. Don't blame the pandemic for that.
I am off to watch GBBS and calm down.
posted by alwayson_slightlyoff at 10:52 PM on September 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
Santayana said: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
Which is why we've seen our world leaders fist bumping those who should be our enemies. Don't blame the pandemic for that.
I am off to watch GBBS and calm down.
posted by alwayson_slightlyoff at 10:52 PM on September 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
This article about visiting the 9/11 museum, by a man whose sister died, really says so much about all this.
I think now of every war memorial I ever yawned through on a class trip, how someone else's past horror was my vacant diversion and maybe I learned something but I didn't feel anything. Everyone should have a museum dedicated to the worst day of their life and be forced to attend it with a bunch of tourists from Denmark. And you should have to see for yourself how little your pain matters to a family of five who need to get some food before the kids melt down. Or maybe worse, watch it be co-opted by people who want, for whatever reason, to feel that connection so acutely.
posted by Mavri at 10:56 PM on September 11, 2022 [39 favorites]
I think now of every war memorial I ever yawned through on a class trip, how someone else's past horror was my vacant diversion and maybe I learned something but I didn't feel anything. Everyone should have a museum dedicated to the worst day of their life and be forced to attend it with a bunch of tourists from Denmark. And you should have to see for yourself how little your pain matters to a family of five who need to get some food before the kids melt down. Or maybe worse, watch it be co-opted by people who want, for whatever reason, to feel that connection so acutely.
posted by Mavri at 10:56 PM on September 11, 2022 [39 favorites]
There's an episode of Seinfeld where George screws up and promises everyone who goes to Yankee Stadium a fitted baseball cap. Since this would be a disaster, he has Jerry call in a bomb threat from his landline phone so the game would be cancelled. Applause, roll credits.
Contrast that with the post 9/11 tv hit 24, which celebrated the use of torture to the point of cruelty porn. It wasn't enough to stop the fantasy terrorists, they had to suffer overtly. Torture became patriotic, those that opposed it were a bunch of pansies.
Support for invading the wrong country, secret prisons, domestic surveillance, bombing civilians, stripping civil rights - this is when patriotism started to rot. Look at the people who call themselves 'patriots' now.
I see a lot of new-wave patriotism though. Anti-fascism, black rights, women's rights, lgbtq rights, indigenous rights, pro-science, pro-environment, pro-enlightenment, pro-humanity, pro-American movements. There are more real patriots than the fakes, Never Forget that.
posted by adept256 at 12:18 AM on September 12, 2022 [17 favorites]
Contrast that with the post 9/11 tv hit 24, which celebrated the use of torture to the point of cruelty porn. It wasn't enough to stop the fantasy terrorists, they had to suffer overtly. Torture became patriotic, those that opposed it were a bunch of pansies.
Support for invading the wrong country, secret prisons, domestic surveillance, bombing civilians, stripping civil rights - this is when patriotism started to rot. Look at the people who call themselves 'patriots' now.
I see a lot of new-wave patriotism though. Anti-fascism, black rights, women's rights, lgbtq rights, indigenous rights, pro-science, pro-environment, pro-enlightenment, pro-humanity, pro-American movements. There are more real patriots than the fakes, Never Forget that.
posted by adept256 at 12:18 AM on September 12, 2022 [17 favorites]
There's a difference between a knock knock joke about post-9/11 Never Forget commoditization of the event's aftermath, and the horrible event itself.
posted by axiom at 1:17 AM on September 12, 2022 [22 favorites]
posted by axiom at 1:17 AM on September 12, 2022 [22 favorites]
alwayson_slightlyoff, I think you are misunderstanding what our jokes are aimed at.
The victims of 9/11 are not our target. That would, indeed, be monstrous.
Rather, the jokes mock the jingoism that came in the wake of 9/11: the way that politicians cynically exploited the incident to justify a pointless war; the way that Americans mindlessly brayed nationalist slogans; the crass commercial exploitation. In general, the way that capitalists, warmongers, and (just being honest here) hordes of dumb rabble cynically squeezed that stone until they had wrung every drop of blood from it.
I was 24 on 9/11. It was exhausting and disheartening to see how my countrymen reacted in those years – so easily manipulated, so petty and parochial, so proudly and blithely ignorant. Americans deeply disappointed me in that era. I cried when Bush won re-election. I believed that we were better than that. It hurt to find out how wrong I was. Until the Trump era, that grotesque orgy of bloodthirsty nationalism – not the 9/11 attack itself – was the biggest national trauma that I had endured.
As Mavri points out, that aftermath – not the incident itself – largely seems to be what people mean when they say "9/11". The term doesn't (just) refer to the attacks themselves. It refers to the entire era of political upheaval that it unleashed.
That is why othrechaz's knock-knock joke is aimed at the relentless exhortation to "remember 9/11". It's why my joke refers to "milking 9/11".
Also:
"Which is why we've seen our world leaders fist bumping those who should be our enemies."
Which world leaders, and which enemies, are we talking about here?
posted by escape from the potato planet at 3:37 AM on September 12, 2022 [20 favorites]
The victims of 9/11 are not our target. That would, indeed, be monstrous.
Rather, the jokes mock the jingoism that came in the wake of 9/11: the way that politicians cynically exploited the incident to justify a pointless war; the way that Americans mindlessly brayed nationalist slogans; the crass commercial exploitation. In general, the way that capitalists, warmongers, and (just being honest here) hordes of dumb rabble cynically squeezed that stone until they had wrung every drop of blood from it.
I was 24 on 9/11. It was exhausting and disheartening to see how my countrymen reacted in those years – so easily manipulated, so petty and parochial, so proudly and blithely ignorant. Americans deeply disappointed me in that era. I cried when Bush won re-election. I believed that we were better than that. It hurt to find out how wrong I was. Until the Trump era, that grotesque orgy of bloodthirsty nationalism – not the 9/11 attack itself – was the biggest national trauma that I had endured.
As Mavri points out, that aftermath – not the incident itself – largely seems to be what people mean when they say "9/11". The term doesn't (just) refer to the attacks themselves. It refers to the entire era of political upheaval that it unleashed.
That is why othrechaz's knock-knock joke is aimed at the relentless exhortation to "remember 9/11". It's why my joke refers to "milking 9/11".
Also:
"Which is why we've seen our world leaders fist bumping those who should be our enemies."
Which world leaders, and which enemies, are we talking about here?
posted by escape from the potato planet at 3:37 AM on September 12, 2022 [20 favorites]
Also, alwayson_slightlyoff:
Frankly, refusing to understand the difference between criticizing the victims of 9/11, and criticizing our national response to 9/11, is exactly the disingenuous game that the jingoists and profiteers were playing.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 3:50 AM on September 12, 2022 [20 favorites]
Frankly, refusing to understand the difference between criticizing the victims of 9/11, and criticizing our national response to 9/11, is exactly the disingenuous game that the jingoists and profiteers were playing.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 3:50 AM on September 12, 2022 [20 favorites]
Knock knock jokes about terrorists killing 3,000 people who were just showing up for work? Planes full of people plunging into the Twin Towers in NYC and covering the town for weeks in ash so gritty that we couldn't open our windows. Uncaptured moments we don't need to hold onto? Thinking it's encouraging that younger people are making jokes about this?I was 11 when 9/11 happened. I lived close enough to New York City that I'd been on top of the Twin Towers, and knew them deeply as a part of the iconic skyline. I wasn't on the streets of the city that day, but I was close enough that it felt personal; as a naturally anxious and nightmare-prone kid, you'd better believe that 9/11 haunted me for years and years after that. I was in a generic nothing suburb, but the sight of planes overhead caused me to twitch and imagine they were coming down on my head.
Do you make jokes and want to forget Pearl Harbor as well?
And I've also been making lurid and bad-taste jokes about 9/11 for the better part of a decade. My version of commemoration, I suppose. I "celebrated" one 9/11 by looking for every commemorative tweet by porn studios, screencapping pictures of the Twin Towers that were identically-sized to the size of fleshlights in the sidebar. Another year, I found some automated dental service that caused two hundred dentists to tweet the same commemorative 9/11 message at the same time, and laboriously retweeted all of them, because the image of a 9/11 Dental Borg struck me as extremely silly.
This is my way of processing 9/11, because what I remember most about it was teachers screaming at me that God spoke to George W. Bush and if I didn't believe them there were 3,000 corpses to prove me wrong. My memories of 9/11 are being told that X was an insult to those 3,000 memories, where X was increasingly something manipulative and exploitative and traumatic. My memories are of my parents' grim faces the day after the 2004 elections, and the book I read a couple of years later that served as my introduction to politics, which explained just how 9/11 had been wielded as a cudgel. They're memories of every piece of shit I've ever encountered in the TSA—not the part-and-parcel folks, who I don't blame for wearing the uniform of a shitty organization, but the ones who use "patriotism" as an excuse to behave like petty tyrants, sometimes toeing the sexual-harassment line in the process.
I want to mourn the people who died on 9/11. I also want to mourn the 7,000 soldiers who were killed in the subsequent war in Iraq—and the 30,000 who killed themselves after the war, and the countless others who were left traumatized or unable to function, sometimes in ways that meant they unleashed violence upon the innocent people they had left. I want to mourn the destabilized territories our soldiers entered, because the numbers I'm citing here are nothing compared to the Iraqi citizens that we tortured and slaughtered en masse.
I want to mourn the particular twisted flavor of patriotism that was born on 9/11 and gave us Rudy Giuliani, Sarah Palin, and eventually Trump. Hell, Rudy's still going around screaming "9/11!!!" as he slips on legal banana peel after legal banana peel.
I feel terrible for those 3,000 lives, because they were turned into political footballs and exploited and subjected to the grimmest vivisections imaginable. I feel terrible for those people's loved ones, who will never be able to privately grieve for their losses without the specter of how those losses were grave-robbed and paraded about and put on horrible, grotesque display. And I feel terrible about every person in NYC who lived through 9/11, because as Mavri said above, it is extremely difficult to separate the physical event from its psychic impact, and from its hideous country-destroying legacy.
In my opinion, 9/11 should not be a public ceremony. It's ghoulish to make a big day of it, over a tragedy that happened more than 20 years ago. We don't remember 9/11 because of the people who died in it—far more people die annually over horrifying phenomena that we more-or-less ignore, because to our minds it's ordinary. 9/11 is a holiday of fear: fear, because we were attacked one time in the way that we routinely give ourselves permission to attack other countries. Civilians in other nations say that they're afraid of clear blue skies and sunny days, because those days let the American military drone-bomb them as it pleases; we suffer through a single attack, and remember it decades later, even as 9/11 finally turns old enough to get drunk.
I routinely "observe" 9/11 by making crass jokes, not because the people who died are anything less than horrifying and tragic, but because humor is about the healthiest way I know how to process my deeply-felt anger. Humor about 9/11, to me, is the equivalent of pigeons shitting on a confederate war memorial: it's only way I know how to do the one thing I can do about 9/11, which is to deny its right to dictate American emotionality any more than it already has. I don't do it from a place of callousness: I do it as someone whose childhood terror was exacerbated beyond belief by 9/11, and who grew up first afraid and then ashamed. More than anything, 9/11 was the death of America as it might have been, and the more its impacts ripple out beyond the original impact, the harder it is for me to divorce the event itself from what the event has come to mean.
And, for what it's worth, people do make jokes about Pearl Harbor. A lot of them are very funny! So are the 9/11 jokes. (My younger cousin told me one at my grandfather's funeral that had me in stitches, though to be fair the little runt passed it along as a personal anecdote; I didn't think to Google it as a joke until a year or two later.)
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 4:14 AM on September 12, 2022 [55 favorites]
Contrast that with the post 9/11 tv hit 24, which celebrated the use of torture to the point of cruelty porn. It wasn't enough to stop the fantasy terrorists, they had to suffer overtly. Torture became patriotic, those that opposed it were a bunch of pansies.
The untouchably-good Jon Bois made a video about 24 that uses it as a way of exploring America's national trauma post-9/11. It is very, very funny, when it's not busy making sharp, incisive observations about who we are as a people.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 4:17 AM on September 12, 2022 [4 favorites]
The untouchably-good Jon Bois made a video about 24 that uses it as a way of exploring America's national trauma post-9/11. It is very, very funny, when it's not busy making sharp, incisive observations about who we are as a people.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 4:17 AM on September 12, 2022 [4 favorites]
Very well said, Tom Hanks. I agree 100%.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 4:23 AM on September 12, 2022
posted by escape from the potato planet at 4:23 AM on September 12, 2022
I always thought that the true barometer for how seriously the nation took 09/11 was, they never made it a holiday. They'd sell you all kinds of crying eagle fleece blankets or whatever, but wouldn't let the machine stop just one extra day a year.
I wish I'd known of Metafilter back then! What was I reading at that point, Television Without Pity or something? I'm not sure I'd even discovered LiveJournal at that point, so the world was spared my thoughts, a small blessing in that dark time.
Agreeing with what others have said above, 09/11, the reaction to it, was the first time I really saw sharply how people could convert to a political philosophy dumber than they'd previously held, angrier than they'd previously held, and yet be wholly certain that their dumb anger was the right way to go. Someone's got to pay, and it didn't matter much who. Ordinary liberal folks who were skeptical of the Republican government, overnight became war hawks demanding heads on pikes. It was disturbing to see, disturbing to live through. And there was always some know-it-all lefty blogger who would gladly explain that those undercurrents had always been there in the Democrats, and, y'know, whatever, fine, but seeing this blood-thirst sweep over an entire nation was weird.
(Just, also...like, joking about tragedy, including tasteless horrible jokes about tragedy, are just what happens, the same as people criticizing the jokes about tragedy, I mean, both are human responses, they're both okay. There needs to be someone to tell you to stop giggling at the funeral, because it's such a consistent response.)
posted by mittens at 4:27 AM on September 12, 2022 [10 favorites]
I wish I'd known of Metafilter back then! What was I reading at that point, Television Without Pity or something? I'm not sure I'd even discovered LiveJournal at that point, so the world was spared my thoughts, a small blessing in that dark time.
Agreeing with what others have said above, 09/11, the reaction to it, was the first time I really saw sharply how people could convert to a political philosophy dumber than they'd previously held, angrier than they'd previously held, and yet be wholly certain that their dumb anger was the right way to go. Someone's got to pay, and it didn't matter much who. Ordinary liberal folks who were skeptical of the Republican government, overnight became war hawks demanding heads on pikes. It was disturbing to see, disturbing to live through. And there was always some know-it-all lefty blogger who would gladly explain that those undercurrents had always been there in the Democrats, and, y'know, whatever, fine, but seeing this blood-thirst sweep over an entire nation was weird.
(Just, also...like, joking about tragedy, including tasteless horrible jokes about tragedy, are just what happens, the same as people criticizing the jokes about tragedy, I mean, both are human responses, they're both okay. There needs to be someone to tell you to stop giggling at the funeral, because it's such a consistent response.)
posted by mittens at 4:27 AM on September 12, 2022 [10 favorites]
Happy 21st anniversary of the release of They Might Be Giants' Mink Car.
posted by Faint of Butt at 4:47 AM on September 12, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by Faint of Butt at 4:47 AM on September 12, 2022 [7 favorites]
There needs to be someone to tell you to stop giggling at the funeral, because it's such a consistent response.
once again, the Barenaked Ladies Theorem of Human Loss rears its ugly head
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 4:48 AM on September 12, 2022 [2 favorites]
once again, the Barenaked Ladies Theorem of Human Loss rears its ugly head
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 4:48 AM on September 12, 2022 [2 favorites]
As long as we're talking about processing the trauma of 9/11 (and our national response to it) via black comedy, here's a catchy music video:
↓↓↓ THIS PAGE LINKS TO PROFOUNDLY NSFW VIDEO FILES ↓↓↓
Chris Korda – "I Like to Watch"
↑↑↑ THIS PAGE LINKS TO PROFOUNDLY NSFW VIDEO FILES ↑↑↑
A rather on-the-nose comment about Americans' endless appetite for 9/11 tragedy porn.
(Korda is difficult to describe – but you could call her a provocateur, an artist, and an activist. She is the founder of the Church of Euthanasia, and is also involved with the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement – organizations which advocate for saving the planet via mass suicide. She was also involved in a 1995 campaign called Unabomber for President. It is all, of course, deliberately provocative. I can't say that I'd want to hang out with her – but I understand the urge to fling shit in people's faces.)
There was also Get Your War On – a webcomic based on a farcically limited handful of clip-art-style panels, and a slangy, profane take on the unfolding absurdities. At the time, it was hysterically funny, and a much-needed release valve for those of us who were exasperated by it all.
In addition to the 9/11 connection, it was an early example of how "the web" (which was still pretty new) could give voice to perspectives that would never have flown in traditional capitalist media.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 5:33 AM on September 12, 2022 [7 favorites]
↓↓↓ THIS PAGE LINKS TO PROFOUNDLY NSFW VIDEO FILES ↓↓↓
Chris Korda – "I Like to Watch"
↑↑↑ THIS PAGE LINKS TO PROFOUNDLY NSFW VIDEO FILES ↑↑↑
A rather on-the-nose comment about Americans' endless appetite for 9/11 tragedy porn.
(Korda is difficult to describe – but you could call her a provocateur, an artist, and an activist. She is the founder of the Church of Euthanasia, and is also involved with the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement – organizations which advocate for saving the planet via mass suicide. She was also involved in a 1995 campaign called Unabomber for President. It is all, of course, deliberately provocative. I can't say that I'd want to hang out with her – but I understand the urge to fling shit in people's faces.)
There was also Get Your War On – a webcomic based on a farcically limited handful of clip-art-style panels, and a slangy, profane take on the unfolding absurdities. At the time, it was hysterically funny, and a much-needed release valve for those of us who were exasperated by it all.
In addition to the 9/11 connection, it was an early example of how "the web" (which was still pretty new) could give voice to perspectives that would never have flown in traditional capitalist media.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 5:33 AM on September 12, 2022 [7 favorites]
I always thought that the true barometer for how seriously the nation took 09/11 was, they never made it a holiday. They'd sell you all kinds of crying eagle fleece blankets or whatever, but wouldn't let the machine stop just one extra day a year.
At the time, I was working for Boeing. The executives all went home from whatever office building they were in at the time. Us worker bees at the factory had to stay at work.
posted by Fleebnork at 5:37 AM on September 12, 2022 [6 favorites]
At the time, I was working for Boeing. The executives all went home from whatever office building they were in at the time. Us worker bees at the factory had to stay at work.
posted by Fleebnork at 5:37 AM on September 12, 2022 [6 favorites]
September 11, 2001 was a 'Super Tuesday' of Album Releases
posted by box at 5:40 AM on September 12, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by box at 5:40 AM on September 12, 2022 [3 favorites]
If you, personally, lost loved ones on that day – then, of course, you have every right to mourn.
Thank you ever so much.
posted by jgirl at 5:47 AM on September 12, 2022 [8 favorites]
Thank you ever so much.
posted by jgirl at 5:47 AM on September 12, 2022 [8 favorites]
I don't think there can ever be true understanding of the event between people who were in New York City and Washington DC that day and people who experienced it from afar. Those of us who walked home through the ashes will always carry those psychic scars. But it's mostly good to see the world move on.
The 90s seemed like such a hopeful time with the collapse of the Cold War and the flowering of the Internet. But it was all false hope (and we'd get burned again with a supercharged version of the same impulse during the Obama years). 9/11 and 1/6 are the moments that remind us what the world really is, a cold place that's constantly trying to kill us. We can band together to provide mutual aid, but the bastards will always be grinding us down.
I was too young to remember the Vietnam war, but savvy enough to understand how it shaped the America I lived in. Its fingerprints were everywhere. Do young people understand 9/11 that way? Or has it been drowned out by the multimedia deluge?
posted by rikschell at 6:27 AM on September 12, 2022 [11 favorites]
The 90s seemed like such a hopeful time with the collapse of the Cold War and the flowering of the Internet. But it was all false hope (and we'd get burned again with a supercharged version of the same impulse during the Obama years). 9/11 and 1/6 are the moments that remind us what the world really is, a cold place that's constantly trying to kill us. We can band together to provide mutual aid, but the bastards will always be grinding us down.
I was too young to remember the Vietnam war, but savvy enough to understand how it shaped the America I lived in. Its fingerprints were everywhere. Do young people understand 9/11 that way? Or has it been drowned out by the multimedia deluge?
posted by rikschell at 6:27 AM on September 12, 2022 [11 favorites]
I've always thought of remembering 9/11 as remembering the heroic actions of the first responders: those risked their lives -- and who lost their lives and suffered health problems. I think it should be called Heroes' Day.
As for the ongoing response, I remember at the moment thinking that, if history has taught us any lesson, America is about to do something stupid.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 6:36 AM on September 12, 2022 [2 favorites]
As for the ongoing response, I remember at the moment thinking that, if history has taught us any lesson, America is about to do something stupid.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 6:36 AM on September 12, 2022 [2 favorites]
I think that 9/11 was never real for most people and, 21 years later, it's become even less real. As such, it can be used as a symbol for whatever you want it to be - an excuse for xenophobia and war, a means to unite a country, a way to justify criticism of your political opponents, a subject for jokes, whatever.
I can't think of it as a symbol. I watched the towers fall from my window, walked 50 blocks north because I couldn't get home to Brooklyn, stood in line for hours waiting to give blood for the survivors who never materialized. Speculated all day about whether there would be more attacks, listened to rumors about 7 more planes unaccounted for. Tried to get in touch with people who worked at the WTC while most cell towers were jammed. I remember smoke and debris coming down my street for a week anytime the wind would shift east. I remember the hundreds of flyers posted in the subway stations with pictures of people's missing loved ones. No one ever talks about the flyers.
So for me, it's very difficult to talk to people about the abstract 9/11, the symbolic 9/11. I don't know what that means. It's a good anniversary when I can go most of the day without thinking about it.
(On preview, also what rikschell said.)
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 6:36 AM on September 12, 2022 [11 favorites]
I can't think of it as a symbol. I watched the towers fall from my window, walked 50 blocks north because I couldn't get home to Brooklyn, stood in line for hours waiting to give blood for the survivors who never materialized. Speculated all day about whether there would be more attacks, listened to rumors about 7 more planes unaccounted for. Tried to get in touch with people who worked at the WTC while most cell towers were jammed. I remember smoke and debris coming down my street for a week anytime the wind would shift east. I remember the hundreds of flyers posted in the subway stations with pictures of people's missing loved ones. No one ever talks about the flyers.
So for me, it's very difficult to talk to people about the abstract 9/11, the symbolic 9/11. I don't know what that means. It's a good anniversary when I can go most of the day without thinking about it.
(On preview, also what rikschell said.)
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 6:36 AM on September 12, 2022 [11 favorites]
I miss Get Your War On. I think it’s indicative of something pretty awful about where things ended up that the unending performative nevar forget of all of it managed to outlast the biting sarcasm as a response to all the jingoistic flag waving panic.
As for Biden’s speech, god, I’m hopeful I can avoid it, but sure I’ll end up seeing it anyway, but “we do not scare easily”?! Motherfucker, we as a nation panicked. “We do not scare easily” is historical erasure, on par with hagiographic claims of national unity, which of course ignore the immediate rise of anti Muslim attacks, of Sikhs being attacked because Americans are too dumb to know the difference. We don’t scare easily? 9/11 birthed a whole new arm of the American government in the “I can’t believe they actually named it that” Dept. of Homeland Security, which Orwell would have said was a bit much. We were so scared, we let that department run roughshod, even as it was staffed with unqualified and undertrained goons who were given incredible levels of power over anyone in an airport, leading to decades now of stories of shameful levels of harassment and abuse. We were so scared, we gave up our dignity as a nation and let there be an actual debate on whether or not torture was good, actually, and the torturers fucking won. We were so scared we let ourselves as a nation get suckered into invading Iraq under false pretenses, and our fear killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis just trying to live their lives. We were so scared that when our massive security theater apparatus failed to stop a guy who tried to light his shoe on fire, it became normalized to shuffle, shoeless, through cattle calls just to get on an airplane. Fuck, we were so scared we gave Mark Fucking Wahlberg a career renaissance as some sort of super patriot action hero.
And for what? A week ago, I flew back here. We were told on the flight that we needed to have our customs for, but there was no need to sign it, and low and behold, the TSA guy at customs took my blank form, scrawled some nonsense on it, and told me to give it to another person by the exit, and I did. No shoes were taken off, no one really gave a shit about anything. “Security” barely even tried to look like they gave a shit. Our security theater has gone from broadway to awkward elementary school production, but the apparatus is still in place, still has all the powers needed to ruin a person’s day, or even life. “We don’t scare easily”? The last 21 years are a direct product of how fucking easily we scare.
posted by Ghidorah at 6:39 AM on September 12, 2022 [49 favorites]
As for Biden’s speech, god, I’m hopeful I can avoid it, but sure I’ll end up seeing it anyway, but “we do not scare easily”?! Motherfucker, we as a nation panicked. “We do not scare easily” is historical erasure, on par with hagiographic claims of national unity, which of course ignore the immediate rise of anti Muslim attacks, of Sikhs being attacked because Americans are too dumb to know the difference. We don’t scare easily? 9/11 birthed a whole new arm of the American government in the “I can’t believe they actually named it that” Dept. of Homeland Security, which Orwell would have said was a bit much. We were so scared, we let that department run roughshod, even as it was staffed with unqualified and undertrained goons who were given incredible levels of power over anyone in an airport, leading to decades now of stories of shameful levels of harassment and abuse. We were so scared, we gave up our dignity as a nation and let there be an actual debate on whether or not torture was good, actually, and the torturers fucking won. We were so scared we let ourselves as a nation get suckered into invading Iraq under false pretenses, and our fear killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis just trying to live their lives. We were so scared that when our massive security theater apparatus failed to stop a guy who tried to light his shoe on fire, it became normalized to shuffle, shoeless, through cattle calls just to get on an airplane. Fuck, we were so scared we gave Mark Fucking Wahlberg a career renaissance as some sort of super patriot action hero.
And for what? A week ago, I flew back here. We were told on the flight that we needed to have our customs for, but there was no need to sign it, and low and behold, the TSA guy at customs took my blank form, scrawled some nonsense on it, and told me to give it to another person by the exit, and I did. No shoes were taken off, no one really gave a shit about anything. “Security” barely even tried to look like they gave a shit. Our security theater has gone from broadway to awkward elementary school production, but the apparatus is still in place, still has all the powers needed to ruin a person’s day, or even life. “We don’t scare easily”? The last 21 years are a direct product of how fucking easily we scare.
posted by Ghidorah at 6:39 AM on September 12, 2022 [49 favorites]
I'm part of the generation of younger people that learned about 9/11 secondhand.
I was in third grade, so I do remember the day, but I was also on the West Coast so there wasn't the same moment where everyone stopped what they were doing to watch. By the time I made it to school, several people had told me some version of "bad people did a bad thing" but without further detail. I'm not sure how much it would have meant to me, not having seen or appreciated the scale of the twin towers. It's similar with the aftermath - I was aware things were going on, but at the same time I lacked a complete understanding and nobody really wanted to sit down and fill the kids in.
I remember having a few moments of realization later on - first, reading the 9/11 graphic novel probably around middle school (my first exposure to the details of the day) and then, even more so, when I'd moved to NYC for college in 2011 and started hearing stories from my more local classmates (and older adults) during the 10th anniversary commemoration. My most salient moment was, sometime during college, I found myself in lower Manhattan around the right time of day one day and amidst the hustle and bustle it finally hit me that this is the place that that happened. I don't know how to describe it, but I didn't really "get" it until then.
I'm just on the cusp of remembering the day itself, my younger siblings remember nothing. I guess I just offer this to illustrate that yeah, 9/11 is more of a historical event than a personal memory for a growing number of young and young-ish people. I'm grateful to those that have shared their stories both about the day and about the months after so that I can understand better.
posted by mosst at 6:46 AM on September 12, 2022 [4 favorites]
I was in third grade, so I do remember the day, but I was also on the West Coast so there wasn't the same moment where everyone stopped what they were doing to watch. By the time I made it to school, several people had told me some version of "bad people did a bad thing" but without further detail. I'm not sure how much it would have meant to me, not having seen or appreciated the scale of the twin towers. It's similar with the aftermath - I was aware things were going on, but at the same time I lacked a complete understanding and nobody really wanted to sit down and fill the kids in.
I remember having a few moments of realization later on - first, reading the 9/11 graphic novel probably around middle school (my first exposure to the details of the day) and then, even more so, when I'd moved to NYC for college in 2011 and started hearing stories from my more local classmates (and older adults) during the 10th anniversary commemoration. My most salient moment was, sometime during college, I found myself in lower Manhattan around the right time of day one day and amidst the hustle and bustle it finally hit me that this is the place that that happened. I don't know how to describe it, but I didn't really "get" it until then.
I'm just on the cusp of remembering the day itself, my younger siblings remember nothing. I guess I just offer this to illustrate that yeah, 9/11 is more of a historical event than a personal memory for a growing number of young and young-ish people. I'm grateful to those that have shared their stories both about the day and about the months after so that I can understand better.
posted by mosst at 6:46 AM on September 12, 2022 [4 favorites]
The comparison to how Pearl Harbor is remembered is apt. Almost entirely now, Pearl Harbor is remembered as marking the moment at which the US pivoted to fighting the war. The actual people who died that day are not the focus of how it is remembered (though I am sure the ceremonies on the site keep that as the focus).
I think we are seeing that change happen, where the importance of the event and the way most people think about it is becoming less about the tragedy of the people who were killed, and more about how that marked such a sharp turn in history. It's probably an inevitable transition, but it is clearly jarring for some people for whom the individual tragedy and trauma remain the central reminder.
I happened to be at work and had someone walk by and tell me in a sort of gossip-y way that a plane had crashed into the WTC. I remember thinking of the B-25 that had crashed into the Empire State Building in WWII, assumed it was a small plane of some kine, and kind of rolled my eyes at the kind of ghoulish excitement someone was showing over an event that had likely killed several people.
I had pretty much the identical conversation with the maintenance guy who told me what had just happened. He kept insisting that this was a big deal, and I was pretty much "nah, it's just like the last time that happened, no big deal." Eventually we found the one computer in the basement where someone was streaming video from CNN and then I finally caught on to what was going on.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:54 AM on September 12, 2022 [2 favorites]
I think we are seeing that change happen, where the importance of the event and the way most people think about it is becoming less about the tragedy of the people who were killed, and more about how that marked such a sharp turn in history. It's probably an inevitable transition, but it is clearly jarring for some people for whom the individual tragedy and trauma remain the central reminder.
I happened to be at work and had someone walk by and tell me in a sort of gossip-y way that a plane had crashed into the WTC. I remember thinking of the B-25 that had crashed into the Empire State Building in WWII, assumed it was a small plane of some kine, and kind of rolled my eyes at the kind of ghoulish excitement someone was showing over an event that had likely killed several people.
I had pretty much the identical conversation with the maintenance guy who told me what had just happened. He kept insisting that this was a big deal, and I was pretty much "nah, it's just like the last time that happened, no big deal." Eventually we found the one computer in the basement where someone was streaming video from CNN and then I finally caught on to what was going on.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:54 AM on September 12, 2022 [2 favorites]
Do you make jokes and want to forget Pearl Harbor as well?
FWIW, most years December 7th rolls around and, unless I happen to be tuning into media sources which are particularly keen on military history, I don't think about Pearl Harbor at all. I think about the Pearl Harbor Attack mostly when it's relevant to something else, not as an annual memorial. If there was a media blitz that day to make sure I don't miss it, I probably would make jokes, or at least roll my eyes.
posted by jackbishop at 7:14 AM on September 12, 2022 [4 favorites]
FWIW, most years December 7th rolls around and, unless I happen to be tuning into media sources which are particularly keen on military history, I don't think about Pearl Harbor at all. I think about the Pearl Harbor Attack mostly when it's relevant to something else, not as an annual memorial. If there was a media blitz that day to make sure I don't miss it, I probably would make jokes, or at least roll my eyes.
posted by jackbishop at 7:14 AM on September 12, 2022 [4 favorites]
I was in college at the time, and saw some of the early television coverage. I remember most the aftermath... The insanity that made me understand for the first time how hostile my country could be to those who are different. I remember the armed soldiers in eerily empty airports that had always been busy. I remember the hate spewed against anyone who offered the most anodyne possible concern or questioning of the rush to war. I was personally called Worse Than the Terrorists because I didn't think Iraq had a lot to do with 9/11.
I can't imagine how people directly affected by the towers falling feel. All I truly know is the trauma inflicted by America on Americans, and to an extent, the rest of the world. In the name of freedom.
Vox has an article analyzing some of the costs of the war on terror to the people most hurt.
posted by Jacen at 7:28 AM on September 12, 2022 [6 favorites]
I can't imagine how people directly affected by the towers falling feel. All I truly know is the trauma inflicted by America on Americans, and to an extent, the rest of the world. In the name of freedom.
Vox has an article analyzing some of the costs of the war on terror to the people most hurt.
posted by Jacen at 7:28 AM on September 12, 2022 [6 favorites]
Frankly, refusing to understand the difference between criticizing the victims of 9/11, and criticizing our national response to 9/11, is exactly the disingenuous game that the jingoists and profiteers were playing.
Well, speaking as someone who struggles with this myself, I'm not a disingenuous jingoist or profiteer, it's just not always that easy and simple. I understand the difference, but when people start making jokes and rolling their eyes, that runs up against the trauma. I remind myself of the difference, but it's not always easy. Sounds like alwayson_slightlyoff is also in that boat. It's extremely ungenerous to imply they're being disingenuous.
And the fist bump thing, I assume, is a reference to Biden and MBS. I don't think you have to be a disingenuous jingoist and profiteer to have a problem with the Saudi royal family or our government's relationship with them.
I can't think of it as a symbol.
Thank you for saying this. I still have a visceral response to "9/11" and it's hard sometimes that it's abstract to so many people. I understand why, but it's still hard.
posted by Mavri at 7:32 AM on September 12, 2022 [5 favorites]
Well, speaking as someone who struggles with this myself, I'm not a disingenuous jingoist or profiteer, it's just not always that easy and simple. I understand the difference, but when people start making jokes and rolling their eyes, that runs up against the trauma. I remind myself of the difference, but it's not always easy. Sounds like alwayson_slightlyoff is also in that boat. It's extremely ungenerous to imply they're being disingenuous.
And the fist bump thing, I assume, is a reference to Biden and MBS. I don't think you have to be a disingenuous jingoist and profiteer to have a problem with the Saudi royal family or our government's relationship with them.
I can't think of it as a symbol.
Thank you for saying this. I still have a visceral response to "9/11" and it's hard sometimes that it's abstract to so many people. I understand why, but it's still hard.
posted by Mavri at 7:32 AM on September 12, 2022 [5 favorites]
The comparison with Pearl Harbor Day is apt, because of its unofficial status as Fuck Yeah We Nuked Hiroshima And Nagasaki They Had It Coming Day. In certain quarters, anyway.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:32 AM on September 12, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:32 AM on September 12, 2022 [2 favorites]
in the immediate (and prolonged) aftermath of 9/11, a lot was made by some was that this, finally, would be the death of irony. Whatever the fuck that meant. I recall a comic friend saying, "So the first response to this egregious attack on our freedom is to immediately declare the curtailment of certain of those freedoms, particularly some of the complex stuff that goes over fools' heads and maybe boomerangs back at them in such a way that it reveals them to be FOOLISH in front of their friends and neighbours and maybe just maybe just might inspire them to use their fucking brains for even half a second every now and then when it comes to parsing the bullshit their business, political, religious, military leaders are foisting on them. Fuck that shit. Long live ironing. Because you look a damned fool when yrrrr shirt is wrinkled."
posted by philip-random at 7:42 AM on September 12, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by philip-random at 7:42 AM on September 12, 2022 [3 favorites]
I don't think there can ever be true understanding of the event between people who were in New York City and Washington DC that day and people who experienced it from afar. Those of us who walked home through the ashes will always carry those psychic scars. But it's mostly good to see the world move on.
Yeah I was living in Manhattan at the time and remember that when I returned to the Midwest for the holidays that year, I was smacked in the face by an onslaught of NEVER FORGET bald eagle crap. That stuff wasn't around Manhattan (it is now, obviously) because there was absolutely no danger of us ever possibly forgetting.
The other thing I remember about that holiday was getting asked whether 9/11 was "exciting" at a wine shop on New Years' Eve. I had an utter breakdown in the car on the way home and my mom, who would sniffle and weep at patriotic commercials or that "Let's Roll" song, was just like, ugh what the fuck, this is super inconvenient, how you have a mental health, can we not just move on?
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:45 AM on September 12, 2022 [19 favorites]
Yeah I was living in Manhattan at the time and remember that when I returned to the Midwest for the holidays that year, I was smacked in the face by an onslaught of NEVER FORGET bald eagle crap. That stuff wasn't around Manhattan (it is now, obviously) because there was absolutely no danger of us ever possibly forgetting.
The other thing I remember about that holiday was getting asked whether 9/11 was "exciting" at a wine shop on New Years' Eve. I had an utter breakdown in the car on the way home and my mom, who would sniffle and weep at patriotic commercials or that "Let's Roll" song, was just like, ugh what the fuck, this is super inconvenient, how you have a mental health, can we not just move on?
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:45 AM on September 12, 2022 [19 favorites]
I had just made it into work and heard about it in the elevator. A co-worker had a tv in her car, and we went down and watched until like 11:00am. Then we had a short meeting about it, and went back to work.
My roommate was stuck in El Paso Texas for a week since planes weren't flying. My brother had joined the Marine Reserves as a relatively easy way to make a few bucks to buy stuff in college in early August. Whoops! He did 3 tours.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:09 AM on September 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
My roommate was stuck in El Paso Texas for a week since planes weren't flying. My brother had joined the Marine Reserves as a relatively easy way to make a few bucks to buy stuff in college in early August. Whoops! He did 3 tours.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:09 AM on September 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
I was in World Financial Center 1 and saw it all from my office window and walked through a cloud after the first tower fell. If it had been up to me, the entire area would have been ring-fenced and blacktoppped and left empty. No memorials. No Freedom Tower. No entrepreneurs selling glossy magazines with images of carnage. We have learned nothing, and that's how I'd have commemorated that.
posted by AJaffe at 8:14 AM on September 12, 2022 [15 favorites]
posted by AJaffe at 8:14 AM on September 12, 2022 [15 favorites]
I hate the Occulus with fire, but what's more American than building a high end mall on a mass grave.
The memorials themselves, though, are shockingly appropriate and moving, imho. It's not blacktop, but it's a void, and that works for me.
posted by Mavri at 8:27 AM on September 12, 2022 [3 favorites]
The memorials themselves, though, are shockingly appropriate and moving, imho. It's not blacktop, but it's a void, and that works for me.
posted by Mavri at 8:27 AM on September 12, 2022 [3 favorites]
I left my radio on overnight and woke up listening to the first pass of NPR's Morning Edition in the dark that day and heard the first report of a plane striking the World Trade Center just before six in the morning. I immediately turned on my TV and saw the north tower ablaze. Then I saw the second plane struck the south tower at 6:03 AM PDT and instantly tealized what was going on. Seeing that live I will never forget.
I called a friend and we both ended up watching both towers collapse before I actually got up, got dressed and went to work at a temp job that day. Where I got challenged, asked for ID and then sent home in short order because who could work that morning?
posted by y2karl at 8:46 AM on September 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
I called a friend and we both ended up watching both towers collapse before I actually got up, got dressed and went to work at a temp job that day. Where I got challenged, asked for ID and then sent home in short order because who could work that morning?
posted by y2karl at 8:46 AM on September 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
In my opinion, the pushback against alwayson_slightlyoff's relatively mild objection to 9/11 jokes is uncalled for. Metafilter generally has low tolerance for edgy comedy, especially when a member specifically says that a joke was hurtful. Beyond that, the suggestion that alwayson_slightlyoff's objection to 9/11 jokes is somehow equivalent to jingoism is frankly offensive.
I think it's possible to discuss the problematic nature of 9/11 remembrance while still being respectful and caring to those who were and continue to be traumatized.
posted by lumpy at 10:01 AM on September 12, 2022 [7 favorites]
I think it's possible to discuss the problematic nature of 9/11 remembrance while still being respectful and caring to those who were and continue to be traumatized.
posted by lumpy at 10:01 AM on September 12, 2022 [7 favorites]
We still have to take off our shoes but we don't have to put on masks.
Everything we talk about 9/11 isn't about 9/11. Don't tell me we need to take 9/11 more seriously.
posted by AlSweigart at 10:05 AM on September 12, 2022 [8 favorites]
Everything we talk about 9/11 isn't about 9/11. Don't tell me we need to take 9/11 more seriously.
posted by AlSweigart at 10:05 AM on September 12, 2022 [8 favorites]
Me in late 2001: "What will be the long term effects of this world historical event? What manner of changes can we expect to see on an individual level as the geopolitical status quo undergoes a seismic shift?"
Me in late 2022: "We now have a government department devoted to x-raying shoes."
posted by thatwhichfalls at 10:28 AM on September 12, 2022 [3 favorites]
Me in late 2022: "We now have a government department devoted to x-raying shoes."
posted by thatwhichfalls at 10:28 AM on September 12, 2022 [3 favorites]
9/11 has become a Rorschach test (or perhaps a Voight-Kampff test...) where you can quickly learn a great deal about a person based on their response about 9/11.
I try to be tolerant about what I accept as reactions to 9/11 and conservative about what expect or share myself. Some reactions that seem jingoistic or whatever may be those things or may be sincere expressions of grief just filtered through the socially acceptable means of expression for the folks who are saying or doing them.
Like, I'm not sure it's socially acceptable to say "no, I didn't personally lose a person in 9/11 but I have totally valid feelings of loss and fear around 9/11 because it kind of broke my brain that such a thing could happen." At least, not in some circles.
I have a lot of anger for the folks who've exploited 9/11 and made the world so much worse in the last 21 years. Even though that is part of the discussion around 9/11, it doesn't necessarily shape or dictate people's feelings around 9/11, the event, as they experienced it that day and in the immediate aftermath and as they recall it now.
But feelings of loss, grief, trauma, etc. are totally valid for people who were alive at the time but didn't actually lose any people in the attacks. Of course people who lost family, friends, co-workers, livelihoods, were impacted more deeply - and we should observe those circles of grief - but that doesn't invalidate other people's real feelings.
posted by jzb at 10:47 AM on September 12, 2022 [6 favorites]
I try to be tolerant about what I accept as reactions to 9/11 and conservative about what expect or share myself. Some reactions that seem jingoistic or whatever may be those things or may be sincere expressions of grief just filtered through the socially acceptable means of expression for the folks who are saying or doing them.
Like, I'm not sure it's socially acceptable to say "no, I didn't personally lose a person in 9/11 but I have totally valid feelings of loss and fear around 9/11 because it kind of broke my brain that such a thing could happen." At least, not in some circles.
I have a lot of anger for the folks who've exploited 9/11 and made the world so much worse in the last 21 years. Even though that is part of the discussion around 9/11, it doesn't necessarily shape or dictate people's feelings around 9/11, the event, as they experienced it that day and in the immediate aftermath and as they recall it now.
But feelings of loss, grief, trauma, etc. are totally valid for people who were alive at the time but didn't actually lose any people in the attacks. Of course people who lost family, friends, co-workers, livelihoods, were impacted more deeply - and we should observe those circles of grief - but that doesn't invalidate other people's real feelings.
posted by jzb at 10:47 AM on September 12, 2022 [6 favorites]
I don't think there can ever be true understanding of the event between people who were in New York City and Washington DC that day and people who experienced it from afar.
This this this.
Even at the time it was true.
posted by jgirl at 11:45 AM on September 12, 2022 [6 favorites]
This this this.
Even at the time it was true.
posted by jgirl at 11:45 AM on September 12, 2022 [6 favorites]
I think I posted here one other time about driving across many states to visit in-laws, and at one of the turnpike maintenance stations in Indiana, there was a large plow blade painted with the WTC on one side, and an American flag with bald eagle on the other. The text: "Awakening the Giant".
I think about that plow blade a lot, and what experience compels a person to create it.
I agree with the upthread comment that 9/11 revealed just how scared we as a country could be. I was stuck at work in the flyover Midwest and felt helpless and anxious all day long. And the next day. Maybe even the third day, until everything settled into a numb horror at what was happening to this country ("Go shopping," the president told us). As long as I live, I'll never forget the collective gasp that went up in the office when the second plane hit.
There are psychic scars all over this country from that day. Some people ran from lower Manhattan. Some people ran to lower Manhattan. Some people sat in their comfortable homes, scared that it could be their town that was next, their local landmark or gathering place that could be the target. Some people coped by signing up for the armed forces, some by getting involved in politics. Some coped by painting a plow blade.
Sure, there are also cynical hucksters who saw it as an opportunity, but I think so many people just never acknowledged how much damage they suffered on that day, regardless of how much danger they were ever in. And yes, this unwillingness to look inward made it so incredibly easy to show our country's worst self abroad and at home.
posted by rocketman at 11:47 AM on September 12, 2022 [8 favorites]
I think about that plow blade a lot, and what experience compels a person to create it.
I agree with the upthread comment that 9/11 revealed just how scared we as a country could be. I was stuck at work in the flyover Midwest and felt helpless and anxious all day long. And the next day. Maybe even the third day, until everything settled into a numb horror at what was happening to this country ("Go shopping," the president told us). As long as I live, I'll never forget the collective gasp that went up in the office when the second plane hit.
There are psychic scars all over this country from that day. Some people ran from lower Manhattan. Some people ran to lower Manhattan. Some people sat in their comfortable homes, scared that it could be their town that was next, their local landmark or gathering place that could be the target. Some people coped by signing up for the armed forces, some by getting involved in politics. Some coped by painting a plow blade.
Sure, there are also cynical hucksters who saw it as an opportunity, but I think so many people just never acknowledged how much damage they suffered on that day, regardless of how much danger they were ever in. And yes, this unwillingness to look inward made it so incredibly easy to show our country's worst self abroad and at home.
posted by rocketman at 11:47 AM on September 12, 2022 [8 favorites]
I still think about Sarah Bunting's Tomato Nation blog post about what she experienced:
And so we all just stand there, alive, with nowhere to go. A few people cry, but mostly we stare and stare, looking at each other, pacing, shaking our heads, clearing our throats, cursing. Dust starts to filter into the lobby, and the security guys herd us towards the elevator banks, and then away, and then out into the office area, and then away from the windows, and that’s when it starts to get hectic and weird, what are we doing, does anyone know what’s going on, I heard there’s seven planes, if that whole thing comes down we’re dead anyway, where’s the vault we could hide there I think, I can’t believe this I just can’t believe it, I can’t get a goddamn signal why can’t I get a goddamn signal, can’t they tell us where to go, Jesus look at that guy he’s practically covered in — whatever that stuff is, how do I get an outside line, what’s happening, what’s happening, for God’s sake what’s happening, this is fucked totally fucked man, did you see that, what do I do now, I don’t — I don’t know what to do now.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:14 PM on September 12, 2022 [12 favorites]
And so we all just stand there, alive, with nowhere to go. A few people cry, but mostly we stare and stare, looking at each other, pacing, shaking our heads, clearing our throats, cursing. Dust starts to filter into the lobby, and the security guys herd us towards the elevator banks, and then away, and then out into the office area, and then away from the windows, and that’s when it starts to get hectic and weird, what are we doing, does anyone know what’s going on, I heard there’s seven planes, if that whole thing comes down we’re dead anyway, where’s the vault we could hide there I think, I can’t believe this I just can’t believe it, I can’t get a goddamn signal why can’t I get a goddamn signal, can’t they tell us where to go, Jesus look at that guy he’s practically covered in — whatever that stuff is, how do I get an outside line, what’s happening, what’s happening, for God’s sake what’s happening, this is fucked totally fucked man, did you see that, what do I do now, I don’t — I don’t know what to do now.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:14 PM on September 12, 2022 [12 favorites]
alwayson_slightlyoff, I think you are misunderstanding what our jokes are aimed at.
The victims of 9/11 are not our target. That would, indeed, be monstrous.
escape from the potato planet
A joke that has to be explained has failed.
Alwayson_slightlyoff
Rather, the jokes mock the jingoism that came in the wake of 9/11: the way that politicians cynically exploited the incident to justify a pointless war; the way that Americans mindlessly brayed nationalist slogans; the crass commercial exploitation. In general, the way that capitalists, warmongers, and (just being honest here) hordes of dumb rabble cynically squeezed that stone until they had wrung every drop of blood from it.
Posted by escape from the potato planet
And I don't disagree with any of that. But that's not what was said, do you all get it?
Folks made fun of the event, of the day, by implication even of the dead, of those who lived through it.
Do any of you think I wrap myself in those fucking crying eagle blankets, and stick flags on my fire escape, or stickers on my car (owned a second hand Toyota in the 70's), or wasn't creeped out by "Homeland Security" which never fails to remind me of "Motherland?"
Do you think I agreed with the sweeping powers of the Patriot Act which so few people read and fewer questioned?
I started questioning and protesting our US govt at the age of 15, do you think I was going to sit this one out? Waterboarding, non-existent WMDs, Iraq? Gitmo? THOUSANDS of dead and critically wounded young men and women for no fracking reason other than old white men who like to play war games and make money? Oh look, another Vietnam!! Didn't I protest that violently in my teens? Whoops.
Some of you called me disingenuous. Excuse my snicker. I have been called many things but never that. Look it up. That is not me.
I came back to this thread prepared to be burned but ... my toes aren't even singed.
I am grateful for those of you who took me through your reasoning and feelings. I will bet if I sat with my young niece and nephews (25-38 years old) I would get some similar responses. They were not in NYC.
escape from the potato planet I am not singling you out. Your paragraph just summed things up very well. I thank you, truly.
And for those who disingenuously didn't get it, yes the fist bump referred to Biden and MLB -- who shouldn't even be in our orbit since Saudi Arabia was, um, kinda involved in that whole 9/11 deal, yes, except that our govt is kowtowing for, what is it again? Oh right, oil. And whatever commodity is on take at the moment.
And now I have gone and blown my lowkey cover here when I meant to be talking about baking and things that will keep me from another bypass. Well sh*t!
And apologies for sucky formatting -- index finger
posted by alwayson_slightlyoff at 12:22 PM on September 12, 2022 [6 favorites]
The victims of 9/11 are not our target. That would, indeed, be monstrous.
escape from the potato planet
A joke that has to be explained has failed.
Alwayson_slightlyoff
Rather, the jokes mock the jingoism that came in the wake of 9/11: the way that politicians cynically exploited the incident to justify a pointless war; the way that Americans mindlessly brayed nationalist slogans; the crass commercial exploitation. In general, the way that capitalists, warmongers, and (just being honest here) hordes of dumb rabble cynically squeezed that stone until they had wrung every drop of blood from it.
Posted by escape from the potato planet
And I don't disagree with any of that. But that's not what was said, do you all get it?
Folks made fun of the event, of the day, by implication even of the dead, of those who lived through it.
Do any of you think I wrap myself in those fucking crying eagle blankets, and stick flags on my fire escape, or stickers on my car (owned a second hand Toyota in the 70's), or wasn't creeped out by "Homeland Security" which never fails to remind me of "Motherland?"
Do you think I agreed with the sweeping powers of the Patriot Act which so few people read and fewer questioned?
I started questioning and protesting our US govt at the age of 15, do you think I was going to sit this one out? Waterboarding, non-existent WMDs, Iraq? Gitmo? THOUSANDS of dead and critically wounded young men and women for no fracking reason other than old white men who like to play war games and make money? Oh look, another Vietnam!! Didn't I protest that violently in my teens? Whoops.
Some of you called me disingenuous. Excuse my snicker. I have been called many things but never that. Look it up. That is not me.
I came back to this thread prepared to be burned but ... my toes aren't even singed.
I am grateful for those of you who took me through your reasoning and feelings. I will bet if I sat with my young niece and nephews (25-38 years old) I would get some similar responses. They were not in NYC.
escape from the potato planet I am not singling you out. Your paragraph just summed things up very well. I thank you, truly.
And for those who disingenuously didn't get it, yes the fist bump referred to Biden and MLB -- who shouldn't even be in our orbit since Saudi Arabia was, um, kinda involved in that whole 9/11 deal, yes, except that our govt is kowtowing for, what is it again? Oh right, oil. And whatever commodity is on take at the moment.
And now I have gone and blown my lowkey cover here when I meant to be talking about baking and things that will keep me from another bypass. Well sh*t!
And apologies for sucky formatting -- index finger
posted by alwayson_slightlyoff at 12:22 PM on September 12, 2022 [6 favorites]
And BTW ... get off my lawn! LOLOLOL
That's how old and spent and tired y'all (and this world) have just made me feel. ::sigh::
posted by alwayson_slightlyoff at 12:36 PM on September 12, 2022
That's how old and spent and tired y'all (and this world) have just made me feel. ::sigh::
posted by alwayson_slightlyoff at 12:36 PM on September 12, 2022
In conclusion, 9/11 is a land of contrast.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 12:41 PM on September 12, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by escape from the potato planet at 12:41 PM on September 12, 2022 [3 favorites]
Remember how Bill Maher went on his show right after 9/11 and talked about how the hijackers weren't cowards, and then CBS cancelled his show, and it wasn't until nine months later that he got a different show that, in its 20th season, is still on the air to this day?
Damn cancel culture.
posted by box at 12:55 PM on September 12, 2022 [2 favorites]
Damn cancel culture.
posted by box at 12:55 PM on September 12, 2022 [2 favorites]
Anil Dash's done a yearly retrospective on 9/11 & his thoughts over time, as someone in New York at the time. It's been an interesting read over the years. This year's comes to a conclusion I think partially reflected by some of this thread.
There is nothing to rememberposted by CrystalDave at 1:00 PM on September 12, 2022 [8 favorites]
The only time someone remembered September 11, 2001 to me in the last year was when a stranger mentioned it as part of the reason he was trying to assault me. So it's clear that the events of that day have fully passed into myth, useful only as rhetoric in a culture war, or as justifications for violence. Nothing epitomizes this more than the fact that, while the memory has faded in culture broadly, it's only brought to the fore in situations like those where most New Yorkers would be targeted.
I talked about this a bit last year, in noting that Twenty is a Myth. I don't expect young people to understand what the moment meant cutlurally; it's only something that exists in recent history for them, processed entirely through the lens of media (and the social media that the event helped catalyze). But for those of us who were adults then, it's unforgiveable how we've let the meaning and the lessons be lost, or worse, twisted.
So, I have no remembrance this year, and maybe I'll let go of this tradition. If you ever want to know what it was like to be there that day, ask those who were present. I expect their experience will be completely different from the historical narrative that's been contrived in the years since.
There’s a gift shop in the 9.11 Memorial downtown. What else does anyone need to know about how this country has processed that day? We seem incapable of learning from anything.
posted by dbiedny at 1:03 PM on September 12, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by dbiedny at 1:03 PM on September 12, 2022 [2 favorites]
Here in NJ my aunt did a bit of remembrance after choir practice, specifically because there are a lot of kids in the choir who didn't live through it, and it was entirely about the experience of living through it. She could see the towers from her workplace; she could see the ferries and smaller boats that people took so they could go help; that's what she talked about. I mentioned I was 11 at the time and how my parents got me my first cell phone, not as a treat, but in case Something Happened.
That kind of remembrance is meaningful, and important to me, and if any jokes were targeting it I would be angry. It's a lot like a testament. It's oral history. It's saying, "You kids aren't going to understand where we're coming from unless we tell you this. This was so important that it has to be explained. It has to be inherited." The rest of it? Nah.
One of the kids I was talking about, who mentioned 9/11 jokes on Facebook, is a Muslim kid who lives in Jersey City. He's so thoroughly Americanized I had no clue he was Muslim (and he didn't mention) until I overheard him talking to another student about Ramadan. Does context matter? Does my context matter?
One last thing on my mind is: >I recall a comic friend saying, "So the first response to this egregious attack on our freedom is to immediately declare the curtailment of certain of those freedoms,
What the fuck was up with calling it an attack on "freedom"? How is it that less than an hour after the attack, that was the description? How did that ever make sense? Like, that never made sense to me, and nobody would ever explain what the truth was, until finally like two years ago I knuckled down with some history books. And I'm pretty sure 9/11 happened because we kept having our troops shit all over the Middle East. Right? Am I wrong about that?
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 1:19 PM on September 12, 2022 [3 favorites]
That kind of remembrance is meaningful, and important to me, and if any jokes were targeting it I would be angry. It's a lot like a testament. It's oral history. It's saying, "You kids aren't going to understand where we're coming from unless we tell you this. This was so important that it has to be explained. It has to be inherited." The rest of it? Nah.
One of the kids I was talking about, who mentioned 9/11 jokes on Facebook, is a Muslim kid who lives in Jersey City. He's so thoroughly Americanized I had no clue he was Muslim (and he didn't mention) until I overheard him talking to another student about Ramadan. Does context matter? Does my context matter?
One last thing on my mind is: >I recall a comic friend saying, "So the first response to this egregious attack on our freedom is to immediately declare the curtailment of certain of those freedoms,
What the fuck was up with calling it an attack on "freedom"? How is it that less than an hour after the attack, that was the description? How did that ever make sense? Like, that never made sense to me, and nobody would ever explain what the truth was, until finally like two years ago I knuckled down with some history books. And I'm pretty sure 9/11 happened because we kept having our troops shit all over the Middle East. Right? Am I wrong about that?
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 1:19 PM on September 12, 2022 [3 favorites]
I had moved to Chambers St. & West Broadway on September 1, 2001, so it was part of my welcome to NYC and I had a really close vantage point. Many of my last rolls of film photos were taken on that day and the days after. The next week I got a temp job on Wall St., replacing a receptionist who had obviously just set down their copy of Confederacy of Dunces on their desk, left, and never came back. The fantastic view from the office included a parking garage where a handful of cars on the top floor were always in the same spots because their owners were never coming back for them. Every day, I walked back and forth between Tribeca and the financial district and all those fences covered with fliers and I smoked cigarettes on the fire escape with the burning metal smell all around. And the Starbucks on the corner gave free coffee to all first responders for weeks and, it turns out, NYC cops don't just drink little paper cups of shitty street coffee. If it is free, they drink the froufiest things they can, with big plastic domes to protect the fragile dunes of whipped cream and flavored syrup drizzles. But when you live on the street that is the line where they restrict access to ground zero, then you can't get weed delivered to your apartment because of all those cops milling around with their very fancy coffees.
I don't tend to remember most things in my life, but 9-11 and the time after definitely made some lasting memories. By the next year, I was living in Brooklyn, and even there, it would come back every once in a while. Like a block party where there was a lot of sidewalk chalk, and literally every kid drew pictures of the twin towers until the street was full of poorly-drawn twin towers in every color that sidewalk chalk comes in.
All of which is to say, I don't know what. I do think we should mock the response to 9-11. But it was also a big deal. Like, I started to get really mad a few years ago when someone started 9-11 conspiracy-theorying to me. I always find that stuff super dumb and annoying, but this was really unbearable. Also, in contrast to the pretty nice film photos of 9-11, some of my first digital photos were from a super crappy StyleCam Blink at the Iraq war protest. In some ways, these photos look almost older. Hard to believe it has been 21 years.
posted by snofoam at 1:25 PM on September 12, 2022 [14 favorites]
I don't tend to remember most things in my life, but 9-11 and the time after definitely made some lasting memories. By the next year, I was living in Brooklyn, and even there, it would come back every once in a while. Like a block party where there was a lot of sidewalk chalk, and literally every kid drew pictures of the twin towers until the street was full of poorly-drawn twin towers in every color that sidewalk chalk comes in.
All of which is to say, I don't know what. I do think we should mock the response to 9-11. But it was also a big deal. Like, I started to get really mad a few years ago when someone started 9-11 conspiracy-theorying to me. I always find that stuff super dumb and annoying, but this was really unbearable. Also, in contrast to the pretty nice film photos of 9-11, some of my first digital photos were from a super crappy StyleCam Blink at the Iraq war protest. In some ways, these photos look almost older. Hard to believe it has been 21 years.
posted by snofoam at 1:25 PM on September 12, 2022 [14 favorites]
Remember when Clear Channel (now iHeartRadio) circulated that long list of songs that they didn't want their radio stations to play after 9/11, and some of the selections were super-random and weird (e.g. The Drifters' 'On Broadway,' or John Parr's 'St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion)')?
posted by box at 2:17 PM on September 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by box at 2:17 PM on September 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
Starbucks’ ‘Collapse into Cool’ Campaign.
posted by clavdivs at 2:25 PM on September 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by clavdivs at 2:25 PM on September 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
Remember when Clear Channel (now iHeartRadio) circulated that long list of songs that they didn't want their radio stations to play after 9/11, and some of the selections were super-random and weird (e.g. The Drifters' 'On Broadway,' or John Parr's 'St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion)')?
KFJC DJ Sir Cumference remembered. Listen to the whole hour from Sunday, September 11th, 2022.
posted by JDC8 at 2:53 PM on September 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
KFJC DJ Sir Cumference remembered. Listen to the whole hour from Sunday, September 11th, 2022.
posted by JDC8 at 2:53 PM on September 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
I mean, frankly, we didn't overcome. We don't own any finish lines. 9/11 was the beginning of a new era. A mostly bad one. The terrorists won.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 3:16 PM on September 12, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 3:16 PM on September 12, 2022 [11 favorites]
What the fuck was up with calling it an attack on "freedom"? How is it that less than an hour after the attack, that was the description? How did that ever make sense? Like, that never made sense to me, and nobody would ever explain what the truth was, until finally like two years ago I knuckled down with some history books. And I'm pretty sure 9/11 happened because we kept having our troops shit all over the Middle East. Right? Am I wrong about that?
You're not wrong. They pushed the narrative that "They hate us because we let women drive and show Baywatch on TV. They hate our freedom." Because most people didn't want to talk about how our foreign policy was responsible for the deaths of a lot more than 3,000 innocent people in the Middle East. And most people don't want to talk about how "they" killed 3,000 of our civilians so we responded by killing at least 100,000 civilians in a country that had nothing to do with the attack.
posted by straight at 3:27 PM on September 12, 2022 [5 favorites]
You're not wrong. They pushed the narrative that "They hate us because we let women drive and show Baywatch on TV. They hate our freedom." Because most people didn't want to talk about how our foreign policy was responsible for the deaths of a lot more than 3,000 innocent people in the Middle East. And most people don't want to talk about how "they" killed 3,000 of our civilians so we responded by killing at least 100,000 civilians in a country that had nothing to do with the attack.
posted by straight at 3:27 PM on September 12, 2022 [5 favorites]
Do you make jokes and want to forget Pearl Harbor as well?
In this post-Pearl Harbor world, people don't trust their fellow man the way they once did.
posted by Apocryphon at 4:26 PM on September 12, 2022
In this post-Pearl Harbor world, people don't trust their fellow man the way they once did.
posted by Apocryphon at 4:26 PM on September 12, 2022
The big difference between Pearl Harbor and 9/11 is that nobody believed FDR did Pearl Harbor.
(OK, there was probably somebody. But in 1962, I don't think that there was a healthy-sized community of people saying that Pearl Harbor was faked or that the government let it happen for its own nefarious interests.)
posted by kingdead at 1:27 AM on September 13, 2022
(OK, there was probably somebody. But in 1962, I don't think that there was a healthy-sized community of people saying that Pearl Harbor was faked or that the government let it happen for its own nefarious interests.)
posted by kingdead at 1:27 AM on September 13, 2022
I expect no one is reading this thread at this point, but I've been mulling it over for a bit, so am going to comment anyway.
I said in a metatalk thread about 9/11 from 2013, that: It is good to remember that history is the story of individuals, not just countries, and wars. I think this current thread reinforces my opinion that we can't let politics, and what came after, make us forget the individuals affected.
I was in the DC area on 9/11 and wrote up my memories of that day and posted them in that thread. A few days after 9/11, my co-workers looked at me like I was crazy when I wondered aloud who the U.S. was going to go to war with as a result of 9/11. I was very disappointed when my prediction came true. Also, we got Trump, not just endless wars, and I have personally interacted with Afghans and Iraqis affected by the wars.
But, the things I can't get out of my head are the live feeds that were broadcast by stations like CNN on 9/11 (and repeated later in the day). They were unedited and some of that footage has never been rebroadcast after that day out of respect for the dead. I saw it though, and I can't unsee it, and I feel like I have to remember out of respect for the dead. The jumpers from the burning towers, some holding hands as they fell, taking the only "escape" option they had left. The awful chirping of the PASS devices (special beepers that sound when a firefighter lies motionless) sounding in the dusty hellscape of the tower wreckage. Also, 9/11 left a big gap in the alumni from my New Jersey university.
So, I get the contempt for the jingoism that followed, because I feel it myself, and I get how repulsive it is that the tragedy of that day was used and misused for political purposes. But I can't forget the people from that day, and I don't want to distance myself from all those individuals while I have the ability to remember that they lived, and that they mattered to people.
posted by gudrun at 6:04 AM on September 13, 2022 [13 favorites]
I said in a metatalk thread about 9/11 from 2013, that: It is good to remember that history is the story of individuals, not just countries, and wars. I think this current thread reinforces my opinion that we can't let politics, and what came after, make us forget the individuals affected.
I was in the DC area on 9/11 and wrote up my memories of that day and posted them in that thread. A few days after 9/11, my co-workers looked at me like I was crazy when I wondered aloud who the U.S. was going to go to war with as a result of 9/11. I was very disappointed when my prediction came true. Also, we got Trump, not just endless wars, and I have personally interacted with Afghans and Iraqis affected by the wars.
But, the things I can't get out of my head are the live feeds that were broadcast by stations like CNN on 9/11 (and repeated later in the day). They were unedited and some of that footage has never been rebroadcast after that day out of respect for the dead. I saw it though, and I can't unsee it, and I feel like I have to remember out of respect for the dead. The jumpers from the burning towers, some holding hands as they fell, taking the only "escape" option they had left. The awful chirping of the PASS devices (special beepers that sound when a firefighter lies motionless) sounding in the dusty hellscape of the tower wreckage. Also, 9/11 left a big gap in the alumni from my New Jersey university.
So, I get the contempt for the jingoism that followed, because I feel it myself, and I get how repulsive it is that the tragedy of that day was used and misused for political purposes. But I can't forget the people from that day, and I don't want to distance myself from all those individuals while I have the ability to remember that they lived, and that they mattered to people.
posted by gudrun at 6:04 AM on September 13, 2022 [13 favorites]
Jesus that original thread. I don't think I ever read it before. (The internet where I lived went down almost immediately that day, so even if I had known about MeFi I wouldn't have been able to see it.) But uh, in case you were feeling bad about making a light comment 21 years on...in that very thread, right after the towers collapse, someone posts "Woo hoo!"
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:59 AM on September 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:59 AM on September 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
so we responded by killing at least 100,000 civilians in a country that had nothing to do with the attack.
for the record, the current body count is 288,000 and counting. Counting because people don't stop dying just because some fool declares MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
posted by philip-random at 8:02 AM on September 13, 2022 [7 favorites]
for the record, the current body count is 288,000 and counting. Counting because people don't stop dying just because some fool declares MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
posted by philip-random at 8:02 AM on September 13, 2022 [7 favorites]
Yeah, when I'm ranting about it I usually just say "over 100,000" which is sufficiently morally outrageous and avoids quibbling about whose estimates are right. But the "and counting" part is very important and shouldn't be omitted.
posted by straight at 8:43 AM on September 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by straight at 8:43 AM on September 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
"Bullets in Envelopes: Iraqi Academics in Exile"
this is where my thoughts went on Sept. 11th
posted by elkevelvet at 8:45 AM on September 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
this is where my thoughts went on Sept. 11th
posted by elkevelvet at 8:45 AM on September 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
I just can't even pretend to give a shit any longer. I'm sorry if that's offensive - but not actually all that sorry - if you care about Sept 11, you've no sense of perspective or actual ethics.
We spent billions and killed millions destroying a country that had nothing to do with it, tortured people (some of whom are still in prison - thanks for delivering on those campaign promises Obama!), are still engaging in absurd and outrageously expensive security theater that makes the world worse, created a new and horrifyingly unaccountable national security agency, and yet can't bother to ask people to wear masks when facing an actual existential threat. (Let's not get into climate change.) Nationalism is a disease that ruins lives. US nationalism is a disease that ruins billions of lives.
I'm done with the DNC. All of them. Even the good ones are absolute shit. If Biden is our best hope, we should all just give up and walk into the sea. (I remain hopeful. No because of anybody who has been elected. Well, maybe one or two of them.)
posted by eotvos at 1:43 PM on September 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
We spent billions and killed millions destroying a country that had nothing to do with it, tortured people (some of whom are still in prison - thanks for delivering on those campaign promises Obama!), are still engaging in absurd and outrageously expensive security theater that makes the world worse, created a new and horrifyingly unaccountable national security agency, and yet can't bother to ask people to wear masks when facing an actual existential threat. (Let's not get into climate change.) Nationalism is a disease that ruins lives. US nationalism is a disease that ruins billions of lives.
I'm done with the DNC. All of them. Even the good ones are absolute shit. If Biden is our best hope, we should all just give up and walk into the sea. (I remain hopeful. No because of anybody who has been elected. Well, maybe one or two of them.)
posted by eotvos at 1:43 PM on September 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
I remember the punk rock message board I was in had people live posting the attack on the Pentagon as it happened.
Later, they were harassed and doxxed by 9/11 truthers for YEARS. These people were convinced that certain posters were CIA
The internet has always been terrible as a community
posted by eustatic at 8:07 PM on September 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
Later, they were harassed and doxxed by 9/11 truthers for YEARS. These people were convinced that certain posters were CIA
The internet has always been terrible as a community
posted by eustatic at 8:07 PM on September 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
Does anyone else remember reading that Cheney ordered the 4th plane to be shot down? Did I dream that?
posted by eustatic at 8:16 PM on September 13, 2022
posted by eustatic at 8:16 PM on September 13, 2022
May not have... there were a number of incredible rumors floating around that day and days after. I can't pinpoint one as I was just shy of teen age and most everything was a blur.
posted by JoeXIII007 at 8:26 PM on September 13, 2022
posted by JoeXIII007 at 8:26 PM on September 13, 2022
Metafilter: some know-it-all lefty blogger who would gladly explain that those undercurrents had always been there
posted by viborg at 9:31 AM on September 14, 2022
posted by viborg at 9:31 AM on September 14, 2022
We really have to litigate every single joke on here now tho? The defensiveness over humor that is distinctly punching up does NOT seem like typical fare here.
posted by viborg at 9:31 AM on September 14, 2022
posted by viborg at 9:31 AM on September 14, 2022
Does anyone else remember reading that Cheney ordered the 4th plane to be shot down?
Cheney gave the order, but, fog of war or whatever, it never made its way to the fighter pilots.
posted by box at 10:03 AM on September 14, 2022 [2 favorites]
Cheney gave the order, but, fog of war or whatever, it never made its way to the fighter pilots.
posted by box at 10:03 AM on September 14, 2022 [2 favorites]
Some of us would disagree that jokes about 9/11 are punching up. Regular people died horrific deaths. If we're gonna go with the actual event vs. symbol framing, it would perhaps behoove people who only see it as a symbol to keep in mind that your audience might include victims and witnesses. And I try to remind myself that the jokesters are (hopefully) talking about the symbol and the aftermath.
posted by Mavri at 10:14 AM on September 14, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by Mavri at 10:14 AM on September 14, 2022 [5 favorites]
What Mavri said, a thousand percent.
posted by jgirl at 10:30 AM on September 14, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by jgirl at 10:30 AM on September 14, 2022 [2 favorites]
The big difference between Pearl Harbor and 9/11 is that nobody believed FDR did Pearl Harbor.
(OK, there was probably somebody. But in 1962, I don't think that there was a healthy-sized community of people saying that Pearl Harbor was faked or that the government let it happen for its own nefarious interests.)
Which is really just saying that the internet didn't exist in 1962. But the theory that FDR knew that it was coming and deliberately did nothing to get America to join the war sure did exist well before that; one Navy guy is quoted as believing "that we were [deliberately] pushing Japan into a corner", which is not to say that he believed that Pearl Harbor was some sort of false-flag operation with P-38s painted to look like Zeros or something, but it's not far off.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:50 AM on September 14, 2022 [2 favorites]
(OK, there was probably somebody. But in 1962, I don't think that there was a healthy-sized community of people saying that Pearl Harbor was faked or that the government let it happen for its own nefarious interests.)
Which is really just saying that the internet didn't exist in 1962. But the theory that FDR knew that it was coming and deliberately did nothing to get America to join the war sure did exist well before that; one Navy guy is quoted as believing "that we were [deliberately] pushing Japan into a corner", which is not to say that he believed that Pearl Harbor was some sort of false-flag operation with P-38s painted to look like Zeros or something, but it's not far off.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:50 AM on September 14, 2022 [2 favorites]
Another big difference between 9/11 and Pearl Harbor is the latter is rapidly fading from living memory. And children of those who fought or died are seniors now.
posted by jgirl at 3:06 PM on September 14, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by jgirl at 3:06 PM on September 14, 2022 [2 favorites]
I mean, frankly, we didn't overcome. We don't own any finish lines
Unless the finish line is "sucking up to the Saudis to get them to pump more oil while ignoring their inconvenient involvement in 9/11"; Biden is definitely owning that one.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 5:24 PM on September 14, 2022
Unless the finish line is "sucking up to the Saudis to get them to pump more oil while ignoring their inconvenient involvement in 9/11"; Biden is definitely owning that one.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 5:24 PM on September 14, 2022
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posted by box at 3:56 PM on September 11, 2022