posted
Yesterday as i rode the late bus(track practice) i noticed an untended memorial garden for those who lost their lives on 9/11. Weeds and patches of grass plague it. At first it was beautiful. Flowers everywhere and two trees resembling the towers. But after the years people forgot of how we united and some returned to their shelfish ways. Now i'm not saying all of us are like this. I now alot of people that still do things out of good will. But it seems to me that the world around me is like this. This world still has some good in it.
Posts: 262 | Registered: Jan 2005
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I try to actively avoid becoming the kind of person that takes things for granted and chooses to forget difficult memories. I think Khalil Gibran said it best - "the more sorrow carves out of you, the more joy you are able to contain"
Posts: 262 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
9-11 was tragic, but the overwhelming outpouring of sympathy and community couldn't be sustained indefinitely. That doesn't minimize the scope of the attacks or it's effects on people, but life moves on, and every day taht it does, 9-11 becomes more of a cultural touchstone that is removed from our daily thoughts.
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posted
It's still early in the year. It could be that the committee who takes care of the memorial haven't had the opportunity to come out and freshen it up yet.
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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posted
That's why, like it or not, statues and other stone or metal works make better memorials than gardens. Gardens need tending. But even an untended statue can be moving. Inscriptions in stone do a better job than trees and flowers, at better job of reminding people of the thing that we want never to forget.
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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posted
But do keep in mind: One reason we forget is that NOBODY SHOWS THE FOOTAGE.
That was a deliberate decision, to avoid inflaming Americans and stirring our passions. And then later to avoid letting pro-Iraq-war candidates from benefitting from the re-arousal of public opinion. The ABSENCE of that footage is a political act.
And it's part of the reason we forget. We take it for granted that everyone "remembers." But memory fades.
I wish someone would have the guts to make copies available on DVD or for download. so maybe we CAN remember.
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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posted
"I wish someone would have the guts to make copies available on DVD or for download. so maybe we CAN remember."
I'm going to have to disagree with you, y'know. The valuable part of that memory isn't the video of the planes hitting the towers, or of the towers falling -- and plenty of us still have forms of that footage around.
The valuable part, the part worth remembering, is how the entire country took a deep breath and, for a brief second, was united in mourning if not in purpose. And that wasn't on TV.
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posted
I know this post might be seen as controversial, but how about putting a memorial beside it for the innocent Iraqis and even Afghanistanis that died in the War on Terror.
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posted
"I know this post might be seen as controversial, but how about putting a memorial beside it for the innocent Iraqis and even Afghanistanis that died in the War on Terror."
I don't think we should associate the 9/11 attack with our "War on Terror," period; a memorial doing so would not only be subversive but pointless.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Morbo, your first link doesn't haave any video (it has links to it, but the video itself is no longer there) and a lot of the links in the secon are broken. It's basically all been taken down.
posted
I would say that the images and video are necessary to remember. Without understanding the true horror of this atrocity, what are we remembering, after all?
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quote: I don't think we should associate the 9/11 attack with our "War on Terror," period; a memorial doing so would not only be subversive but pointless.
Tom, I disagree with putting a memorial to innocent victims of Iraq and Afghanistan next to a 9-11 memorial. Having said that, it's naive to think that the two are unconnected. Our "War on Terror" would never have happened if not for 9-11.
Posts: 1480 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
We declared War on Terror after the terrorists struck us at home. This is a war on TERROR, not a war specifically on bin laden or al-queda. The videos should be shown, and shown a lot more than it is.
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posted
and a memorial for the innocent Kosovians we bombed from 30,000 feet. Oh wait, different President...
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posted
One of the biggest tragedies of post-9/11 for me was that there was this tremendous opportunity for transforming America's social character that wasn't used to bring us closer together. Our leaders (on both sides of the aisle in politics, as well as those in industry, religion, entertainment, acedemia, etc.) were either unable or unwilling to work for this.
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I don't know about the video argument. While I don't know that the hypersensitivity that we displayed was a healthy thing to do, I feel that people who need to see the pictures and videos to feel the "real impact" of the event are incapable of actually understadning the real impact. Rather, the impact people are talking about is a largely emotional gut reaction that I think is not well linked to actually understanding the impact. Indeed, as the Bush Adminstration's successful attempts to link 9/11 to Iraq showed, the emotional impact of this event can and was put to the purpose of clouding people's judgement.
posted
If we put a memorial to the Taliban's and Sadaam's victims right alongside it.
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good point! I forgot about how we brought Saddam and the Taliban to power in the first place and are therefor partially responsible, thanks for reminding me.
Posts: 95 | Registered: May 2005
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Did anyone else see that "Frontline" on PBS earlier this week showing the lost footage of what allied forces found when they liberated various German concentration camps? Filmmakers (including Alfred Hitchcock) showed the thousands and thousands of bodies being thrown into pits, some of the most horrific footage I've ever seen in my life.
The point? A memory has been passed on to ME. The holocaust wasn't simply a movie, or an exaggeration. It was real. It's wasn't just about Jews––though 6 million died, there were 11 million in total, millions of all nationalities, religions.
Though a garden is tough to keep up, there are some things that need remembering so it never happens again. Hopefully 9/11, and its implications, will be taught for many years to come.
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posted
9/11 will be in history books for many years to come, not only for the tragedy suffered that day, but for many of the actions it spurned. Good and Bad.
A memorial is an offering to the dead, a little something to let them be remembered by. Its not so we remeber the event, but so we remember all those who died in the event.
A garden, in my opinion, is not a long term memorial. I personally believe a long term memorial will be integrated into whatever is built where the twin towers once stood. At least i hope so.
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posted
I beg to differ. A garden is a perfect memorial. It DOES change, just the way life goes on. When we come together, it flourishes beautifully. When we don't, it goes wild, but it still LIVES.
9/11 is my birthday. There has to be life, and going on, and not a dwelling in darkness. One should never forget the death that always exists in life, and the life that death makes possible.
When my husband and I were dating, he took me to a monument at his workplace. On it were the names of company workers who had died in a plane crash while on a business trip. It was a reminder to live each moment fully, for your time may come unexpectedly.
I think that is what we need to remember. A garden heals. I think that's what it's for.
As for replaying the events of 9/11/01 - why? Why keep playing over horror? I'm not saying we should forget or gloss it over. But it's important to recognize a moment and then go on best we can with what we've learned from it. No one is healed by dwelling in depression or fixating on the past.
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That is beyond ridiculous. The fact of the matter is the event brought home to everyone just how vulnerable we were and helps us keep assessing how vulnerable we still are. It was a wake-up call to everyone in the world. It told us that our life is now different - there is an enemy nearby, one who is a religious fanatic, one who does not value human life and hates us all, innocent or not. We were onto the problem a long time ago, we knew Usama was in Afghanistan training up terrorists but before we did nothing of any effect. 9-11 taught us that you cannot wait for the enemy to make the first attack, this is not like the Cold War and MAD, there is no specific place to launch our missiles, in fact the missiles don't do us a whole lot of good on this type of enemy, something we never would have found out if it wasnt for 9-11 and our swift and successful response.
Someone above said it well, the Iraq War and the battles in Afghanistan were not seperate enterprises, they both had the same goal in mind, intimidating and eradicating all who would endanger freedom-loving citizens of the world. 9-11 is the only response to those who question the policy of pre-emption. 9-11 has now ushered in a new era of freedom in Afghanistan and Iraq, and those countries will forever serve as a beacon of liberty to the rest of the middle east and as a constant reminder of the long arm of the American military. God willing, 9-11 will help us to never forget that our freedom is not free and that it has been and will continue to be paid for by selfless and courageous Americans.
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quote: I would argue that 9/11 isn't one of those things, however; it teaches us no lessons
Tom, for someone as liberal and smart as you appear to be, you must be able to see the far-reaching ripples this event has and will have of the course of human events...even if it doesn't agree with your politics.
9/11 has resonance more for its symbolism than the death toll or monetary damage. It represents a powerful catalyst that will lead to a much different Middle East over the next fifty years.
Posts: 325 | Registered: Dec 2004
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quote: That is beyond ridiculous. The fact of the matter is the event brought home to everyone just how vulnerable we were and helps us keep assessing how vulnerable we still are. It was a wake-up call to everyone in the world. It told us that our life is now different - there is an enemy nearby, one who is a religious fanatic, one who does not value human life and hates us all, innocent or not.
If that's the singular "lesson" you "learned" from this, I'm profoundly sorry for you.
quote: It represents a powerful catalyst that will lead to a much different Middle East over the next fifty years.
Except that it doesn't. The decision to invade Iraq, for example, was made well before the attacks; a justification would have been found if one had not presented itself. Had we used the near-universal goodwill resulting from that event to any productive end, perhaps it would indeed have been a "catalyst" for change; as it is, it's merely one of those landmark, symptomatic events -- like the sinking of the Maine -- that is mistaken for a cause.
posted
Jenny, I definitly I appreciate that aspect, but it also seems to me that the point of a memorial is to keep that part of history/the world from being changed. The fact that life changes at all is why we have memorials. Or that's how it looks to me but that's just a gut reaction I guess.
posted
I don't say that 9/11 was the sole cause of recent events, but I do think it was the shout that loosened the heavy snow that made the avalanche.
I am of the belief that this business in Iraq, right or wrong (I think it's a bit of both), was advanced due to 9/11. That event has led to Homeland Security and those great Orange Alerts, the era of an updated Intelligence system, action in Afganistan, and the seeds of democratic changes in many Middle Eastern nations.
I doubt that Bush would have driven so hard into Iraq without 9/11. The disaster gave him moral credence, at least in his eyes. I wonder what people would have thought if he had done nothing?
To presume that such an event has no long-term effects is exactly what causes civilizations to repeat their mistakes. Nothing happens in a vaccum. Clearly the effects are regarded as having more weight; this topic didn't get started regarding the Oklahoma City bombing, did it?
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posted
I'd love to be on a moral high-horse and make like I'm so enlightened that acts of terrorism have no effect on me...
...but if that is what enlightenment means, I'll have none of it. Furthermore, if the sight of people falling off the towers doesn't raise emotion, than there is something wrong with the viewer.
Ya know what? I don't really care how mad the terrorists are. If murder is wrong, it doesn't become any less wrong because the murderer is "angry". That's a pathetic excuse for cowardice and failure to oppose evil. If not a sneaky way to embrace the evil because we think, down inside, that it might further our own agenda.
We should remember. We should learn the lesson that there are people who hate us enough to kill us. And we should learn and live the lesson that we should do what we must to stop them. Not because we hate them, but for our own survival. In memory of our God, our religion and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children.
posted
I don't know tern, so I'm not sure whether that's subtle anti-Bush/fundamentalist Christian satire or not. If it is, it's well done.
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posted
"Furthermore, if the sight of people falling off the towers doesn't raise emotion, than there is something wrong with the viewer."
Not everything which provokes an emotion teaches a lesson worth learning, I'm afraid. In fact, I'd argue that the vast majority of things that provoke emotion are ill-suited to teaching anyone anything.
"Ya know what? I don't really care how mad the terrorists are. If murder is wrong, it doesn't become any less wrong because the murderer is 'angry.'"
I don't see anyone here making this argument. To whom are you speaking?
"We should remember. We should learn the lesson that there are people who hate us enough to kill us."
Explain to me again why this is a valuable lesson...?
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"this topic didn't get started regarding the Oklahoma City bombing, did it?"
Has anyone been to the Oklahoma City memorial lately? How's it looking?
posted
Wouldn't it be interesting if 9/11 were the only historical event in ... er ... history that had no lessons to teach us.
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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posted
In prehistoric times, as man was learning to understand the world around him, he might have stumbled upon the fact that poisonous snakes can kill you if you let them get too close.
This would have been a valuable lesson for him to learn, it would increase his chances of survival and allow him (if he was smart and wanted to survive) to change his behavior to lessen the amount of danger facing him due to snakes.
That is the type of lesson that I am speaking of when I refer to 9-11 and its lessons.
We now see just how dangerous the poisonous snakes of the world have become and we must face them head on.
There are only three options in dealing with poisonous snakes that you want to avoid being killed by, you must either destroy them, hide from them or remove their venom.
The past battles in Afghanistan and Iraq were efforts to destroy them, the current efforts in those countries are efforts to remove their venom by bringing democracy, hope and healing to places where they have never been before.
Posts: 201 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
"Wouldn't it be interesting if 9/11 were the only historical event in ... er ... history that had no lessons to teach us."
It would. But it wouldn't be the first such event.
9/11 is a convenient blank slate onto which people can project their own meanings; there's a lot of emotion attached, so it's very easy for someone to seize hold of that emotion and say, "Look, because we care SO MUCH about this, because we're SO emotional, this event -- which clearly means THIS specific thing -- is of vital importance, and thus we need to pay heed to the lesson that I believe it teaches us."
But it's like interpreting scripture, or trying to read tea leaves, or any number of other things -- like, say, the time your uncle nearly died of cancer but got better -- that we can SAY have meaning, but which ultimately only have the meaning we bring to it.
The "lesson" of 9/11 is that desperate people will do desperate things. We can project other imaginary lessons onto the event, but that's all those "lessons" are: projections, possible interpretations from hindsight and bias.
Looking at Roy's post, for example, we see that he has learned no lesson; he clearly started out believing that there are poisonous snakes in the world, and that poisonous snakes should be killed. He sees the "lesson" of 9/11 here: a mirror of something he already believed, a kind of justification for his existing worldview.
Most people do that, liberal OR conservative. And that's the danger of "lessons:" they always somehow wind up saying what you want them to say, and carry with them the emotional impact of the event -- thus becoming a sort of gospel. How dare someone challenge your interpretation of this huge, emotionally-loaded thing, after all?
But that's not a good way to respond. It's certainly not a good way to learn any lessons, at least not when you want to learn anything true.
So I'm always very leery of people who're willing to use events like 9/11 as shorthand for their own ambitions. It always stinks of convenience.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
It sounds like an issue of semantics. True, we will judge the lessons of 9/11 based on who's ultimately writing its history––the lessons of Pearl Harbor may be much different in Japanese textbooks than in the U.S. A "lesson" is in the eye of the beholder.
But to presume 9/11 holds no special significance at all, that it is simply the holy grail of those whose politics you disagree, smacks of being so narrow-minded I wonder if you're just saying it to get a rise out of us. Regardless of one's feelings on the matter, the event happened, people responded, and those behaviors have changed our society in subtle (and not so subtle) ways. I believe this current action has led the Middle East down a path that will make it a far different place over the next couple of decades.
I'd love to see the evidence that Bush would have followed the same course of action without 9/11.
History is a funny thing. If the Japanese hadn't bombed Pearl Harbor my grandfather (who was there in the middle of it) wouldn't have been moved to a different ship which was berthed in a different town which led to his meeting my grandmother which led to their marriage and the creation of my mother which soon led to their moving to a place where my mother met my father and that led to the creation of me.
If Pearl Harbor didn't exist, neither would I. And if 9/11 didn't exist, current events would be much different. What lessons there are in that, I suppose, are up to each of us.
Posts: 325 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
"I'd love to see the evidence that Bush would have followed the same course of action without 9/11."
Bush had already begun talking about plans for an invasion of Iraq several months before 9/11, and his Defense Secretary belonged to a PAC that specifically recommended inventing an excuse -- if necessary -- to invade Iraq in order to begin projecting American power in the region. An invasion, once Bush was elected, was inevitable; all that remained was the excuse.
9/11 was convenient for Bush, but it also meant that he had to invade a country he didn't really care about -- Afghanistan -- in order to get the deployment in order for Iraq.
I have no doubt that it also led him to seriously reconsider some American policies, and firmly committed him to the neocons in his cabinet. It had, in other words, some effect.
But there's no need to give it any more importance than it deserves. It was a terrible, terrible thing, yes -- but the "lessons" most people project onto it are lessons they wish everyone to embrace, not lessons they've actually learned. Frankly, I suspect that the whole conduct of the "War on Terror" will be, in ten years' time, a far more important object lesson -- one way or another. If it works, people will take valuable lessons from it; if it does not work, people will take valuable lessons from that. And that's perfectly normal and understandable. But there simply aren't that many valuable "lessons" to take away from 9/11, especially not this close to the attack itself.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I think this Tom Davidson chap is a genius in saying that people take whatever lesson they want from things to try and prove what they already believe...
One may say 9/11 is proof that we have enemies we must fight... One may say 9/11 is proof of the failure of American foreign policy and imperialism...
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Ray Hobbs: We now see just how dangerous the poisonous snakes of the world have become and we must face them head on.
Would you ever consider that under some circumstances WE can be the poisonous snake?
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posted
Now, in Roy's defense, I do not believe that America in this specific case has been a "poisonous snake" to Arabia. We're certainly a threat to what some of them consider their way of life -- we're expansionist fundamentalist Christians that have built a society on the manipulation of debt and principles of social and fiscal equity, after all -- and so I can understand their fear and hostility, but I do not consider those to be valid justifications for killing three thousand civilians in cold blood.
Our own sins -- which are many -- should not be used as excuses by our enemies. For that matter, the sins of our enemies should not be used as convenient excuses to visit atrocity unto them.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Certainly not invade Iraq, a sovereign state that has never threatened to attack us or one of our allies, nor had the ability to do so and had no hand in Spetember 11th whatsoever.
I must make it absolutely clear that I have not and do not think 9/11 was or can be justified in any way, I just don't think using it as an excuse to throw our weight around and kill more innocent people for the interests of those who decieved us into complying was an apt response. If anything this has created MORE anti-American feeling and puts the west at MORE risk of terrorist attack.
Posts: 95 | Registered: May 2005
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quote: Certainly not invade Iraq, a sovereign state that has never threatened to attack us or one of our allies...
Let's be fair, here. Hussein had in fact threatened to destroy us many times, and has attacked our allies. Moreover, Iraq was clearly in violation of its terms of surrender, and thus the United Nations should have seen fit -- although they did not -- to approve our casus belli.
That is beyond ridiculous. The fact of the matter is the event brought home to everyone just how vulnerable we were and helps us keep assessing how vulnerable we still are.
We learned many lessons but have implemented almost nothing to avoid the exact same situation. A wonderful example of this was when a major U.S. agency decided that it was too expensive to close a major loop-hole in our security because the proposal provided was too expensive. Not deemed unecesary or unreasonable, just too expensive to do.
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posted
Just because an event merely reinforces a previously held belief doesn't make it not a lesson.
A lesson doesn't have to be something new - this is something I observe in my math courses quite a bit.
quote: I don't know tern, so I'm not sure whether that's subtle anti-Bush/fundamentalist Christian satire or not. If it is, it's well done.
Dang! Almost wish that I wasn't somewhat of a "Christian fundie" (as defined these days...) Alas, it's hyperbole, that being something I'm rather fond of.
TD, the part about anger being an excuse wasn't directed at anyone on this board necessarily, but rather at the attitudes prevalent at what passes for my university. Ya know, roosting chickens & whatnot. I'm curious - how is learning that someone wants to kill us not a valuable lesson.
If I know that say, my neighbor hates me (maybe because in this fantasy, I have a really really nice house, and he has a trailer, and he's jealous, maybe because my wild parties keep him up all night), would that be useful to know so that I can take precautions?
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The valuable part of that memory isn't the video of the planes hitting the towers, or of the towers falling -- and plenty of us still have forms of that footage around.
