USA should stop living in the past and move away from 9-11

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Link to original post: [drupal=4630]Us should stop living in the past and move away from 9-11[/drupal]



I do not mean this as disrespect to the many people that died on that day, nor to the efforts of the people working after the tragic event.

This is something I think needs to be said. We are living constantly in the past with 9-11 and can't move forward from it. We are living in the past by clinging onto this event and never move forward from this moment, I get that it is a tragic event but when the news and multiple people seem to always want to keep bringing up the event itself I can't help but feel like we aren't even trying to see what we can to do for today by continuously talking and reliving those events that happened on that day. We can't sit here and relive and relearn these events when we have other issues at hand with the US. we can relive the events if brought, but we seem to do nothing but talk about it.

World War 2 with Pearl harbor never gets talked about much. Nothing about the the wars following it nearly or at all compared to 9-11.

I don't quite understand why this event is being relived or talked about more for history than other events, many of which are debate-ably worse in some cases. My first assumption is because it is a recent event, which probably is the most likely scenario. If so even though 10 years have past, we still are trying to relive it instead of moving on to learn and work on the future issues and problems.

We do have troops out in the middle east, but sooner or later they are gonna be pulled out and sent home.

Again nothing about this is meant to be offensive and I am sorry if it does, but I can't understand why ten years later, we can't move on and work on our current problems, rather than working on trying to relive an old tragedy. Why is 9-11 more important than other bad events, and why can't we learn from it and focus on the future which is what matters more.

 

[¯\_S.(ツ).L.I.D._/¯]

I don't know what makes you think that we aren't moving forward and looking after our current needs. Your post makes it seem like the US constantly talks about 9/11 and nothing else, which is entirely false. Tomorrow is the 10th anniversary, and nothing on that scale has happened since in our country, of course it's getting publicity. People don't talk about WWII or Pearl Harbor as much anymore because a) they happened a long time ago and b) the people that were involved are getting older. 9/11 was something that affected every generation, not just a generation of people that are currently dying off or dead (in the WWII example).

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

I feel like it is constantly brought up tbh.

I don't see the relevance for News stations to look at kids born on that day unless their parents died on that day, which is understandable. Some News stations were looking at kids just because they were born on that day and I never understood why it mattered compared to others like how the Today show did a Give a Wish foundation for kids whose parents died on that day.;

Even with other countries that get hit by earthquakes, typhoons and other disasters it doesn't seem to be as much as the US talks about for this event.

 

[Vinylic.]

Ryu, please don't state the obvious like I once did. This will affect some of the people around SWF!

 

[Mic_128]

Gotta agree. It's mentioned almost non-stop from about August every year.

 

[¯\_S.(ツ).L.I.D._/¯]

I feel like it is constantly brought up tbh.

Then you don't watch the news.

I don't see the relevance for News stations to look at kids born on that day unless their parents died on that day, which is understandable. Some News stations were looking at kids just because they were born on that day and I never understood why it mattered compared to others like how the Today show did a Give a Wish foundation for kids whose parents died on that day.;

There's a distinction to be made between it being 'always talked about' and people delving into unnecessary discussions about it surrounding the anniversary. If the latter is your point, then I agree. Also I'd be willing to bet that you watched the news for 10 minutes on one station, saw someone looking at children born on that day, and are now claiming that it's happened repeatedly. If not, please correct me though.

Even with other countries that get hit by earthquakes, typhoons and other disasters it doesn't seem to be as much as the US talks about for this event.

I don't understand your point. Are you saying that at the time of an earthquake in another country, the US discusses 9/11 more than that earthquake? If so, that's completely false.

 

[Zankoku]

The only place I heard about 9/11 coming up is here on Smashboards, so I can't claim to share OP's experience. Maybe it has to do with the proximity to New York?

 

[Spelt]

I didn't hear about 9/11 once this year until yesterday.

And yeah, this is the only place I am hearing about it at all.

 

[Alien Vision]

I concur.

It's simply the past.

 

[Deleted member]

I think the whole "we will never forget" quote from a popular sign on 9/11 comes into play here. It's only a huge subject now because of its 10th anniversary, but things will probably simmer down next year.

But the reason because we don't talk about Pearl Harbor in relation to 9/11 is because this was the most deadly attack on American soil, and it didn't only kill people in NYC.

 

[Falconv1.0]

I think either way the media needs to stop pretending people care as much as they'd like to pretend, with all this pre 9/11 coverage that has been getting consistently less and less attention, it's ****in' stupid.

 

[Teran]

Holy **** it's September 11th LOL

It's weird you hear jokes being cracked nonstop but it never really registers the day is coming up until it does.

Also I can't believe it was a whole 10 years ago now, I can still remember the discussion the in school the day after clear as day.

 

[Sucumbio]

Noun Verb 9/11, it was the mantra of many politicians following the incident, to the 2008 election, right through to the staging of the upcoming republican primaries. I agree that the coverage of the event is overdone. True this is the 10th anniversary, so it'll get more than usual, but usual is still more than needs be.

Then again I've no experience (nor does anyone here methinks) on what news/media was like 10 years after Pearl Harbor. I'm sure it wasn't just another day in the news, but rather it received specific attention comparative to today's standards of media hype. It'll take several more decades to go by before "9/11" becomes a strange utterance at worst, and a lmgtfy at best.

 

[Jam Stunna]

I think the comparison between 9/11 and Pearl Harbor is problematic, but since it's already been made:
-Pearl Harbor happened seventy years ago. That's why no one talks about it anymore.
-There were actually more casualties on 9/11 than 12/07/41.
-As shocking as Pearl Harbor was, it wasn't without context. After all, WW II had been going on for two years already, and the U.S. was basically already in the war thanks to our wide-open support of the Allies and our embargo of Japan. 9/11, on the other hand, seemed to come out of the clear blue sky for almost everyone.

The world fundamentally changed after 9/11. The American national security apparatus morphed into something terrifying (http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/monitoring-america/), there have been two wars (three if you count the War on Terror and the associated strikes in Pakistan and elsewhere as something separate), several leaders from that part of the world have been driven out of power, and the list goes on and on. Whether or not you agree with the various decisions that have been made, there's no denying that U.S. foreign policy since 9/11 has changed the world.

9/11 was the most important day since the Berlin Wall fell in a geopolitical sense. It was the most devastating day since the Cuban Missile Crisis in the psychological and emotional sense. We'll be living in the "post-9/11" world for years, maybe decades. That's why we don't move on, because it really was that important.

 

[OmegaXXII]

God damn, 10 years right now? Hey at least Bin Laden is dead right? He was a couple months off from this, No disrespect intended.

 

[Fuujin]

I was reading the funnies in the news paper today and one of the comics was just the characters saluting the flag saying "never forget".
THATS NOT FUNNY!!!

 

[Teran]

I was reading the funnies in the news paper today and one of the comics was just the characters saluting the flag saying "never forget".
THATS NOT FUNNY!!!

Looooool really? Wow ow about that.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

Well, while we certainly shouldn't forget this event happened. Much like how we shouldn't forget the other dark moments in history.

It is still the most powerful event that has happened to the US in a very long time and you cannot expect people to simply "move on" that quickly. These times of remembrance are important for propaganda and a testament to what sort of beliefs to believe in as a whole nation (for those with lost ones and those completely unaffected).

Without this event to remember, we go back to our lives giving very little thought to concepts and major issues.

 

[Jim Morrison]

The only thing that really bothers me about this 10-year-happening, is that 9/11 week on National Geographic with nothing but 9/11 documentaries. I don't even LIVE in America and it's a whole week...

Oh well, it's over now and my life goes on. I guess I don't mind people who reflect back on 9/11.

 

[Pink Reaper]

Knock knock

Who's there?

9/11

9/11 who?

YOU SAID YOU'D NEVER FORGET!

 

[Skadorski]

First off gonna say that I didn't hear anything about 9/11 today/yesterday except for the news and I realized it was 9/11 today by accidentally looking at my computer clock. Anyway, I don't think we're living in the past with 9/11, just remembering that there are people who want to kill us and remembering the lives of the ones that died. And I see why the news talks about it because it is still pretty recent and most definitely devastating.
However.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...-45-terror-plots-foiled-in-last-10-years.html
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread750622/pg1
There are still people trying to attack us. Yes, over 10 years 45 attack attempts really isn't bad but people still would have died.
2¢

 

[Strong Badam]

The main difference between 9/11 and Pearl Harbor was that in Pearl Harbor, the target was a naval base. People who had already decided to put their lives in harm's way to protect our country. That doesn't mean to say that their lives were any less important, or that the event was less tragic, but:
Most of the victims (rescuers and most of the people that were actually in the Pentagon that day) of 9/11 were normal people, people who just happened to be there that day, or had to be there because of work. Innocent civilians that literally had nothing to do with the conflict in the Middle East that our government/military have been involved in (Gulf War etc.). That's a horrifyingly terrible way to wage a war.

Continuing, had Flight 93's passengers not been so courageous and selfless, that plane could very well have crashed into the capitol or even the White House. There's no telling what our country would be like, or if it would have been torn apart, had all of the hijacks succeeded. 10 years is a long time, but to many of us... the date coming up each year is an annual reminder of what happened that horrible day. The fact that the date and the event's name are both the same also likely contribute to its prominence in our memories.

 

[frotaz37]

Meanwhile, people in the middle east are confused about what all the fuss is about since the USA has been killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people in that region for decades.

 

[Strong Badam]

Source ?

 

[Arbuckle]

Meanwhile, people in the middle east are confused about what all the fuss is about since the USA has been killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people in that region for decades.

Yeah, but they're not us, so they don't matter OR count as real people.

 

[El Nino]

-As shocking as Pearl Harbor was, it wasn't without context. After all, WW II had been going on for two years already, and the U.S. was basically already in the war thanks to our wide-open support of the Allies and our embargo of Japan. 9/11, on the other hand, seemed to come out of the clear blue sky for almost everyone.

9/11 wasn't without context. Security analysts were warning about a potential terrorist attack from al Qaeda specifically in the years prior to 9/11. U.S. foreign policy has been heavily intrusive in other countries around the world since the Cold War, and this includes the Middle East. Egypt's policy toward Israel and Palestine in the past has served American purposes. The Gulf War was in 1991. The CIA and the Soviets fought a war in Afghanistan prior to the rise of the Taliban. Etc.

Edit: You're right that there's a difference though. Americans knew about WWII but not about the CIA's secret wars, nor about how U.S. foreign policy was affecting other countries. When I was in school, they didn't teach it to us. That's what made 9/11 seem like it came out of nowhere. The American public, generally, was not well informed. Who to blame for that, I don't know.

The world fundamentally changed after 9/11.

I don't really see the world as having changed fundamentally after 9/11. I think America changed fundamentally, but America is not the world, and the American viewpoint is so far separated from the rest of the world that it's difficult to even find common ground.

9/11 was the most important day since the Berlin Wall fell in a geopolitical sense. It was the most devastating day since the Cuban Missile Crisis in the psychological and emotional sense. We'll be living in the "post-9/11" world for years, maybe decades. That's why we don't move on, because it really was that important.

All of that is true, but only for America. The reason why Americans remember the Cuban Missile Crisis is because that was about the one time when the Cold War put Americans in danger. But for other countries around the world where the CIA and the Soviet Union waged wars via proxy, the Cuban Missile Crisis would not be the most important event of the time. American agents removed Allende from power in Chile and replaced him with the dictatorship of Pinochet. The casualty count among Cambodians, Lao, Hmong, and Vietnamese during the SE Asian wars far exceeded American casualties.

So, I would say that Americans don't see a lot of what goes on in the world, not even the things instigated by the U.S. government, because those things don't affect Americans. This is a partially understandable bias, but it's still a viewpoint that fails to provide context for the world at large. This is why we view 9/11 the way we do, imo.