September 11

Some of the News, every Once in a While

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Sahan
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Re: I read the news today, oh boy

Post by Sahan »

I'm going to play Devil's advocate here, and support Eisbreaker, because I understand what he is trying to say.

Though I never experienced any of the trauma myself, my family left Sri Lanka when I was one, after a period where a number of my parent's close friends and idols had been killed due to an army-enforced government crackdown on "communist sympathisers", which included in the vague description a large majority of university students who had voiced opposition to the corruption and manipulative strategies of the government at the time. A soldier once came to my father's house in their search, shortly after my parents got married. Through a great stoke of fortune, the soldier was a former student of my late grandfather, the former headmaster of the local school, and once he saw my grandfather open the door, he could not bring himnself to carry out his orders. If not for that coincidence, I would never have been conceived.

From as far back as I can remember, until I was about 14, my parents would be calling my grandparents back in Sri Lanka after hearing news of a suicide bomb near my grandparents place, either in a shopping mall or a bus or a crowded street. The stress at home would be almost tangible until they finally heard someone pick up the phone on the other end. Even though my grandparents were fortunate to have never been in the wrong place at the wrong time, I couldn't even imagine the grief of the families who didn't receive such fortunate news, or even the people themselves, living in constant fear that a random attack might make this day their last. Parents deciding to take alternate routes home from work so that if one of them died on the way, there was a greater chance one of them would still be left to look after the children.

I understand fully the grief of the many who lost relatives, loved ones, and close friends in the September 11 attacks, but the point remains that this was one just attack, and that it happened ten years ago now. Compared to what some other citiziens of the world have had to face, a number of them due either directly or indirectly to the USA's foreign policies and involvement in international affairs no less, the 9/11 attacks would earn little more than an extended mention on these country's histories. It is perfectly uderstandable to grieve the loss of loved ones, to accept the gravity of the situation and the implications this attack had on the world, but to highlight these attacks so ferociously would feel like an injustice to others who have experienced the other atrocities of the past two decades. It is perfectly acceptable to grieve such losses, but it has been ten years, and now that the US has paid its respects to those lost on this day, I feel it is time its people began to move on from this moment rather than still react to it with a sense of wounded pride.

As others have said, US citizens can no longer feel they are in some protective bubble regarding world affairs. They are a part of what goes on in the world, and this is the main lesson that should be learnt from September 11. Ten years is long enough to start to call of the grieving process and begun doing their bit to prevent further tragedies, rather than react to it.
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Eisbreaker
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Re: I read the news today, oh boy

Post by Eisbreaker »

Astrogirl wrote:How could anyone not be emotionally impacted by this?
By not being emotionally impacted by this. It's easy, try it sometime.

You see, I don't remember what I was doing when I heard of the September 11 attacks.
I don't remember what I was doing last time I ran for the bomb shelter either, and that was just a few weeks ago.

I've been on the receiving end of acts of terror, I've lost a friend and a relative, and I can emphasize with this situation.

I don't feel sympathy however, for the same reason I don't feel that I myself deserve sympathy:
That's how things are. You can't stop and feel forever sorry for every big bad thing that happens, because sooner or later, you're just going to spend all your time feeling sorry.
Sahan said it well, 10 years is a lot of time to get over anything, moreso if it wasn't directly related to you.

( Calling me borderline insane because my views don't meet with yours isn't going to make me wrong. I can play the same game and claim that you suffer from too much sympathy, or have some kind of extremely fragile psyche, but that won't contribute anything to what I wanted to say. I will admit that I should have tried to phrase myself in a more sensitive manner, though, because I'm far less sensitive than most people and tend to offend others. )
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Astrogirl
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Re: I read the news today, oh boy

Post by Astrogirl »

Eisbreaker wrote:I don't remember what I was doing last time I ran for the bomb shelter either, and that was just a few weeks ago.

I've been on the receiving end of acts of terror, I've lost a friend and a relative, and I can emphasize with this situation.

I don't feel sympathy however, for the same reason I don't feel that I myself deserve sympathy:
That's how things are.
One day hopefully the shitty situation you are in will be over. Maybe then you can see a psychologist and discuss this traumatic experience and work on these feelings.

In the meantime you will just have to trust us that feeling this way is in fact not normal for people who do not live in a constantly life-threatening situation, and demanding that they feel like you ("that's how things are, get over it") is unreasonable. Especially with the words "the US needs to take its collective head out of its collective ass and get over 9/11", but even if you had phrased it more politely, you would still have been wrong. Your emotions [regarding horrible events] have been dulled down to be able to cope with this situation. There is nothing wrong with this. There is everything wrong with expecting others to dull down theirs, too.

You deserve sympathy, and so do they.

/edit: When you're about 30 or so, 10 years will not seem like a long time anymore.
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Re: I read the news today, oh boy

Post by Lethal Interjection »

Astrogirl wrote: /edit: When you're about 30 or so, 10 years will not seem like a long time anymore.
I'm nearly 30, and it still seems like a long time.

I have apathy towards 9/11 at this point. Honestly, it was a long time ago.
There was time when I cared. Probably for a few months afterwards. When I though "Wow. The world is changing". 10 years later, and I'm not sure that's all that true. I'm sure it is for New Yorkers and people who were directly impacted. I wasn't.
So, I have a hard time conjuring up much sympathy at this, the 10 year mark.

Granted, I'm a reasonably unsympathetic person. I've grown up with people who starve for sympathy, deserved or not, to the point that I have difficulty dealing it out to anyone. I will comfort or empathize (in most cases this is "disembodied" empathy as I haven't been through the same crap that others have). But my usual tactic is just trying to be a person of stability and normalcy to someone whose world is kind of coming apart. And that's difficult to do when you don't know anyone who was affected more than cursorily.

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Re: September 11

Post by Edminster »

Image
ol qwerty bastard wrote:bitcoin is backed by math, and math is intrinsically perfect and logically consistent always

gödel stop spreading fud

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Edminster
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Re: September 11

Post by Edminster »

Image
ol qwerty bastard wrote:bitcoin is backed by math, and math is intrinsically perfect and logically consistent always

gödel stop spreading fud

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Re: September 11

Post by GUTCHUCKER »

I live in Australia and have a somewhat sociopathic view towards anyone who I don't know personally, so I can't say I give a shit who died in what incident.
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Re: September 11

Post by Kimra »

I think we've now established:
*Sahan is, by far, more eloquent than Eisbreaker.
*Eisbreaker lives somewhere where bad things happen far too frequently. And this is sad.
*Empathy for tragedy is acceptable AND human.
*Lots of people have it worse but that doesn't mean that things that happen to the more fortunate aren't bad as well.
*American media (and media in general) over sensationalises and rehashes things incessantly.
*You shouldn't blame all of America for the actions and opinions of the some and the powerful. This just makes you racist.
*The American government has made many stupid decisions in the past.
*We must remember not only the wrongs committed against us, but also the reasons for those wrong.
*We must remember the terrible things we have done as a result of them.
*I should be less emotional and more rational. (who knew?)

And that's it from me on this topic. It's been swell, but the swellings gone down.


Except for this:
Edminster wrote:Image
What does that even MEAN?
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Re: September 11

Post by Felstaff »

Kimra wrote:What does that even MEAN?
It appears the assassins trying to shoot the guy in his sleep have a horrible shot.
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Edminster
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Re: September 11

Post by Edminster »

Image
Image
Image
ol qwerty bastard wrote:bitcoin is backed by math, and math is intrinsically perfect and logically consistent always

gödel stop spreading fud

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Re: September 11

Post by Frostbite »

To Ed's last post, there was a comedian I saw who brought up stores having 9/11 sales and all that kind of stuff. He posed the question of when we'd get there. Apparently we got there.

Also, I thought, did Japanese people post on Facebook saying 9/11 was karma for dropping two a-bombs on them. You know. After that whole tsunami/earthquake, Pearl Harbor karma thing all those d-bags brought up.
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Re: September 11

Post by Astrogirl »

I dunno. Someone who speaks Japanese go check this.
Microaggression? Microaggression!

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Re: September 11

Post by GUTCHUCKER »

Bi-bon.
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Re: September 11

Post by BaneofthePhalanx »

There is no greater account of grief than the Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzenitsyn. 9/11 is only significant for the purpose of propagating patriotism, but it is outweighed by almost every other grief the world has suffered. So I ask you America, after more of our soldiers and marines have died in the decade long retaliation than civilians were immolated, after a modern nation could be capable of imprisoning sixty million of its own inhabitants because they did not conform exactly to the One True Doctrine, when I can't grieve for my fallen brothers whose bones lie in Afghanistan because I've been inundated with the idea of death my entire life, why should I give a shit about three thousand?
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Re: September 11

Post by GUTCHUCKER »

Grief is a great tool for influencing others, isn't it?
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