First off, I apologize to those who have been offended by my posting.
However, my position still stands. “Remembering” 9/11 helps nobody move on with their lives and only serves to perpetuate blind anger and rage against “them” in the middle east. The people that died are gone. You can’t bring them back. Life isn’t fair and people die. Their deaths are no different than anyone else in your life that have died.
So please. Just stop it already. Get through the grieving process and move on. You don’t see the Japanese making youtube movies telling them to “remember Nagasaki”. Likewise, there are no “remember the tsunami” videos and that happened just recently.
It reminds me of my extremely emotionally inept Aunt who lost her daughter to Crystal Meth. Every family get together it’s “Remember Lynn?” and “Oh, it’s so terrible about Lynn”…
Yeah, it was terrible she died at such a young age, but, uh, it happened three years ago and we’d kind of like to get on with our lives. So get some therapy already and move on.
Everybody seems to have forgotten this line of my post.
I didn’t say that I have no sympathy, but to sit and wallow in the event, over and over and over… it gets you nowhere. It was five years ago. In the last five years I’ve had a few family members die, but I don’t sit around, digging up pictures to remind me of their memory, feeling sorry for myself that they died. You pick up and life goes on.
To wallow in their deaths over and over… that’s an addiction to the feeling of self-pity. It’s a destructive way to live.
Pick up and move on.
I was going to be late for work. No time to reflect and all I saw was some pictures of some burning building 1/4 across the world in NY. I heard on the radio later that the second building was hit, too. Then I thought, “Huh… probably not an accident.” Well, time to install more flooring.
Yes, please do, only I ask you to do what I do and, when something offends you, take 10 minutes to cool off, and read/watch it again. Repeat until you’re no longer emotionally affected by it and can look at it from a more detached, rational perspective.
So long as strong emotions are involved you can’t really understand anything. All you’ll end up with are emotional decisions and emotional decisions are almost always inferior to rational decisions.
You’re absolutely right. It’s not easy to get over. So how is it helpful to obsess over the event by watching videos like the one that started this thread?
Sorry to be insensitive, but how does it help to make disturbing videos about the event and then share them as a group? If something bad happens you don’t waste your life dwelling on it and watching videos intentionally designed to bring up strong emotions about the event and give you “flashbacks” that are pretty much the definition of what it means to “pick at your wounds”.
It won’t heal if you keep picking at it.
I prefer to live in a country filled with people that respect my right to have a different opinion.
“See how much a part of the group I am? I hate the dissenter, too!”
Incidentally, all the french people live in Quebec, not Alberta. Quebec.
You’re right. They aren’t exactly the same thing, but I believe the second video’s intent isn’t to actually make fun of 9/11 but to remind you of how easily your emotions can be easily manipulated by putting together images and music the same way.
Well, this is going to throw the thread off entirely, but more civilians have died in Iraq because of the American occupation than have ever died under Saddam Hussein’s rule.
Also, the majority of people dying in Iraq before “IRAQ 2: THE SHOWDOWN!” were women and children starving from the US-spearheaded UN sanctions on Iraq and the ridiculous rules that went along with them.
Things like, no pencils for school b/c the graphite can be used for WMD’s.
Import vaccines for the children, but illegalize the medical equipment necessary to distribute them because the parts might, after several modifications, be used to… uh… oh yeah, WMDs!!!
Well I will argue you on the “idiots” comment. If they were idiots, they’d all be caught right now and correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t Osama Bin Laden have degrees in both Engineering and Public Administration?
Please, people, resist the urge to go on a “THAT BASTARD called the terrorists BRAVE” tar-and-feathering. If you have no respect for your enemies then you’ll always underestimate them.
(ex; “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq…)
“I hate the dissenter, too! I’m a part of the group, boyz! I’m a part of the group, too!”
If you’d care to read the full text of Osama Bin Laden’s letter to America,
(understanding that it’s written with an agenda to rally hundreds of undereducated pawns to fight in his army, hence all the “glory be to Allah” and such) you’d find that Canada doesn’t do any of the things that are pissing him off. We don’t do things like support oppressive dictatorships so that we can land oil rights. So no, I don’t expect any airliners to be crashing into Calgary any time soon.
And if it were to happen, I’d be angry for a while, but I’d do my best to do the Christ-like thing, forgive my emotional investment in the event, and look for ways to cope with the trauma and find constructive solutions to the problem.
I love my cipralex.
“I, too, hate the dissenter! Protect me, group! Protect me from ‘the other’!”
Alright. I admit it. The “well… that was unexpected…” wasn’t my only reaction, it was just my initial reaction. I said that to drive home my point that people need to “pick up and move on”. My ex-girlfriend used to live in Manhattan and she had friends and acquaintences die in the 9/11 attacks. If memory serves correct, she was an office gopher (as in “go for coffee! Go for files!”) for a company in one of the towers.
She had a hard time dealing with it and is still a bit visibly affected by video of the towers collapsing whenever it comes up on TV.
But you know what? She doesn’t mention it all the time. She doesn’t go into forums to watch videos to “remember 9/11”. She pays attention to life in the present moment and tries to live it to its fullest. Kudos to her. (Too bad she was crazy otherwise it might’ve worked out.)
Exactly. Life goes on and time heals all wounds – unless you pick at them.
I agree. Although I believe there’s a difference between forgetting and moving on. I remember my cousin Lynn and the fond memories. I don’t go out of my way to dig up her memory and share it with all her family and friends. There’s a grieveing process and generally people need to get through the grieveing process. People are not supposed to stay there forever. You grieve and then, step-by-step, life goes on untill you’re no longer debilitated by what happened.
None of my comments were “sick”, even by the most restrictive definition. You Americans will worship Ann Coulter who accuses 9/11 widows of “enjoying” their husband’s deaths, but if someone tells you to buck up, stop feeling sorry for yourself, and to get on with life? That’s sick?
Insensitive? Yes.
I thought that was the way things were done on T-Nation.
But I guess when it comes to things that affect a lot of people, suddently you aren’t supposed to buck up and deal with things.
I’ve always stood up against the group when I knew what it was doing was wrong. It got me into some fights that I knew I couldn’t win (although being white and living in a neighbourhood of Lebanese refugees suffering post-traumatic stress-disorder will do that anyway), but that hasn’t stopped me from standing up for what I believe is the right thing.
And the right thing is never dwelling in the past. It’s very, very, tempting to dwell and it almost feels really good to do it, too, but in the long-term it’s never as beneficial as working through the trauma and moving on with your life in the here and now.
“Canada sucks!”
The self-pity is in terms of group self-pity. “It happened to US! It happened to ALL OF US!” is the sentiment and I’m getting sick of it.
Any discussion surrounding 9/11 is hyperpolarized in the direction of getting emotionally worked up about it and using that as a shield of invulnerability against arguments to the contrary. The same thing that Ann Coulter was talking about when she so harshly criticized the 9/11 widows directly (and I find HER to be sick). She accused the 9/11 widows of using their personal connection to 9/11 as an impervious shield against any contrary points of view.
I see Americans in general doing the same thing. WE WERE ATTACKED! YOU CAN’T SAY ANYTHING AGAINST US! YOU’RE WITH US OR YOU’RE WITH THE TERRORISTS!
This calls for some contrarian farce!
http://www.youtube.com/...h?v=akRfJ26QGVU
No, the flaming was expected. I was hoping at least one or two people might agree with the point that it’s time to move on. I guess it was too soon.
I wasn’t expecting that, but it would’ve been nice.
You’re making the mistake of assuming that I hold certain beliefs because I did one action you don’t agree with. Since I did that one thing, I must OBVIOUSLY be in league with all these other things you dislike!
I apologize if I caused direct pain to anyone directly involved. Dick move on my part.
I still believe that as a whole American society needs to work THROUGH the grieveing process rather than DWELLING in the events of “9/11! 9/11! Remember 9/11!”
Exactly!!!
If you were not directly affected by 9/11, get rid of your emotional attachment to it or else you’ll just be manipulated by all this “remember 9/11! Remember 9/11!” until the media or government has whipped you up into such a emotional storm of wrath and vengeance you’ll let them do whatever they want so long as they tell you that they’re doing what they can to “make it all better”.
“9/11! 9/11! Remember 9/11!”
“If we invade it’ll be all better!”
“9/11! 9/11! We have to invade now! 9/11!”
“What? That guy doesn’t agree? He OBVIOUSLY doesn’t remember 9/11! Cue the video of 9/11!”
This. Is. EXACTLY WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT!
He could’ve had a perfectly normal day without being completely shaken by that fucking “remember 9/11” video. He’s going to remember it for at least a couple days.
How does this help his quality of life? Hmm?
It doesn’t.
“I hate the dissenter…” oh fuck it.
… But right now the Arab world is banding together. They have a cause, to fight evil. They WILL DIE for this cause and will kill anyone who stands there before them, And guess what? So will our troops.