I had forgotten until you posted this. Thanks a lot SDR for bumming out my Sunday.

Not sure what the point if all the memorialization is. That we should be more war like?more paranoid than we are about terrorism? I mean what’s the takeaway message? Is it just the number of dead? It’s really a rather small number compared to automobile deaths or Iraqi civilian deaths. Not sure what it all means.

I’m not saying don’t defend against terrorism. Just well jeez, is this what’s going to define the empire for the remainder of it’s existence? If some Irish terrorists hit l.a are we going to have to bomb Ireland back to the stone age and then rebuild it?

I guess so.

Seems to give terrorists more power and significance than they merit.

Why all this remembrance?

[quote=briansd1][quote=walterwhite]Not sure what the point if all the memorialization is. That we should be more war like?more paranoid than we are about terrorism? I mean what’s the takeaway message? Is it just the number of dead? It’s really a rather small number compared to automobile deaths or Iraqi civilian deaths. Not sure what it all means.

I’m not saying don’t defend against terrorism. Just well jeez, is this what’s going to define the empire for the remainder of it’s existence? If some Irish terrorists hit l.a are we going to have to bomb Ireland back to the stone age and then rebuild it?

I guess so.

Seems to give terrorists more power and significance than they merit.

Why all this remembrance?[/quote]

I agree walter.

The way we reacted, and the way we are still obscessed, the terrorists won, IMHO.[/quote]

The “terrorists” didn’t win, our leaders and some salespeople are beating us to death with it.

[quote=walterwhite]
Why all this remembrance?[/quote]

It’s a great platform to propagandize from.

[quote=threadkiller]”Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” famous quote by someone I can’t remember who.[/quote]
George Santayana – Spanish philosopher
“Life of Reason” vol. I
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Santayana

As someone who lived in Manhattan for many years, witnessed 9/11, lost several dear friends and actually came to SD partly to escape the constant nagging feeling that we’d forever be living in fear and paranoia of another event like that, I see both sides. I think that the media coverage can feel like hype, causing all the special personal details of each person lost (and all those who died or were forever changed in the tragic wars that followed) to be brushed over and forgotten. And then there’s also the (valid) criticism about what’s the big deal, why not focus as much attention on, for example, those who’ve died from the famine in Somalia or countless other tragedies or wars?

But for me, after I try to take my personal experience out of the equation, I think the reason it’s such a significant event and one that our country can’t help but obsess over every year around the anniversary, is that it was the dividing line between a time of blissful ignorance and a real loss of innocence. And I think for most, the fact that this even happened is still a shock and almost surreal, as if, 10 years later, we’re still trying to process it. Who the hell ever thought that people would fly airplanes into buildings to kill people, and not just any people, but U.S. citizens?! Crazy.

Personally and very selfishly, I’d be much more comfortable not dredging up the intense sorrow I feel every year thinking about that day and those that closely followed, but on the other hand, I think it’s inevitable and probably necessary.

I do however plan to visit the 9/11 memorial in Manhattan in a couple weeks. Not to remember the event as much as for the art itself.

I can’t relate to holding a grudge, the paranoia and the fear.

I think that a few death here and there is a fair price to pay for liberty. We don’t need to live in state a siege just to prevent some deaths.

The two wars we went on the trillions we are spending are nowhere in proportion to the attacks of 9/11.

Yes, walter, there’s value in letting go. The world wants to move on, but a tiny number of people want to hold us back.

Remembering is one thing, but so many of our policies are based around 9/11. That’s crazy.

Jacarandoso, yeah, our leaders are beating us to death with it. Maybe the terrorists anticipated our reaction and our ruinous response to 9/11.