Who CARES where we were...
...we weren't on the top 30 floors of one of the Towers. We weren't on duty at a City firehouse. That's all that fucking matters about where we were five years ago Monday. Unlike the first round of ads seeking donations to build the World Trade Center Memorial (bottom of page)—effective messages featuring the makeshift memorials put up by grieving New Yorkers—the second wave uses stupid art-directed scenarios such as the one at right (click image):"Yeah, I was at the gym, and it was the first time EVER that I benched 225, so it was like I KNEW something big was happening. I've never been able to get 225 again. Man, I'll always remember that rep—and, yeah, also those 3,000 dead people."
posted by copyranter @ 9:00 AM
21 Comments:
What's more terrifying to a population?
A single morning of concentrated terror like 9/11 or year after year of never knowing if you will make it back each time you leave your house.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/08/world/middleeast/08cnd-iraq.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
I know you try to keep things a-political. Sorry, but:
This is 100% a tool for those red-state-republicans to (honest-to-fucking-god) feel some sort of connection to the events - feel like they are a part of the trauma and therefore be justified in supporting a war that they desperately want to believe is directed at those responsible - even though it had absolutely no direct effect on them.
Talking about where they were (absolutely OUT of danger), makes them feel like they were a part of it, and (disgustingly) they want to have been a part of it - but without having to actually BE someone who would live/work in NYC or DC. Because, strangely, people who live in those places are the latte-drinking, volvo-driving, sushi-eating lefties who they love to hate.
"For $100 you will receive a WTC Memorial lapel pin." So you can wear it to your suburban country club dinner and feel proud. Or you can wear it to your strip mall mega-church and feel prouder.
Sorry for the rant, but this disgusts me to no end.
JenG
YES, JenG! YES!
I've been trying to articulate this for months--the guilt of everyone who wasn't in NYC or DC that day, and didn't lose anyone personally. It forces them to try to conjure up some personal connection to the events, to bathe in the horror of it so that they don't feel so guilty about not being in harm's way.
It explains the success of treacle like the Oliver Stone movie--because I was here that day, I don't need to put myself in that theater for 2 hours to experience it again. Once was enough, thanks.
Didn't Sarah Silverman already write this campaign in her act - when she found out on Sept. 11 that soy chai lattes have 1000 calories (or something like that)??
Yeah! Let's donate money to put two holes on prime Manhattan real estate, which main function will be giving Republicans an address to milk 9/11 some more.
That memorial is stupid. It's like a victory trophy for the terrorists. I say build the fucking towers again. Let's show them we come back from the grave like fucking Jason. And yes, I live near the WTC, and I was in NY on 9/11, and that hole is a fucking eyesore.
I have to disagree about the "guilty for not being in harm's way".
9/11 is a modern reincarnation of "Remember the Maine!", "Let's remember Pearl Harbor" and other jingoisms used to justify American colonialism over the past 140 years.
The unquestioning American people are lapping up 9/11-mania because they enjoy the complete certainty of "knowing" we are the Bruce Willis/John McClain good guy in every global encounter. Sad but true in the red states.
The real question is, "Why do those people hate us so much?"
Perhaps because for decades we've supported tyrannical dictators, blown up the civilian population, armed their enemies, exploited theri natural resources and occupied their countries.
Go figure.
Not that the above comments aren't true, but doesn't this run mostly in the NYC area?
"What's more terrifying to a population?
A single morning of concentrated terror like 9/11 or year after year of never knowing if you will make it back each time you leave your house."
I read this to be a reference to MTA subway service.
"doesn't this run mostly in the NYC area?"
yes, probably. so what? I was talking about NYCers. Like many, I watched the second plane hit the south tower...WHO CARES.
Thanks for running this -- I saw the campaign somewhere else and thought it was just another sad example of people trying to insinuate themselves into the grief of others. People compare it to when Kennedy died, but in that case, everyone (besides Kennedy) was on the same footing -- everyone was a bystander, and everyone experienced the same loss.
That certainly can't be said for the 9/11 attacks. Some people definitely lost more than others. And while many Americans might continue to feel insecure and unsafe as a result, that's not the same pain to deal with as the families and friends of the people who lost loved ones that day.
That's pain to make you vote differently and treat your neighbour with kindness and then GET THE FUCK ON WITH YOUR LIFE.
The best way to honor those who died is to be defiant and not give the terrorists any ground. I agree with the Anon who said a memorial is going to be more useful to right-wingers and the terrorists than to New Yorkers. And anyways, if Bush has really made this country safer I assume we won't be seeing 747s hitting buildings anymore.
I was in one of my palaces torturing people as usual when I saw the attacks on TV and I said "shit, this Bush Jr. is going to use this as an excuse to take my oil". Damn you Americans.
yeah i never got this campaign. why is there no one in the pic? Is he naked running down the hall?
They're trying to raise $169 million for this memorial, which seems a tad excessive, even if the intention is honorable. IMHO, it seems much of the post-9/11 squabbling has been either about money or whose memorial is bigger. Anyone who seems to question the ads, the memorials or the construction plans is painted as "weak on terror" by politicos who don't even live here. My question is, "how long do we have to listen to Kate Smith ruin every Yankee game with her 50-year-old recording of "God Bless America?"
You infidels and your advertising suck. Wait until I bomb the subways and blow up the Brooklyn Bridge and release toxic gas on Times Square. You're going to need memorials around the hole city. Allah is great!
We didn't see ads like this at the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, either the fifth OR the tenth. As a rescue worker at the trade center, I doubt anyone will truly understand the feelings the anniversary brings up except those who either ran for their lives or ran in both during and after the massacre. The ad campaign is a bit sappy and pedantic, and a waste if you ask me.
Our national karma rightly remains saddled with Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
But MTLB, would anyone want to go to work on the 100th floor again? Someone I care about works on 70 in the Empire State, and I worry all the time about it. It's very masculine thing to want to erect them up high again, but that kind of ego is one of the reasons they hate us isn't it? Why can't we show them what we're made of by taking care of our citizens and seeing to it that everyone has decent health care and living conditions. That would make them envious, not pissed off.
It's very masculine thing to want to erect them up high again, but that kind of ego is one of the reasons they hate us isn't it?
Actually, it's thrifty. Manhattan real estate prices being what they are, it just makes sense in an already-super urban area to build up, and if you made a tall building any less slender (i.e. less p hallic) you'd make it uninhabitable. My point is: sometimes a skyscraper is just a skyscraper. There are plenty of reasons for the terrorists and many other fine people to be mad at our government and our character, but layoff with the specious impugnations against our robust architecture, fercrhissakes.
Lurve, your local lady architect.
The locker scene is in very poor taste. It's reminiscent of the locker at the morgue. It's just missing a toe wearing a tag.
I *was* at the gym, oddly enough.
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