Donald McClarey posted a video collection of those poor souls who fell from the Towers on that terrible day. It's a tough watch, and almost beyond my own constitution.
It's worth noting that we dealt with 9/11 largely by not dealing with it. Within months, we stopped wanting to see the attacks. Talk was over where or not to say it was terrorism. Images that were considered too shocking were held back and not shown.
That's part of our modern 'death is such a drag for the cocktail hour' mentality that plagues our thinking. Partly because anti-Americans didn't want us to remember, partly because we've been trained to deal with problems through the cupcake mentality, our slogan was not Remember 9/11! It became 'Never Forget!'
Forget what? Oh, you mean the terrorist attacks on 9/11? The Islamic terrorist attacks on 9/11? No, just never forget that thing we increasingly avoid showing you.
In typical form, Donald goes out of his way to fight the tidal wave of ignorance that the modern era so relies upon with several posts here, here, here and here.
We need not only forget, but we should always remember what happened to us courtesy of Islamic terrorists on September 11, 2001.
I watched it that day and haven't sought out any videos since. I still remember the screams of those watching from the sidewalk as they realized what was happening. I haven't forgotten, but it isn't something I think is necessary to watch again; any slight recall of that day brings up all the memories of being told, of trying to keep teaching as bits of news trickled in.
ReplyDeleteAt any rate, I don't think that not watching all the events of 9/11 repeatedly is a sign of trying to ignore what happened; there's something to having seen it once and letting it retain all its horror rather than letting it get less shocking by repetition.
I don't think we need to watch it over and over, and certainly didn't need to then. The shock was too painful. But I think we went the other direction. Too soon we all but pushed it behind the curtains, acting as if out of sight, out of mind. I think that aided some of the rhetoric in later debates about our reactions and strategies, such as 'more people die in auto accidents than 9/11!', as if there is no other difference between the two.
Delete