9/11: Forbidden Thoughts

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Neanderthal, Sunday, 11 September 2016 14:59 (eight years ago) link

I am so glad FB didn't exist on 9/11

Neanderthal, Sunday, 11 September 2016 14:59 (eight years ago) link

the other 'forbidden thought' (which I"m sure I probably posted in years past) is everybody remembering the "solidarity" we felt in the aftermath. it was a mirage - everybody was back to fighting and being dicks within a week, they just maybe thought an extra .03 seconds before flipping you the bird.

in a way it kind of helped accelerate the polarization of the parties.

Neanderthal, Sunday, 11 September 2016 15:06 (eight years ago) link

Wasn't like that in New York - goodwill extended well into 2002, maybe up until the invasion of Iraq.

flappy bird, Sunday, 11 September 2016 16:14 (eight years ago) link

I posted a joke on Facebook this morning based on the fact that 9/11/01 was also the release date of Nickelback's Silver Side Up album, but took it down after about 10 minutes.

Don Van Gorp, midwest regional VP, marketing (誤訳侮辱), Sunday, 11 September 2016 17:17 (eight years ago) link

People still talking about 9/11 I guess

slathered in cream and covered with stickers (silby), Sunday, 11 September 2016 18:54 (eight years ago) link

when 9/11 happened, Bush had approval ratings in the 90s. despite not being popularly elected, and the turmoil that surrounded his election, the country more or less backed him up. they trusted his judgment. they wanted him to succeed. even the most trenchant Democrats were not willing to tear him down.

now contrast that with what you know in your heart would have happened had Obama been President on 9/11. half this country would have blamed him for it, either by suggesting incompetence or even collusion.

serge thoroughgoods (will), Sunday, 11 September 2016 19:09 (eight years ago) link

most likely collusion. fuck you social media.

shame on me i guess i didn't really give much of a fuck about W bush one way or another until AFTER he invaded Iraq

serge thoroughgoods (will), Sunday, 11 September 2016 19:12 (eight years ago) link

the other

serge thoroughgoods (will), Sunday, 11 September 2016 19:13 (eight years ago) link

People still talking about 9/11 I guess

― slathered in cream and covered with stickers (silly), Sunday, September 11, 2016 2:54 PM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

because it still feels like yesterday in many ways. the 9/11 era hasn't ended. we're still mired in the middle east, it's more unstable than ever, ISIS has outpaced Al Qaeda, people feel more vulnerable to terrorism. the payback/relief/release that we've been waiting for for fifteen years hasn't come yet. everything is worse than it was on 9/11. the psyche of the country is so fractured and schizophrenic - trump is assisted suicide.

flappy bird, Sunday, 11 September 2016 22:56 (eight years ago) link

update on idiot fb "friend"... I couldnt stand just unfriending or hiding so posted a comment like "You have got to be fucking kidding me with this bullshit" and the meme of matrix morpheus saying jet fuel cant melt steel beams

he deleted his whole post, comments and all

:D

Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, 11 September 2016 23:22 (eight years ago) link

good. jet fuel can't melt steel beams drives me fucking nuts. stuff like that and the walmart coke case memorial feel like a kick in the head. i know this happens in time (thinking of a photo i saw of a inflated waterslide designed as the capsizing Titanic), but so soon...

flappy bird, Monday, 12 September 2016 06:41 (eight years ago) link

I get sick each year of everybody recounting where they were on 9/11. it feels like morbid pageantry

― Neanderthal, Sunday, September 11, 2016 2:52 PM (yesterday)

i don't mind hearing these stories from ppl who were actually in new york or d.c. when it happened, but i get a little sick of the "i was 17...i was working at radio shack, we just watched the news all day...never forget!!" posts from ppl who weren't anywhere near the attacks and didn't know anyone involved, and who seem weirdly eager to think of themselves as part of "the story" of 9/11, as if they could somehow elevate themselves into it just cuz they were alive when it happened and watched it on tv just like everybody else

also find myself wanting to respond to some of the "never forget!" posts i see on fb by asking if we couldn't take a moment also to honor all the ppl who died (and are still dying, every week) as a result of our miserable response to 9/11, but fb disputes are one of the worst ways to spend your online time

(The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, 12 September 2016 07:09 (eight years ago) link

huh, so salon was cancerous shit back in 2002 as well

punksishippies, Monday, 12 September 2016 07:16 (eight years ago) link

"i don't mind hearing these stories from ppl who were actually in new york or d.c."

Before It Was Cool

punksishippies, Monday, 12 September 2016 07:18 (eight years ago) link

great point about "morbid pageantry," although I was relieved that this year there didn't seem to be much discussion on social media, or people posting pictures of the towers exploding. probably because it was sunday. for people who lived in nyc and dc at the time, it really does still feel like unfinished business. it just burns me every year, i get really fucking sad/angry if i pay attention. luckily yesterday i just checked out and didn't pay attention to the internet.

flappy bird, Monday, 12 September 2016 17:24 (eight years ago) link

Someone I was hanging out with yesterday was complaining about businesses that hadn't half-masted their flags. I had to be like "it's FUCKING SUNDAY."

how's life, Monday, 12 September 2016 17:34 (eight years ago) link

as a non-american the idea of businesses flying flags at all is just as weird and upsetting as not half-masting them tbh

a very in-your-face, hard-edged machine bottom (bizarro gazzara), Monday, 12 September 2016 18:16 (eight years ago) link

Stay Puft

poor fiddy-less albion (darraghmac), Monday, 12 September 2016 18:17 (eight years ago) link

"i don't mind hearing these stories from ppl who were actually in new york or d.c."

Oh, man, I got in an argument on FB last year about something to do with profiling Muslims or somesuch with a right-wing aunt of mine, and one of her comments was, "Well, you'll feel differently when the bodies are on your doorstep." I rpelied, "On Sept. 11 my office was one Metro stop from the Pentagon. A co-worker of mine watched Flight 77 crash into it from the freeway. You live in Painesville fucking Ohio. I've been closer to the bodies than you will ever be."

The sanctimony about 9/11 from the jingoists is a never-ending source of disgust to me.

Cumstaun (Phil D.), Monday, 12 September 2016 18:40 (eight years ago) link

An Aunt making shitty comments on Facebook you don't say!

For real what is with Aunts, those cartoon minions and social media? Move over, daytime television.

Evan, Monday, 12 September 2016 18:49 (eight years ago) link

http://i.imgur.com/HOJgY1P.jpg

how's life, Monday, 12 September 2016 18:56 (eight years ago) link

jesus fucking got to be kidding me christ.

Mad Piratical (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Monday, 12 September 2016 19:21 (eight years ago) link

Despicable Me was released in 2010 -- how old was Bob when it was filmed?

the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Monday, 12 September 2016 19:29 (eight years ago) link

Phil D -- call me curious but what exactly did said right-wing aunt say in response to that, anyway.

Ned Raggett, Monday, 12 September 2016 20:30 (eight years ago) link

Never Forget The Six Minions

the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Monday, 12 September 2016 20:34 (eight years ago) link

Ned, she said absolutely bupkis. Even my right-wing relatives know when they've been checkmated. Not that it changed her politics any, but she at least knows not to treat me like some naif.

Cumstaun (Phil D.), Monday, 12 September 2016 21:53 (eight years ago) link

deepart to honor the departed

nomar, Tuesday, 13 September 2016 01:02 (eight years ago) link

omg

a girl i used to date is like 2 ft away from sincere affirmation that jet fuel can't melt steel beams in one of her fb friends' comments

j., Tuesday, 13 September 2016 01:42 (eight years ago) link

When all this first happened there was a lot of unedited audio and video floating around the net that's probably since been heavily redacted.

My friend N made a cool electronic/noise piece of music, that had a sample in it of a guy screaming "OH GOD NO". I got him to play the full audio he'd sampled it from and it was this obnoxious, angry trader from one of the stockmarket firms up on the top floors, who had called 911 and was abuseively demanding people come rescue them.

... until the building started to collapse, while he was still on the call, and he screamed that out, til the call cut out.

The forbidden thought here being I couldnt stop thinking about it and wanted to keep listening to it. It made me feel weird.

Stoop Crone (Trayce), Tuesday, 13 September 2016 04:03 (eight years ago) link

(its possible I misremember some of the content btw, I couldn't bring myself to listen to something like that anymore but for months after all this happened I became obsessed with rewatching footage and reading survivor stories).

Stoop Crone (Trayce), Tuesday, 13 September 2016 04:06 (eight years ago) link

oh god, i know what you're talking about. it's horrific. i saw it paired with video of the tower collapsing. easily piece of 9/11 documentation i've ever come across.

i just remembered that i learned the word "debris" on 9/11

flappy bird, Tuesday, 13 September 2016 04:32 (eight years ago) link

Sanders-supporting dude in my feed who is all "I'd rather Trump win than Hillary" dropped some heavy tower 7 conspiracy science over the weekend

I cry, and watch my DivX's of Brass Eye to console myself.... (stevie), Wednesday, 14 September 2016 08:18 (eight years ago) link

Makes me kind of glad everyone I know pays zero attention to politics.

two crickets sassing each other (dowd), Wednesday, 14 September 2016 08:52 (eight years ago) link

every once in a while i drive myself a little crazy thinking of the alternate history where after 9/11 the U.S. military is speedily sent to the Middle East to help build hospitals, schools, dams, and water treatment plants. it is, perhaps, the most forbidden thought of all...

scott seward, Wednesday, 14 September 2016 13:54 (eight years ago) link

'Where were you on 9/11' stories are a lot like dream accounts, or stories about kids; everyone wants to tell them, but nobody wants to listen to them.

two crickets sassing each other (dowd), Wednesday, 14 September 2016 14:03 (eight years ago) link

t-bomb

the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Wednesday, 14 September 2016 14:05 (eight years ago) link

Was scrolling thru fb and one of my distant cousins posted this super eye catching pic of towers on fire taken from Brooklyn Bridge, all iconic an shit, and it was SO jarring and unnecessary. Followed by 50 "I was on my way to work in Muskegon, Michigan, when I heard the news on the radio" posts, and I succumbed to a fit of pique and wrote an irate follow up like "I was in New York Fucking City." What IS it with people halfway across the country?? Nm I know what it is but ffs

If authoritarianism is Romania's ironing board, then (in orbit), Wednesday, 14 September 2016 14:09 (eight years ago) link

My 9/11 story is almost so banal that I could probably write it as a sort of deadpan humorous short story. I was in New Brunswick, NJ and my housemates and I actually sort of hesitantly drove to a supermarket to buy some water and food (I think at the urging of one of my housemates' parents?) while feeling completely ridiculous and not actually afraid, and later after a bar trip I wound up in bed with my ex. I also watched the TV news in a lebanese cafe because I didn't have a TV.

I do have one embarrassing 9/11-related memory though, which is that I wrote a very earnest, hand-wringy op-ed for a student newspaper about how maybe there was too much doubting of the government going on at such an urgent time. Yeeeuch!

the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Wednesday, 14 September 2016 14:19 (eight years ago) link

hardly anyone was in dallas when kennedy was shot by aliens. same sorta thing really. i was definitely devastated in philly and remember every emotionally excruciating inch of that day pretty clearly.

scott seward, Wednesday, 14 September 2016 15:32 (eight years ago) link

i had to work all day. it sucked. i felt so sick. and i remember glaring at people coming in to buy cigarettes or whatever if they were laughing with a friend. or if they were just acting normal in any way. it reminded me of when i was working and my mom called me to say that my sister had died and i still had to work all day after talking to her on the phone. i was too fucked up to call my boss and tell him i had to go home.

that's my anecdote! i shared it here instead of facebook. you are very welcome.

(i also broke the news to tons of people who came in the store that day who somehow hadn't heard about it and none of them could really believe me...)

scott seward, Wednesday, 14 September 2016 15:37 (eight years ago) link

This thread is always a heavy read, then and now.

What were you doing when you found out about the WTC?

Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 14 September 2016 15:43 (eight years ago) link

this is crazy from one of those ILX threads:

NEW YORK, Sept 11 (Reuters) - Two planes crashed into the towers of the World Trade Center in New York on Tuesday morning, causing huge explosions and killing at least six people, television said.
CNBC television said there were at least a thousand injured.

scott seward, Wednesday, 14 September 2016 16:18 (eight years ago) link

Seems as good a place as any to post this from Chris Korda, the transgendered founder of the Church of Euthanasia:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vorisrBfdTs

gesticulating Pez dispenser (Sanpaku), Thursday, 15 September 2016 19:21 (eight years ago) link

The forbidden thought here being I couldnt stop thinking about it and wanted to keep listening to it. It made me feel weird.

― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Tuesday, September 13, 2016 12:03 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I listened to this audio just now out of curiosity and it positively terrified me....

Neanderthal, Thursday, 29 September 2016 04:11 (eight years ago) link

Theres something visceral in his screams that are just ... I cant.

Stoop Crone (Trayce), Thursday, 29 September 2016 05:04 (eight years ago) link

i almost got into a fight at a cuban restaurant on the night of 9/11 when some kids were laughing at the falling man and saying "who's so stupid they jump out of a building"
fwiw, i was downtown and watched the second tower go down from west 4th and 7th ave. i have some stories but so does everyone.

thrusted pelvis-first back (ulysses), Thursday, 29 September 2016 05:45 (eight years ago) link


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