9-11 anniversary & fear

[Benwa]

I believe its perfectly alright to remember people who lost their lives in the 911 attacks, but is anyone getting tired of the anniversary crap. Why do we feel the need to relive horrible moments over and over again? The only people who should get together for the anniversary are those who lost people they loved. And if I were one of those people I believe I would be offended by what the media fiasco has turned into. Imagine the news got footage of a family member getting hit by a cement truck and they kept playing it over and over for all to see. I find the excessive hoopla to be rude and insensitve. And frankly I'm just tired of hearing about it. Give it a rest.

"We will never forget." Well, duh! Theres a line between remembering a tragic event so we can learn from it and stirring up more fear. And thats all this does, stir up fear. Hell, terrorist don't even need to come here because we're scaring the sh*t out of ourselves. America is so afraid of everything these days. We're afraid of germs so we scrub and sanitise everything, killing beneficial bacteria in the process. We're afraid of our neighbors so we deadbolt our doors and put up alarm systems. We're afraid of poison in foods so we cook the piss out of everything, destroying enzyme and vitamin content. We're afraid of being nothing or broke or poor or losing status so we work jobs we generally dislike (not only that but we work them for more hours than any other country). We're afraid of being sick or sad so we take massive amounts of unnecassary medicine, further degenerating our health. We're afraid of osama, we're afraid of saddam. For gods sake we're even afraid of mosquitos. Frickin' mosquitos! Oh my god west nile! quick flood the area with pesticide to kill them skeeters. "Isn't that pesticide dangerous?" Oh my god!!! F*cking Pesticide!!! We're all gonna die and our kids will be born with flippers!!!

So, stop being afraid america. Your chances of being killed by a terrorist are practically zero. Plus your guaranteed to die anyway so you better start dealing with it. And don't think of 9-11 as the day that changed America. Nothing really changed. Has your life changed? Mine hasn't. The only changes brought in my life were brought upon by myself. I guess the only difference is now everyone is a little more afraid and we've traded alot of our personal freedom to try to get rid of that fear. "Please wonderful leaders make us not afraid." "Sure, but its gonna cost ya, we're going to have to violate your rights and go kill lots of people." "Whatever the cost, just make us not afraid." And isn't that really sad, not pathetic sad but sad as in heartbreaking. People are genuinely afraid and no one likes to be scared. We are making ourselves miserable. We just want to stop being afraid and seem to be willing to trade anything for it. Each person's fear is within their control. 100% controllable.

I'm at a loss for a solution. I always felt I'm just smart enough to see whats wrong, but too dumb to know the solution. So, any suggestions on how to encourage people to take control of their fear? Someone must have a good idea.

[jku]

By identifying the methods and realizing powerful people use fear to manipulate and control - that is the first step to breaking free. I have a MUCH better chance getting killed on my way home from work tonight than I ever will from terrorism.

Don't let this Bush Administration use the natural fear you have, a protective instinct in all animals, to pull you into believing in wars fought against the WRONG countries, spending billions of dollars on high tech military weapons that don't make us safer (didn't the hijackers use BOX CUTTERS!?), giving up your personal liberties and rights as Americans, and spending tax money NOW that we as a generation will have to pay back in the future.

The cynicism this Administration has for its own people knows NO bounds. They thrive on the fact that "we the people" don't know the difference between Iraq and Iran.

Stay informed. Knowledge destroys fear.

[Rainster]

Agree w/ all the statements a/b fear and knowledge!

I'm also really skeptical when people say we should make 9/11 a national holiday (which apparently a lot of people support???) If that happens, like all national holidays it'll turn into one big commercial festival. Shopping sales, etc., a la Memorial Day.

[dakotagopher]

"Knowledge destroys fear"?? Sometimes. Not always. In our society I think it is more typical for "willful ignorance to destroy fear." We want to forget. It is too uncomfortable to remember. And by forgetting we expose ourselves to catastrophe yet again.

We live in such an insulated society. None of us has had to build anything; we've had all this opulence, comfort and luxury handed to us by the preceeding 3 generations. How quickly we forget in our "enlightened society" how there are many people roaming the earth that would like nothing more than to cut our throats just because we are Americans.

Granted, your odds of being killed by a terrorist are slim; but that is no excuse to not follow through and do the diligent thing and eradicate the threat. What I hear, louder every day we move away from 9-11, is that eradicating the terror problem is too hard, too expensive, and too inconvenient. We should instead focus inward, expending time and money on ourselves and our society.

None of that will matter if our enemies set off a nuke in Chicago or start tripping car bombs next to shopping malls. You think we're on the verge of a recession now? Just think what would happen if domestic terror attacks, even on a small scale, start.

There is a school of thought in the neo-con community that 9-11 was a good thing (figuretively speaking) since it opened our eyes to something the neo-cons had been saying for years: that the world has lions roaming through it that want nothing more than to kill Americans and end our way of life. YOu can't reason or negotiate with these lions, and you can try to contain/appease them at your peril. The only way to be 100% safe is to hunt each and every one of them down and kill them.

9-11 caused 3,000 deaths and a few hundred billion in direct & indirect damage. However, had the terrorists used a fission weapon, the damages would have been AT LEAST 10 to 20 times that, and our gov't would have had to respond in kind. Very bad scenario. Unthinkable. This must never be allowed to happen.

So, we now have our collective eyes open to the threat. I think many, many of us have forgotten about the threat, however.

Fear sucks. Fear is no good. But we must live in the real world. Fear is not a bad thing if kept in context and controlled. What is bad is to bury it under the carpet and let the problems fester (as Bush Sr. and Clinton did) since it is too hard to fix the problem.

I agree with Benwa that the 9-11 ceremonies are exploited, and it sucks. I agree with Rainster that there should not be a holideay on 9-11 (maybe when we eradicate terrorism, but not before then). A holiday in the interim would cheapen it for me.

[cheetah]

Originally posted by jku
By identifying the methods and realizing powerful people use fear to manipulate and control - that is the first step to breaking free. I have a MUCH better chance getting killed on my way home from work tonight than I ever will from terrorism.

Don't let this Bush Administration use the natural fear you have, a protective instinct in all animals, to pull you into believing in wars fought against the WRONG countries, spending billions of dollars on high tech military weapons that don't make us safer (didn't the hijackers use BOX CUTTERS!?), giving up your personal liberties and rights as Americans, and spending tax money NOW that we as a generation will have to pay back in the future.

The cynicism this Administration has for its own people knows NO bounds. They thrive on the fact that "we the people" don't know the difference between Iraq and Iran.

Stay informed. Knowledge destroys fear.

Hear, hear!

Did you know 70% of people still think Iraq was behing 9/11? I'm sure the Bushies don't mind that, and the media doesn't bother spreading the truth. People don't bother getting the knowledge!

[Benwa]

Killing the lions isn't going to accomplish anything. I feel a very good way to reduce terrorism is to stop creating terrorists. Canada is similar to the US in many ways, so why don't terrorist attack them? Because Canada doesn't pick fights.

"Just because" or "because they're jealous of us" aren't reasons terrorists attack. A great deal of resources, effort and determination goes into pulling off a terrorist attack like 9-11. So much, that a decision based on emotion or religious fervor seems an unlikely motivation. They perceive us as a threat. We should look at why they see us as a threat to their lives or their lifestyle. And then make efforts to remedy the situation. This would be a sound, intelligent, benevolent approach to a potentially hostile problem. Think Gandhi, not Rambo.

Never once have I heard from our leaders that perhaps we played a hand in our own demise on that day. All the years of our horrible foreign policy, war crimes and obedience by coercive force. To think that that has no bearing on the situation is gullibility. Problems from wars we have fought cannot be remdied by more war. Isn't that so obvious that it doesn't need to be said. But apparently it does. You can't prevent obesity with Big Macs.