Happy 9/11, everybody.
I, for one, am completely sick of it.
Yes, it sucked—more than I’m going to bother to try and convey.
I was (and still am) in NYC. I had to live through that day, walk through that day (all the way to Brooklyn) and deal with the next few weeks of absolute discombobulation (which, to me, was the worst - that’s when everything sets in) as to what’s safe anymore.
I had to go to work the next day, convinced I was going to die. I rode the subways every morning and for the first two months, every time the train stopped in the tunnels, a cold sweat would kick in and I was hardly the only person.
It was horrible. I wish it hadn’t happened. It did and it’s certainly affected me, my decisions and how I view things.
But it’s been five years.
Still, every time I watch the news, there it is. 9/11 is invoked left and right. I see the plane crash or at least the smoking buildings in the media every day. It’s no longer a tragedy. It’s been co-opted as a tool for politics and media. It makes me sick.
This morning, I was reading an article about a CBS interview with “Tuesday’s Children“, a group to support and represent the children who lost parents that day. The reporter was asking how they felt now and the biggest complaint, round the room, was the constant barrage of imagery from that day. A quote:
The kids [..] told 60 Minutes some of the worst memories don’t fade because the media won’t let them. [CBS Reporter Scott] Pelley got an earful about showing those pictures of 9/11 over and over again.
“Even when you’re just sitting down like eating dinner and watching TV, you’ll just have a nice conversation and then all the sudden you’ll see like pictures of 9/11. You can’t escape it. It’s just like everywhere you go its always like you’re always reminded of it somehow even in the littlest thing,” explains Amy Gardner.
“They’re showing my dad’s death and everyone else here. It’s just really offensive. Every time I see it, it brings up so much and it actually really hurts,” says Erik Abrahamson.
That pretty much sums it up for me. Here’s the link that has video and a transcript.
9/11 is now a political tool. It’s a ticket-selling, ratings-boosting tool. It’s a tool for bloated, flag-waving idiots to show how patriotic they are to everyone else. It’s disgusting. It’s sad. It’s infuriating.
Happy 9/11, everybody.
Tags: 911, Brooklyn, media, New-York-City, News, NY, NYC, politics, television, terrorism



September 12th, 2006 at 10:37 pm
[...] I would spend some time writing about how I feel about the whole thing and what I think the media and politicians have done to it, but what this guy says pretty much sums up how I feel too. It’s funny how some of the people least affected by that day are the ones who are least willing to let it go and move on. So it goes. [...]