Bananafish wrote:Jillers wrote:Sorry we can't all be that enlightened. It never feels fully right to celebrate a death, but when the death is of a person who has caused so much pain in the world (and personal to myself, I admit), I don't think we can help it.
The amount of people personally or directly effected by the 9/11 attacks is amazingly miniscule, the people that are out hooting and dancing in the streets and in front of the Capital have, most assuredly, not been effected. The opinions of the people that have been effected have been diluted to suit the needs of the masses- there was just a first responder on CNN was was cut off right after suggesting that we should pull out of Afghanistan.
Any empathy that Americans have is shallow and has been cultivated by the mass media for the past decade for this exact moment- for this orgy of nationalism. This death won't effect our foreign policy or military action, and our current legitimate threats will not change. it is just the most vulgar and embarrassing part of america in full display and asking for a moment of self-reflection or suggesting that maybe doing the running man outside the capital over a persons's death is a bit gauche means you are just raining on everyones parade and idk maybe relax a little?? we did it man!! y-yeah!!
I call bullshit, bannanafish. Do you know how many people WERE directly effected by the attacks? I mean people who either lost their lives, family members lives, had traumatic experiences, had to move, or had worsened physical health directly because of the attacks? If you even fucking dare say something like ~3000 I will come through the Internet and bitchslap you. I was born in DC, have friends and family and have lived in both DC and New York (all over the state, butthe city as well). I saw the planes hit live on TV, and have personally experienced how far reaching the medical effects of the attack were (living in the financial district, less then 5 blocks from Ground Zero, five years after the attacks, I suddenly had a strong resurgence of asthma, which my doctor informed me was due to the air quality of the area still being effected by the attacks; I had to start using an inhaler for the first time in ten years). I can guarantee you, with even the most conservative interpretation of the words "directly effected" at least every person in NYC on the day, every first respondent, an every person in downtown DC on the day, was directly effected. We are talking about millions of people, and for the record, ending someone like Osama bin Laden's influence by any means (though I truly would have prefered to seen him tried in NYC) is one of the few acts of war which I think can be unequivocally proven to be an act in the interest of peace. This is celebrating the death of a monster and the symbolic defeat of his ideals of hate and terror. A surgical strike with virtually no loss of innocent life. Does it make the wars worth it, or make up for the loss of lives on both sides, or excuse indefinite continued presence in Afghanistan and Iraq? No, of course not. But it gives many a sense of closure that they fought they'd never have, and our nations new avenues to more peaceful resolution and more prompt pull out from the current conflict.
This is not about the death of a man, it's about the death of an icon, someone who much of the world saw a symbol of fear and hate, and more importantly than that, a man who wore that badge with pride. You can claim any high and mighty ideas of enlightenment but if you try to sell this as the petulant, vengeful joy of bloodlust you are wrong. This people celebrating the death of a monster, of the boogieman, of a specter they lived in fear of.