I don't understand why 9/11 made people feel patriotic.

[ZombieHorde]

So many people were murdered in 2001, why were those 2,993 more special than the other victims of violence?

Why did GWB's popularity rise on 9-11-01?

I was watching the news that day and I did not feel particularly patriotic, I did not like GWB any more than the previous day, I did feel any more sad for those victims of violence than any other victim of violence.

The only reason I can think of is the fact these victims of violence were on TV, and therefore, more real than other victims of violence in people's minds, but I would like to think more of my fellow humans.

[The Straight Story]

1. Because we may have problems amongst each other

but an outsider coming into it changes the equation.

The same story across the globe - folks within a boundary will fight amongst themselves, but someone outside of them attacking them will make them put that all aside until later.

[paulsby]

3. good analogy

we can see it in everything from religious groups, to ethnic groups, to labor groups, etc.

well done.

[theoldman]

4. Me against my brother, my brother and I against my cousins.

Frankly I don't know why we should have felt patriotic after 9/11. We screwed up and allowed it to happen. Part of our anger should have been on ourself.

[The Straight Story]

7. So if you upset someone and they kill others it is the fault of those killed

or their fault by proxy because of politicians?

The fault lies solely with those who did those acts.

Not the victims.

[Arugula Latte]

71. Remember immediately after, there was some introspection about

why these people would hate us enough to do this. Not blame the victim -- just -- what the hell is going on in the world when it has come to this? And then that was very quickly quashed and stomped down and replaced with the Fox News-pushed hyper jingoistic "USA! USA! Bomb 'em all!" mentality, which the other media outlets quickly adopted.

[ZombieHorde]

5. Seems weird, but maybe. Perhaps people feel more strongly about

citizenship than I do and develop a fearful "gang" mentality. Hopefully you are just being cynical and there is something more going on here.

[The Straight Story]

10. It is called coming together

And on 9/11 it was not just here in the US but others feeling the same way.

A bunch of innocent people were attacked and murdered (make no mistake, it was mass murder) and yet some keep trying to explain away that murder and blame the victims.

Folks here in the US (and elsewhere) often come together and protest the harm done to other innocents around the globe (from humans to whales) and form a bond over it all. It is no great leap to understand why people more local to the event pull closer together.

[ZombieHorde]

37. "A bunch of innocent people were attacked and murdered"

I agree, but lots of people are murdered everyday. Lots of children starve to death everyday. From what I am reading, the 9/11 murders were special because the murderers were from another country. I don't understand this. If someone killed my family I would not care where the killers were from.

[tammywammy]

40. It's because they were killed by hijacked planes

3 out of 4 that then flew into building killing other innocent people. It was umimaginable that someone would do that. It was a horrifying and spectacular at the same time, everyone saw it, it wasn't a random Joe Schmoe that was murderer, it was the vast quantity of people and the way they died that caught everyone.

[aquart]

54. I so wish you were joking.

No, it isn't because it was a big Hollywood-type stunt that was..SURPRISE!...real.

Good grief.

Americans were attacked on American soil for being Americans. The number killed was shocking. The realization of vulnerability was traumatizing.

It didn't matter how they did it. It didn't matter WHO did it. They DID it. They were ABLE to do it.

Even Pearl Harbor did not occur on the mainland.

Oklahoma City was done by our own. Horrible, but we grew them. They were here.

9/11 wasn't our own. WE SOMEHOW LET THEM IN.

[tammywammy]

58. I'm sorry, you're misinterpreting what I said

I didn't mean spectacular like a Hollywood movie. Spectacular in the sense that it wasn't something the vast majority of this country had ever seen or experienced, I mean how many people were alive on 9/11 and Pearl Harbor.


Edited to add: And I do disagree, if it had been done by Americans there would still have been a coming together as well.

[The Straight Story]

47. Well it was a MASS murder for one

It is not everyday someone flies a plane into a building to kill people who never did anything to them.

Hell my mom died right around the time of the tsunamis and most the world did not care one wit, she was one woman out of many. But to me it meant something. On 9/11 a lot of innocent people died all at once via murder and that, like the tsunami, tends to get one's attention.

Mass death that was unexpected tends to get peoples' attention, since it is out of the norm.

And I will say as I have before, it is a shame that all the deaths from lack of health care don't get the same notice.

A link for you:

http://www.usnpl.com

All the papers/tv stations in the US - good for reading the local news that affects people everyday that the MSM misses (including the good news, like a church helping people, grandmothers knitting mittens for homeless kids, etc).

[aquart]

51. Really?

So if Germans rounded up all your relatives and murdered them you wouldn't care that they were German? Or that they were doing it AS Germans? How big of you.

And how stunningly slow.

No, it was not because the killers were from Egypt and Saudi Arabia. We didn't do spit to Egypt or Saudi Arabia. It was because the killings targeted Americans and foreigners doing business with Americans. It was because we were killed for BEING American.

Just as my family were killed for no other reason than being Jews.

I have personal experience to help my understanding. I don't know what you have.

[ZombieHorde]

68. "you wouldn't care that they were German? Or that they were doing it AS Germans?"

As opposed to Americans rounding up my family and murdering them? No, the only reason the murderer's nationality would matter would be for the investigation. But this is a bit off topic since the 9/11 terrorists were not really rounding people up.

If by "AS Germans" you mean as an act of war, then this is different.

How big of you. and And how stunningly slow.

Personal attacks do make for very good learning experiences.

It was because the killings targeted Americans and foreigners doing business with Americans. It was because we were killed for BEING American.

I don't understand why this fact is so important.

By "we" do you mean "they?"

[Bluerthanblue]

66. odd how few people seemed to care about the victims of Katrina.

and still blame the victims.

It was mass manslaughter to leave people suffering and drowning- to have those who attempted to walk out of their city met by armed people refusing to allow them refuge.


Why don't we remember the atrocities of Katrina, and lay wreathes for those whose bodies lay bloated and floating in water days after the Hurricane?

Because the "enemy" was US?

Sorry- my heart does go out to those who lost loved ones because of the actions of 9/11- but it is NO MORE tragic, or less patriotic- than those who died in Katrina, those who die as the result of drunk drivers- drive-by shootings, neglect, abuse, hatred, war, untreated disease/illness-

Every sorrow is sacred to those who carry it. Those who died on 9/11 and the results of it, were no more or LESS precious than anyone else.

may we all know peace- and be ready and able to comfort ALL who mourn, no matter how dramatically or quietly their loved ones left this earth-

blu

[uppityperson]

13. Good analogy, but I was concerned about having a flag up at work (live on W coast)

going in to work the next day, was concerned that they would have hung up a flag at work and what I would do since the attacks made me feel a pulling together as a people, but not flag wavey stuff.

Although they talked about putting a flag up, they decided that since they would not have had one up anyways, it wasn't right to put one up for the attacks.

[Oregone]

17. Man will fight his neighbor until he finds someone to hate more

And together, hand in hand, those men will don flag bikini briefs as they quest on to snuff out the hated evil in the world

[The Straight Story]

19. Are you talking about the people who attacked that day?

I think you are right about them.

[Oregone]

20. No, I'm talking about mankind

And thats basically what fits in most context. We are a homicidal, maniacal sociopathic bunch of creatures. What bonds us together is more often guilt, fear, or hatred of others, rather than a recognition of community and love.

We didn't evolve this way by fucking the smartest and singing campfire songs. We evolved into the smartest and most dangerous creatures on the planet by creating millenniums of killing fields that hyper-accelerated "natural" selection and ensured, generation after generation, the strongest traits (even psychological) would carry forth to make each child more deadly than its parent.

This evolution chamber produced a sick creature, driven on and brought together by hate and xenophobia.

[The Straight Story]

26. Yeah well evolution does that sadly

Maybe because so few have realized that the best result (to steal from Nash) is doing what is best for yourself AND the group.

In a sense we did not simply evolve as a species but as individuals who always want what is best only for oneself, and yet there is religion telling us that there is something bigger than us and more important than simply the individual.

Some pervert those ideals for their own uses, but many others embrace them and work for the betterment of all (they just never get any press or mention in history because it is more fun to focus on the negative groups do than on the positive).

[valerief]

2. It doesn't make sense. It's that sports mob mentality, I think. We all know it was MIHOP anyway.

I feel bad for all victims of violent crime, too, and for all the workers who tried to save them.

[Berry Cool]

21. We don't "all" know it was MIHOP. n/t

[TheWatcher]

52. Those that religiously and depserately cling to The Official Mythology do not know, that is true.

They know very little.

And they wish so fervently that everyone would just shut up and stop asking questions, and "move forward."

[Gidney N Cloyd]

6. Patriotism and Nationalism are often confused.

And RWers often take advantage of that.

[Echo In Light]

12. Those running the Big Show understand psychological manipulation of the public mind

[deaniac21]

8. Maybe because it happened on one day? I mean we have

many more than that killed in car wrecks every year. We've had more troops killed than that and no one cares about them.

[aquart]

9. You miss a lot, I guess.

I'M ALSO GUESSING YOU WERE NOT IN NEW YORK AT THE TIME.

Manhattan was closed. No transportation running. Empty streets. No way in or out. Silence like you have never heard before. Days and days of silence.

Whatever flags there were, sold out. The Daily News printed flags for people to put in their windows because we couldn't find any to buy. When the bridges opened and my mom could drive in, she brought me wool bracelets, twists of yarn in red, white and blue. Because we couldn't get flags. I still have those bracelets. She still has hers.

And you don't understand why? BECAUSE IT WAS THE NATION THAT WAS ATTACKED. Those people died because they were in American buildings in an American city and for no other reason. So every single one of us except for you plastered our buildings and our bodies WITH TARGETS. WITH BULLSEYES. WITH AMERICAN FLAGS. And we dared the bastards to come for us, too.

But you don't get that.

[leftynyc]

14. Well said aquart

I was also in the city that day watching it unfold outside my office window. I was proud of how my city pulled together and then how my country did as well. The fact that bush screwed it all up is no reason to foget that. I wish I could rec your post 100 times.

[ZombieHorde]

36. "I was proud of how my city pulled together"

OK, this I understand. Good people in your community acted in a time of need, and you are proud to be a part of that community, but the vast majority of Americans are not New Yorkers.

and then how my country did as well

What did the country do? I did not do anything except call my family, who lives back East, to make sure they were well.

[azmouse]

39. It's a little thing called empathy.

Empathy: : the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also : the capacity for this

[ZombieHorde]

42. Why is there more empathy for the victims of 9/11 than other murder victims? nt

[azmouse]

44. Maybe because we all saw it happen?

[Oregone]

48. Or because we saw them politicize it and use it as a tool to incite irrational nationalism

[ZombieHorde]

63. TV makes it more real? This could be. TV does seem to have great power. nt

[Oregone]

16. I don't get it either

Sounds fucken ridiculous. Whatever makes your heart go aflutter though

[ZombieHorde]

31. You are right, I don't even come close to getting "that."

Manhattan was closed. No transportation running. Empty streets. No way in or out. Silence like you have never heard before. Days and days of silence.

My family is from the East coast, I have spent a lot of time in New York City, but I now live in Montana. Montana has silence.

Whatever flags there were, sold out. The Daily News printed flags for people to put in their windows because we couldn't find any to buy. When the bridges opened and my mom could drive in, she brought me wool bracelets, twists of yarn in red, white and blue. Because we couldn't get flags. I still have those bracelets. She still has hers.

No offense, but I don't get it.

BECAUSE IT WAS THE NATION THAT WAS ATTACKED.

Just seemed like more violence to me.

[aquart]

49. Montana has silence? Maybe. Manhattan doesn't.

There are subways running underground and traffic on the streets. THERE IS ALWAYS SOUND. Until there wasn't. No one could sleep for the silence.

If you don't get it, you don't get it. Your identity isn't national. You could probably move to another country if the terms were right. And nobody has ever attacked you simply for being an American?

I'm just guessing. Like you don't get me, I can't begin to comprehend you.

[ZombieHorde]

61. "Montana has silence?" At least for humans, dogs may feel otherwise.

Your identity isn't national.

This is true.

You could probably move to another country if the terms were right.

Absolutely.

And nobody has ever attacked you simply for being an American?

Does wrong place, wrong time count?

[ChickMagic]

32. You said it way better than I could, aquart

That's really good about the bullseye. We did that half a country away because we really did not
know what to expect. The atmospheric conditions were such that one could see contrails on the
horizon here right before flights were grounded. I could see the glint of the aircraft
and to my panicked mind it looked like missiles had been launched from silos. It took
me couple of days to get my bearings and realized something was not what it seemed.

[damntexdem]

11. Because we helped launch a coup that ousted a government our government didn't like.

And that incidentally murdered the rightful, elected president of that country: Salvador Allende.

Oh, "wrong" September 11!!!!

But, you know, many more people died in Chile on September 11, 1973 than died in the attacks on September 11, 2001. I guess Chilean deaths are less-important than American deaths, or something.

[lunatica]

15. I feel the same way you do

The next day I was very stressed about what the Bush administration was going to do. I felt deep down the certainty that they were going to war over this rather than go after the criminals. I even expressed my worry to a workmate who scolded me and told me I should go live in another country if I was so unhappy in this one. She also told me she would gladly give up her civil rights to be safe. Four years later she talked about wishing someone would assassinate Bush for what he'd done.

I disagreed with her on that too. What? And make a fucking martyr out of him? Shit no!

[Mariana]

46. I remember that sinking feeling, too

wondering what Bush and his cronies were going to do, wondering how badly they were going to screw up the response, wondering how they were going to use it to grab more power for themselves, wondering how it would be used to manipulate and control the population.

It ended up being worse than I imagined it would be.

[LanternWaste]

18. I imagine an outside threat results in greater communal solidarity...

I imagine the perception of a direct, outside threat results in greater communal solidarity and a feeling of unity due to shared loss. Greater communal solidarity may easily result in either patriotism, or the appearance of patriotism.

[redqueen]

22. Yep... learned response, nothing more meaningful about it.

We evolved that way because those who banded together tended to survive.

[Echo In Light]

23. And it effectively plays off how the daily round of life in the US tends to alienate many

In other words, those at the top realize how the masses can be manipulated and relied upon to dutifully come together via banner headings, theme music and slogan chanting ... where a common enemy comes in quite handy.

[azmouse]

24. The Alamo, Pearl Harbor, JFK assassination

It's all the same thing. A trauma that brings a country together.

Every country has similar moments. Nothing unique about it to America.

[Oregone]

35. I wonder if some people are purely immune to the concept that they belong to some country,

political party, person, movement, age, etc.

If so, something like violence bringing a country together would surely exclude and dumbfound them.

[azmouse]

43. I think it's being empathetic to others who have gone through something tragic.

We may not have been in Dallas, or New York or Hawaii... but we imagine what it may have been like and wonder how we would have reacted.

We hear the stories of bravery and wonder if we would have been as brave.
We see the crying people who have lost family and imagine ourselves without our family.
We look around us and wonder what it would be like if it all disappeared in a puff of fire and smoke.


edit: spelling

[Oregone]

45. Its more than that. Most Americans give two shits when people die in South America

Yeah, some major world events are not unnoticed, but 3000 people pull a country together when it happens in the country than 30,000 people dying abroad. Thats just the way it is. It goes so beyond empathy.

[ZombieHorde]

70. I understand the fact that I am a citizen of the U.S.A., but I still dumbfounded by many

of the displays of patriotism towards this event.

I feel like there is some simple thing I just can't wrap my brain around.

I think my OP has angered or annoyed a few people, but I don't understand why.

[spanone]

25. 'circle the wagons'

[Kajsa]

27. The mainland US was attacked

for the first time in my recollection.

I felt we were very vulnerable that day.

:(

[ZombieHorde]

33. Violent people are constantly attacking people in our mainland.

Why does their country of origin matter?

[Kajsa]

53. Please elaborate.

What specifically are you referring to?

I was talking about in my lifetime, from 1951-present.

Who said their country of origin mattered?
( besides you)

[ZombieHorde]

62. "What specifically are you referring to?"

I am referring to attacks here in the U.S. Human versus human violence. People have been attacked on the mainland everyday since 1951.

[Kajsa]

73. OK- I'm trying to understand this---

You are equating internal, domestic acts of violence
which occur daily, with
external acts of terrorism?

And yes, I need an example to understand
WTH you are referring to.

So far, I haven't got one, just redefinitions
of your main point.

[ZombieHorde]

74. "And yes, I need an example to understand" Sounds fair. I often need examples.

Some examples:

-A man, who is American, kills his wife and three children, who are also American. The killings happen in the U.S.

-Two rival street gangs shoot their firearms at each other in the U.S., several people die, including an "innocent."

-A woman drowns her children in her bathtub in the U.S.

-A man kills another man, in the U.S., for the contents of his wallet.

-A man rapes and kills a woman in the U.S.

-Several men kill a man, in the U.S., who they believe is gay.

[Kajsa]

75. My conclusion was correct.

You are equating internal,domestic violence that occurs everyday in the US,
with external acts of terrorism.

[ZombieHorde]

78. Yes. Neither internal violence nor external acts of terrorism make me feel patriotic.

Do external acts of terrorism make you feel patriotic, and if so, why?

[Kajsa]

80. External acts of terrorism

bring on a feeling of unification with my country,

-much like when a family unit that may have members
at odds with each other come together when the entire
family is threatened.

If you don't understand that- that's your opinion.

I will no more defend my opinion and try to shove it down
anyone's throat, than I will besmirch yours.

We don't agree- not a first on DU.

[Oregone]

34. "we"?

I guess it all hinges on whether or not you buy into the concept that you belong to some collective that is defined centuries ago by documents and drawings on a map (that often have less than altruistic origins).

[Kajsa]

50. WTH? What in the hell are you talking about?

n/t

[Oregone]

65. What defines "we"?

You are saying that some specific group was attacked. But the real qualifications to be part of that group are of no doing of our own, for the most part. It was luck. Chance. And you personally were never a target. No one in the building was. No individual was attacked on purpose. A regime was perhaps, but what makes the geographical location of one's birth a de facto declaration they actually belong to one regime or another? Its but merely a tool of that regime to take such tragic collateral damage and project it to a personal level upon their subjects, such that they can use them according to their own will.

I wasn't attacked on 9/11, in so far as one doesn't consider it an attack on humanity. Thats the only group I belong to really, and I can prove it to you with a DNA test.

Nationalism is just all really odd. Its a foreign concept to me. I was merely born in land controlled by the US. It doesn't mean Ill die there. It doesn't mean Ill die for it either.

[Kajsa]

72. Oregone, reading your response I can see

that we have vastly different opinions on nationality.

Let's leave it at that, as pushing one's opinion over
another's here is an exercise in futility.


try reading post #9
and aquart's other posts here.

[juno jones]

28. I don't understand it either.

I saw my liberal friends all become flag waving fools for variable amounts of time. No serious discussion of the political implications would be broached. I was one of the five percent who went around thinking about blowback, barnyard fowl returning to the ancestral nest, PNAC and all that. It was for me a very lonely time. Thank gods for the internet and the perspective it afforded.

Much of what I feared then has come to pass and shows no sign of going away.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

29. "Patriotism is the most foolish of passions, and the passion of fools."

Schopenhauer

I think that pretty well says "why".

[arcadian]

30. I agree with you.

[azul]

38. Together we were attacked, together we respond.

That nationalism was abused to create a response that recruited more terrorists -for an excuse for un-ending war. That is the only deduction possible for me: they had to have known what would result from taking off the gloves.



Us and them

By Jennie Erdal

Published: March 7 2009

~snip

Richardson's book was in part addressed to those policymakers who believed that the September 11 attack was a security breach to be solved by means of superior force, moral posturing and tough-guy sloganeering - "simplistic formulas of good and evil", she writes. She advocates a more modulated approach, drawing on the counter-terrorism experience of other countries, such as Britain dealing with the IRA, or India responding to Sikh terrorism in Punjab. Instead, what happened was what she describes now as "American exceptionalism run amok" - the refusal to derive any lessons from the experience of any other country. It became a simple case of deploying the military and "beating the bad guys".

While acknowledging the pressure on governments to react forcibly and speedily in the wake of an attack, she believes that to be effective, the response should be as nuanced as the problem. This would include understanding, instead of simply demonising, the enemy, isolating terrorists from what she calls their "enabling communities" and above all living by our principles - "no more Abu Ghraibs", as she puts it now. Her book draws on powerful historical examples of principled American behaviour, notably George Washington's instructions to the officer in charge of the 221 British soldiers taken prisoner at Princeton: "Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to complain of our copying the brutal example of the British army in their treatment of our unfortunate brethren."

~snip~

One or two reviewers of her book hinted that, because of her Irish roots, Richardson has an over-romantic view of terrorism. She is impassioned on this subject. "My moral code is simple: inflicting violence on others is utterly and incontrovertibly reprehensible."


http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d96d0978-0ab6-11de-95ed-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1

[Iggo]

41. I work with a bunch of people...

...who are treating this as a holiday.

Until I say "Happy 9/11 Day!!"

The they look at me like I'M the weird one...lol.

[proteus_lives]

55. Dupe.

[proteus_lives]

56. Human nature.

An attack from an outside force forges stronger (if only temporary) bonds within the attacked group.

[stray cat]

57. If your town was wiped out by a terrorist bomb would survivors feel united?

after all more people die in the US from the flu than exist in many towns ie 30-50,000.? Or would you think it largely irrelevant because it would hardly be noticed as an increase in those who die worldwide.

[Oregone]

64. I personally would just decide to shit where ever I wanted.

Probably on my neighbors yard, since I never liked him. Why? It wouldn't matter anymore. My neighbor is a dick anyway.

I guess Im not like all you people. Until that point, I felt like less of an American than any time before that in my life. I was in quetion mode. The country was in flag waving, kill all the brown skinned motherfuckers mode. I didn't feel like I belonged to the lynch mob at all. I didn't want to actually--not because they were attacked, but their moronic chest pounding response to it. Maybe thats what lit and unconscious fuse in my head that told me it was time to leave.

[ZombieHorde]

69. "after all more people die in the US from the flu than exist in many towns"

Exactly.

If your town was wiped out by a terrorist bomb would survivors feel united?

United in the goal of getting help perhaps.

[Xenotime]

59. Exactly. It was something a little more training could have prevented..

It's not a reason to break out the flag and start waving it like some moron.

[treestar]

60. The media got us to perceive it as a military attack

Like Pearl Harbor, don't know how many died there, but a military attack was made there. We are overdramatic so we can always be exploited this way.

Take a real military attack that results in some form of occupation. Naturally France of Poland or Russia - countries subjected to such real, military attacks - will band together to defend the homeland.

That is why there are conspiracy theories around Pearl Harbor. The U.S. did not want to get involved in another war. Have an attack on our soil and bam - we are all ready to defend.

And we were willing to go to war in Afghanistan in large numbers - when we figured out that was where was could wage of plausible defense from the attack. It works, if you decide 911 was a military attack.

[Oregone]

67. Um humm...

[Strelnikov_]

76. You are obviously not one of the ZombieHorde n/t

[LeftyMom]

77. Patriotism is a tool used to manipulate morons.

Pride in having been born within some invisible arbitrary lines on a map.

[Echo In Light]

81. +1 (and sadly, it's highly effective)

[Brooklyns_Finest]

79. The Op is being Obtuse

While she might not have the same feelings that most Americans (including me) had after the attacks, it is not hard to understand those feelings on an intellectual level.

The same kind of bonding occurred during Katrina. Most people could care less about what happens outside of their immediate neighborhoods, but a tragedy of the magnitude of Katrina rallied the country around the good people of Louisiana. I also believe that Katrina was the point where Americans started to see the Bush administration for what they really were.

Also, the difference between the violence that occurs on a day to day basis and what happened on 9/11 is based on expectations. When I lived in NYC, I expected that murders would occur. I even expect that multiple murders that are very gruesome would occur. However, living in America, I do not expect terrorist to fly planes in to big buildings killing thousands of people.

[ZombieHorde]

83. I fully understand people helping each other when something bad happens.

I understand why people volunteered.

I don't understand why people became more patriotic. I don't understand why people would like GWB more than usual.

Helping in a crisis makes sense to me, loving your country and President more because some foreigners killed nearly 3000 people does not make sense to me. Seems like a strange reason to increase how much one likes a country or leader.

[TransitJohn]

82. I'm with you.

Jingoism and the American military fetish are incomprehensible to me.