TBogg comments on this inanity:
"9/11 was the 'worst day in America's history'. Not that attack on Pearl Harbor that plunged us into war. Not Gettysburg where over 51,000 Americans died. It was 9/11, because, well, it happened just recently during the short lives of people who have known no other tragedies, and everyone knows that what happens now is the biggest or best or most popular or most tragic or....What we lack in perspective, we make up for in self-obsession and navel gazing and patting ourselves on the back. And god knows we love a good wallow. Especially one that will get the blood pumping for more foreign blood to wash away our own which is exactly what these 'commemoration' shows would do..."
Sept. 11 was a godsend to people like Rachel Lucas because it gave meaning and purpose to their pent-up aggression. What good is it to just collect guns and talk about how much they hate people? They want something to kill, and they want to believe they are Totally Right. That's why they go berserk when their irrational and self-defeating actions are pointed out to them. They watched those planes hit and they finally, completely had found a cause. As TBogg says, they want to wallow in the emotions of that day, to become as clean and pure as they felt when they were cleansed by the deaths of 3,000 people. Especially now, when the motives and the methods of Lucas' standard-bearer have been shown to be warped. She must have absolution again:
"Do I want to see footage of the planes hitting the buildings? Yes, I do, but I understand why others wouldn't, especially the tens of thousands of people who loved or knew someone who died because those planes hit those buildings. For me, it's not watching a loved one die all over again, it's watching my world change. The moment that second plane comes into view, that moment of pure, undiluted shock when one could see that it was going to hit the second building - that moment changed me fundamentally. The world is not what you thought it was, Rachel. I think a lot of people feel the same way. Am I wrong?"
Yes, you're wrong, Rachel. Completely and utterly wrong. You don't even understand your own motivations, and you don't want to. You want to experience again the release, the joy you got from watching those people die. Your joy at feeling like a complete person.
In that post of 1,904 words, she refers to the families and friends of the victims exactly once, in the paragraph quoted above. Each of those people carries all the remembrance and images of that day around with them that they will ever need. They - I am sure - do not want parades, or uninterrupted television coverage, or memorial services. They have had all they can take of memorials. Lucas would take their pain and loss and turn it into an emotional orgy that she could count on to revive her spirits every September.
What she should do on that anniversary is turn off the TV and the computer and go do something good for someone else. In fact, I've just decided, that's what I'll be doing that day: volunteering. That's my advice to everyone else, too. Don't wallow. Go do something good and leave the revenge fantasies alone.
What a drama queen. She'll drop it faster than a toddler drops a broken toy when she decides nobody is watching her.
Posted by: Barney Gumble | September 03, 2003 at 01:17 AM