American Histrionics Day

[nfotxn]

Once again it's American Histrionics Day. And my media blinders are on. So please, have your day to remember the unfortunate and privileged. It's a convenient distraction from, say, realizing that terror happens in the world every day. In many horrible ways and mostly to people who are not American.

This woman at the Toronto ceremonies for 9/11 was on the CBC. Speaking about Canadians and our somewhat untrusting approach to the supposed war on terror. The national dialog casts a prudently shifty eye on our own involvement in Afghanistan. The woman speaking lost her husband and has therefore decided that, however cognitively dissonant she is, that we must blast the sand niggers off the surface of the earth. Without saying as much she attacks her own country, having been to the disaster site and having drank the koolaid of mass mutual flagellation.

At this point in time I am ready, willing and able to forget the whole incident. It only exists in political bias and the misappropriated feelings exploding into Where Were You? histrionics. The world can be an equally horrible and wonderful place. This has been established. Now move on.

Comments

[oakthorne.livejournal.com]

Once again it's American Histrionics Day.

You know what? I realize that you get a kick out of the whole cynical post-modern routine, but using a day that is still a fresh wound in some people's lives is just tacky.

Yes, there are people who use that event for shitty ends. But using this day to prove how "over" it all you are and how blase and clever and witty you can be is just as shitty, brother.

Joe

[cpratt.livejournal.com]

~2,192 days != "fresh." Sorry.

[jawnbc]

I thought you were a little more compassionate than this Brodie.

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

I'm terribly compassionate. I'm an emotional blubbering slob. I'm tired of being told to be compassionate. I'm tired of living in another country and being controlled by their political dogma as to how and when to feel a certain way.

I'm done with that. I thought you were smarter than this. Why are you questioning dissent? Complacent much?

[velnich.livejournal.com]

I haven't found the media coverage that "in your face" this year and haven't paid close attention since perhaps the 1-3 years after it happened. Having not been directly affected myself or had anyone close to me be directly affected, it's hard to care more about this disaster than any of the equally or more horrible ones that have happened around the world since (the tsunami or Katrina for example).

Add to this how 9/11 has been used for political purposes and I can't help but even hate the occasion or how it used to be "remembered". As I said, lately I haven't found it as intrusive. A memorial note off the front page and a few minutes of silence seems appropriate. I could see how someone who suffered a personal loss might take offense to your post, but posting such in your own blog is far from inappropriate.

[slumberjack.livejournal.com]

i live in america and hadn't even thought about what the date was til you made this post. just sayin'. :-)

maybe you should turn off the tv and listen to some music and read wikipedia? it's what i'm doing, but again, it's what i do every day...

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

That's what I do all day too! For work. But I listen to the CBC and they kept playing that War on Terror sympathising bitches soundbyte all day and I just wanted to cut her throat.

I’m personally excited about most people returning back to normal. I’m bitter about coming out of this feeling manipulated. I’m also bitter about many Americans telling me how and what to think because they couldn’t deal with outside perspective.

So it’s 6 years later and I’m saying what’s on my mind.

[danlmarmot.livejournal.com]

I'm so over 9/11 as well.

Whole Foods Market here in San Diego put up four flags along the sidewalk in front of their store. It feels more exploitative than sympathetic.

[bullneck.livejournal.com]

I know we've had some snarky arguments before, but wow. I do see the kernel of your point here, but it's swaddled in so much bile and causticity as to render it moot.

You also make some pretty vile generalizations: the restaurant workers in Windows on the World were far from 'privileged' (and even so, are 'privileged' people unworthy of mourning? Or just Americans?); the war in Afghanistan seems pretty obviously not designed to 'blast the sand n____s off the surface of the earth' (nukes and bio-chem weapons would be more effective at that, duh); and what you label as 'misappropriated feelings' and 'histrionics' includes genuine grief and suffering and loss. If you don't like the coverage or the memories, you can just turn the tee-vee off; sadly, those who lost someone that day don't have such an easy option available to tune it out.

[mondragon.livejournal.com]

The tragically hip dissing the tragedy-hip.

I'm guessing your frustration level has caused this bizarre attack on the people whose grief makes them vunerable, as opposed to those who are taking advantage of them. Then again, sneering at the people who are wearing the wrong outfit gets more attention than questioning the whole concept of following the (large in some cases, small in others) pack.

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

Nice drive-by, too bad I have no idea what you really mean. My opinion I suppose is just part of my fashionably ironic wardrobe right? That unengaging, dismissive and cruel.

[mattycub.livejournal.com]

I understand what you're saying, Brodie. I think. I mean, I get pissed off whenever the Republicans here, and particularly our sorry excuse of a president, use what happened on 9/11 as a manipulative tool to excuse a bunch of truly horrendous things we're doing in the world. I get tired of hearing uninformed morons use 9/11 to justify their feeligs of hatred of anything, and anyone, that doesn't jive with their own limited view of the world. Seeing people misappropriate grief over anything is always gross - no one likes the guy loudly crying at the funeral who didn't even really know the deceased. And the media, well, they overplay everything, don't they.

And yes, tragedy happens all over the world, every day. But it's human nature to feel more connected to the tragedy in your backyard than the one halfway around the world, and I get a little tired of people being holier than thou and pretending this ain't so and that they're above it. Would you grieve for victims of a tsunami in Thailand the same way you would if the CN Tower was attacked and many people lost their lives? I don't think so. Maybe it's an ideal to be as equally concerned with tragedy irrespective of location, but I don't think that's how we work.

It's nice for you that you're personally ready to move on. But not everyone that still feels affected by this particularly tragedy has "misappropriated feelings" and is engaged in "Where Were You? histrionics". To suggest so is insulting and cynical, and I think whatever else you might have to say of value gets lost in the inevitable negative reaction a lot of people are going to have to such words.

[mattycub.livejournal.com]

An addendum, although it probably shouldn't be needed.

I don't think you're an asshole. And I certainly know you well enough to know that you are a genuinely compassionate person. That's not in question.

I just think your words here go beyond the point (I think) you're trying to make, and can easily be read as insulting and insensitive.

[jliv.livejournal.com]

Oh shit...Is it really 9/11 today? I forgot until I started reading my friends' blog.

Seriously, this was a traumatic event for many people. In spite of the detestable politics of the Bush administration and the Republican Party, and how they've exploited the events of 2001, a day of remembrance is perfectly justified. However, my horror at watching the events on television pales in comparison to that of my friends who were in NYC that day, so I find it tasteless when the American media tries to imbue this day with more significance than necessary. We need to let the people who were truly effected grieve as much as they need to, and rest of us should keep it in perspective. I find a much more important lesson in the pathetic, ignorant choices the Bush administration made in the wake of this horrific terrorist action.

[booddhabear.livejournal.com]

I dunno Brodie, but someday, when you've had your fill of eating poutine replicas of the once lofty CN Tower, we can just go back to fucking like the primal, one-step-above(?)-dolphin beasts we really are... or something...

[-cellardo0r-.livejournal.com]

I agree with you. That's kind of what my post was getting at.

I don't want this 9/11 wound to open up yet again. I just want to move on and see this country extricate from this mess its created. I want progress. I want political change. I don't want to remember the paralyzing fear anymore.

The grief that I see on the media rings hollow...and seems designed to prey on people's grief rather than anything constructive.

But you might want to change a few words in your post if you don't want people to be confused about where your barbs are aimed. Because I doubt you were aiming them at the people experiencing genuine grief.

[bearringsd.livejournal.com]

I'm sympathetic to those who lost someone special and to the loss of human life in general in this day. It didn't touch me personally per-se, so it's more of an empathy thing, than anything else. It angers me that people use the death of others for their own political agenda and yes, in the big scheme of things, we are certainly not the only ones who've endured death on a large scale.

I think that's what you feel, but your post came through so cynical and dismissive and bitter that your point gets lost in the whole 'Wow, Brodie is an asshole' reaction it generates.

From reading the replies, I think you should consider yourself blessed that most people know you better.

[bookbear.livejournal.com]

Hey dude, I can try to wrap my brain cells around where this is coming from. I feel the same when it comes to celebrity trials, the lies my government and FOX "News" tells me, and all manner of stuff that sloughs ad nauseam across my media eye.

But I really gotta call you on this one. I just need to voice that you're a bit off base here, and I'd go so far as to say buying into the same "histrionics" by posting this. All in all, it's pretty fucking offensive.

Do we need 24 hour coverage? Of course not. Does anyone think that without it people would actually forget? Well, they're idiots if they do. But to imply such forceful antagonism that Americans use this day to forget the realities around the world, that we believe it's worse because it finally happened to us, that people's grief can be likened to a religious cult (the Kool-Aid reference) and that, most infuriating of all, their feelings are "misappropriated," well that just crosses the line into pure...I don't know what to call it...assholism?

I know you're not an asshole; someone who's written with the insight you have previously can't be. Opinionated to be sure, but that's one of the things I like about reading your journal. I learn a lot. But you've never sounded so misguidedly hateful and insensitive before. I'm kind of disappointed.

I agree with you that it borders on the self-flagelation, especially for the brunt of the country who were peripherally affected, the ones who sit at home absorbing all the pabulum from FOX and letting their media-fueled righteousness whip them into a frenzy that allowed the assholes we have now get elected and continue this illegal and immoral war. I think, and I hope, that those are the ones your vitriol is directed against. Unfortunately, it spills onto the country as a whole, as you wrote it.

Who is anyone to say when enough grief is enough? If I was sitting at home crying all day in front of the tv, yeah, that'd be a bit much because I wasn't there and didn't lose anyone. But it's not just the immediate families affected. It's the millions across the country of family members, co-workers, friends, acquaintances.

And back to your previous point about maintaining a world-wide view...yes, that is always important. Yes, the lives lost to torture and political regimes in Somalia, Darfur, Rwanda, the West Bank and on and on are equally important. But that doesn't diminish the powerful emotions that Americans deserve to have and express over this loss. I'm sorry, but it simply doesn't. As cold and callous, unfeeling and bloated and selfish as you'd like to think us to get the point of this post across, it's simply not the case. And if you're getting these images of Americans from the media, then you're no better than the idiots gobbling a steady stream of FOX bullshit.

If your media blinders were really on, why did you contribute to it at all by posting this, a part of all the media histrionics.

I'm not writing this to change your mind, but hopefully just add to the discussion a bit. And, it helped me calm down a bit. I didn't want to reach for the "defriend" button right away. I think you're way too interesting a person.

PS:

[bookbear.livejournal.com]

I really like what booddahbear said about "fucking like the primal, one-step-above(?)-dolphin beasts we really are."

Dunno why, just thought I'd mention that.

[zombietruckstop.livejournal.com]

It only exists in political bias and the misappropriated feelings exploding into Where Were You? histrionics.

False.

This statement totally undermines any "I'm compassionate" follow up because it sets you up as the arbiter of anyone's feelings that aren't your own.

Shame on you. Not for not giving a shit about 9/11, but for not giving a shit about people who do. There is a middle ground between you and the media.

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

Yeah I'm Canadian and I don't understand your pain, right? I'm just trying to get people to comment on my blog and look cool. I guess I should never have an opinion differing from yours. Ever. Because you are right and I'm wrong.

Thanks for, once again, swooping in and shaming me rather than ever speaking with me or being any sort of friend in any capacity. Am I like your Patriotism related punching bag? So that last sentence was maybe a little too hot. Fine. I'm sorry.

But I don't respect you very much at all right now.

[abearius.livejournal.com]

You're going to Hell because you don't care, and because you hate musclebears.

[yieldsigns.livejournal.com]

Nobody hates musclebears. Not on the inside.

Hmmm

[ansionnach.myopenid.com (from livejournal.com)]

I have to say, I am with Brodie on this one. Although I may have put it a little bit differently. But then again anyone who knows me, knows that I am a pretty straight up person, and often speak from what I feel that think of some elegant way to put it.

But really think about it. Yes 9/11 was a tragedy, but is it any more a tragedy that the thousands of Americans who die each year because they can't afford health care, or how about the thousands and thousands of unborn who never get to see the light of day, or how about the thousands who die each year in Iraq, approximately 500% more than under the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Lets think folks. There is nothing we can do about 9/11, it's done and gone, but there is plenty of stuff we can change. And if we do nothing then everyone who has died needlessly, has dies in vain. Just my 2 cents

[thekingoftoday.livejournal.com]

I like pie.

[kmon.livejournal.com]

I hate pie, but love cobbler.

Wow...

[huxbear.livejournal.com]

I haven't read any of the comments, but -- in reading the post itself -- I can only imagine the responses you got...

[EDIT] I just read your "Give me a break/Cut me some slack"-toned post after this one... My response is uncoloured by that, though, since I'll be saying what I intended to say in the 1st place. [/edit]

You used powerful words to convey a powerful -- and unpopular -- feeling that *many* people share. Thank-you for taking the flack on this one. I agree with the sentiment 100%, if not necessarily your wording of it. You're a powerful writer/"speaker" Brody. Again. Thank-you.

[[ HUGE F'ING HUGS ]]

[(Anonymous)]

Wake up guys. Clinging on to an event that has become beyond reproach is the perfect thing to do to get your 'living in denial' badges. Those that lost their lives in the undeniably tragic happenings deserve dignity and grace and stealing away Brody's is not going to work. If it did not work for the Dixie Chicks then WTF are you thinking other than like bullies. His courage to state what he thinks is something that under normal circumstances defines him. You have a government which perpetually lies to you yet he trying to be honest is the bad guy. Shame on each one of you who failed to allow perspective and the open exchange of ideas. And thank you at the same time for exposing yourself.