Friday, July 21, 2017

Society


                What is wrong with people today?  I am writing this six days after I came up with these thoughts.  Why am I writing it now then?  I don’t know I just felt motivated.  On September 11, 2002, Kellie came up to visit me in New York.  She wanted to go to the various September 11 remembrances going on that day.  She asked for a place to stay, which I told her I could provide.  She, however, didn’t spend the night here, but just dropped her stuff off before and after checking into the hotel with her brother.  We took the subway to ground zero and that’s where I saw how pathetic society is.  People were disobeying cops, trying to sneak their way closer to the ground zero site.  Cops were forced to put up steel barricades in an attempt to control the flow of people.  Eventually they did push through.  Kellie took pictures of anything and everything with an American flag and bearing words similar to “We will always remember and honor those who perished in September 11, 2001”

                In addition to the sea of humanity shoving it’s way to get a better picture of ground zero, there were other individuals climbing and standing on the ledge of a church so they could get a picture of ground zero without the chain link fence in the way.  All this climbing and pushing just for a damn picture got me thinking.  Do these people realize that this was a bad day?  Thousands of people died, two landmarks and close to a dozen other buildings were destroyed because of this day and they just care about a picture.

                If there is so much respect for the NYPD and NYFD then why did they disobey the order of the NYPD to move back?  As I looked around at the various people in their ongoing quest for a photo, I noticed that it didn’t appear that any of these people were New Yorkers.  That’s strange, isn’t it?  New Yorkers were the most affected by this, they had to smell the smoke for a couple days and some witnessed the towers collapse.  Why are they not going down to ground zero when people are coming from different states to see it?  The answer lays in my explanation on why they would it’s because they saw what happened.  They know it was a bad day and not some publicity stunt or an excuse to get a picture.   

                After Kellie was worn out by pictures (she got close and some ones that she was extremely happy with) we were sitting at lunch and she said to me, “God, I wish I was a family member of one of the victim’s so I could go inside ground zero.”

                This time I expressed my disgust in a shocked smile expression and said, “That is so wrong”

                She goes, “yea, that’s bad, maybe just a friend of the family.”

                “That is still bad”

                “Yea” she said with a sigh.

                Honestly I think she wanted to be inside by these means she was just reacting to my lack of approval of it.  I told her straight up, “I’m glad that I don’t know anybody that died in September 11.”

                I remember the terror I had, because I was unsure how close LaGuardia (Vicki’s school) was to the towers.  I found out it is quite a distance away but I spent the entire day trying to get a hold of her, and I didn’t talk to her until 9:00PM over 12 hours after the first plane hit because cell phones weren’t working because all the smoke blocked any signal. 

America needs to start looking at things not optimistically but realistically, September 11, was a bad day, probably the worst day in history and there are talks about making it a holiday.  What the fuck are we celebrating? Death? Devastation to our economy temporarily? Destruction of two extremely well known land marks?  Tell me what we have to celebrate.  I only focus on the towers.  Hell, if this is a holiday, we also celebrate the destruction of our center of defense, the pentagon.  Is December 7 a holiday? No, why? It was a bad day, a state was bombed, many people died, we were lured into World War II.  It wasn’t a good day, so we don’t turn it into an excuse to go to the mall for a holiday sale.  Some may argue that we should celebrate the unifying of America.  Post-September 11, People put up flags on their cars and houses, flags on flagpoles were lowered to half post as a sign of respect.  People became nicer, so is that a reason to celebrate?  I still say no, if you asked people before 9/11 what they thought of America they would have told you it was the best country in the world.  Hell, on September 10th, we wrote in a journal in English class why we believed America was the greatest country in the world.  One kid disagreed with that assessment because he was from Poland.  A person had patriotism before then, just because they don’t have a flag on their car or house, doesn’t mean they’re not proud to be an American.  Now people show it.  Well, in actuality, people have begun to take the flags off their cars and houses.  Whether they fell off or whatever, you see less and less of them.  Flags are back to full post.  Thus, it was only a temporary sign, but once again, most Americans still love America.  Thus, we don’t need a holiday celebrating the day when we became patriotic because it isn’t September 11. Americans have loved America since this country was called America.  Things haven’t changed, we already celebrate our patriotism, it’s called the Fourth of July or Independence Day. 

People need to stop making jokes of tragedies as their defense mechanism.  Remember those who perished in any way you can, don’t turn it into a tourist attraction.  Some may say that, people take pictures of ruins all the time.  The Parthenon, Roman forum, Coliseum, etc.  Why is that different?  Those are ancient landmarks.  The fact that some of those things are still in existence is remarkable, that’s history.  In a couple decades when kids inquire what happened because they were too young or not born yet then they can be told and shown ground zero.  When the time is appropriate, it won’t be as big as a circus as it is now.  Maybe I’m overreacting, but I mourn September 11. 

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