nedhepburn:

Ryan Adams “New York, New York”
_____

This was shot on Friday, September 7th, 2001. 

I don’t quite understand the griefporn surrounding the anniversary of 9/11, or rather, the implications of said griefporn, as it is still another opportunity to divide this country (which we can’t seem to get enough of, it seems). We still, collectively, haven’t gotten over that day. We’re still on edge. It’s strange to watch this pre-9/11 nostalgia because:

1. Jean jackets are still totally in, ten years on! Whoodathunk it? 
2. We seem to have forgotten what its like to relax. In essence, it’s like celebrating a day that we got beat up. Lives were lost. I’m not negating that. At all. At all. It’s a very somber moment. Yet we need to move beyond it. America (by and large) has become so divided; so bitter over the last ten years; staggeringly angry at the blow that it took.
   
   Celebrating the lives of the people that died that day is one thing (and a very important one at that). Celebrating the lives of the people who have died overseas, and is as equally important. What’s not important is a near constant reminder of the divisive rhetoric we’ve become so numb, so immune to over the last ten years. 

One day, it’d be nice to turn on FOX News, or MSNBC, or any of the other myriad news sources, and see them report on a story that doesn’t involve reminding America of it’s bad habits. It’s like waving heroin under the nose of a recovering addict. Every time he’ll take the bait. If you remind people every day of why they’re angry, they’ll remain angry. And in that aspect: “the terrorists win”, or whatever the phrase du jour was for the last ten years. 

9/11 has become shorthand for a lot of the anger in this country. It’s become an excuse to divide. There is still rampant Islamophobia in this country. There are still divided families, neighbors, and politicians in this land angry over the one thing they’ll never own: the inside of the other guy’s head. Celebrating the lives of the people that died that day and in the wars that followed (whether you agree with the wars or not) is infinitely more important than celebrating a day that has become shorthand for all the myopic and selfish behavior on both sides of the aisle in the last ten years.

Life during wartime has become so much the norm that I think we’ve forgotten what it’s like to not hate those who think differently than us, and that is the definition of childish behavior. We’ve been down so long, it looks like up to us. And that’s a sad, diseased way to live. 

Could not agree more

(via soupsoup)

Meta:

• #9/11