Opinion of 9/11 Jokes

[bedstuy]

I don't think there is any subject matter that is off limits for a joke.  It's all about the point of the joke and the context.

And yeah if you can't figure it out I'm one of those bastards who voted positive.  Why you may ask?  Well because it's been 13 years and the effects of the hypernationalism created by an event that would've never happened because of hypernationalism in the first place is still felt to this day.  We grieve and mourn for 3,000 people who died in a terrorist bombing 13 years ago yet there is not one day of rememberance for the millions we killed in westward expansion, there is not one day in rememberance of the millions who have died in Asia as a direct and indirect result of American imperialism, and we seriously think that we can make up everything we did to black people by giving them a month out of the year to "celebrate their heritage".

So yes, it was tragic for maybe for up to a year after it happened, afterwards it's just become a rallying day for rahrahrahrahrah rahrahrahrahrah rahrahrahrahrahrahrahrahrah Americanism.  In my mind there is no concept that deserves to be mocked more in this country.

Besides, I saw better special effects in the "Moon Landing" video and the Benghazi one at least had guns.  9/11?  More like "call 911 cause a crime has been committed!"  amiriteguise?

That's very meta and all, but if you actually believe that, you're screwed up about this.  People are always going to be more personally, emotionally affected by things that hit close to home.  Something that happened 200 years ago, that you didn't live through, that doesn't implicate you personally, isn't going to be as emotional.  If your friend is murdered, it's devastating.  If you read about a murder in Norway in 1750, you intellectually understand that it's the same, but you can't actually feel the same way. 

People are sad about 9/11 because it's personal.  The people who died on 9/11 aren't responsible for  imperialism, slavery or the Iraq War either by the way.  They were a bunch of accountants, firefighters, waitresses, bankers, janitors and such.  We don't need to harden our hearts about these innocent people being murdered on national TV because of slavery and imperialism.

[bedstuy]

Well, looking back this morning I think I offer several of you a sincere apology.  It's not hard to say you're sorry, but here goes:

I'm sorry your friends and family members died because of decades of US Imperialism around the globe that killed millions of men, women and children that helped bring about the kind of cultural resentment that made 9/11 possible.  Again I'm very sorry that Uncle Sam killed your friends.

Yikes.  That sounds like you're both blaming America for 9/11 and implicating the innocent people who died on 9/11 in "imperialism" so they're somehow to blame as Americans.  I understand that probably sounds ridiculous to most people, but it's also the kind of boilerplate leftist anti-American gibberish you actually hear from people.

I think that would touch nerve with most people more than what you said before even.  Maybe I'm just missing the joke.

[bedstuy]

Well, looking back this morning I think I offer several of you a sincere apology.  It's not hard to say you're sorry, but here goes:

I'm sorry your friends and family members died because of decades of US Imperialism around the globe that killed millions of men, women and children that helped bring about the kind of cultural resentment that made 9/11 possible.  Again I'm very sorry that Uncle Sam killed your friends.

Yikes.  That sounds like you're both blaming America for 9/11 and implicating the innocent people who died on 9/11 in "imperialism" so they're somehow to blame as Americans.  I understand that probably sounds ridiculous to most people, but it's also the kind of boilerplate leftist anti-American gibberish you actually hear from people.

I think that would touch nerve with most people more than what you said before even.  Maybe I'm just missing the joke.

He's certainly not doing the latter, but are you going to completely reject the notion that imperialism has consequences?

That's a bit tricky.  The US has influenced every single country in the world and done lots of terrible things, sure.  But, when it comes to 9/11, the US was the innocent victim and was in no way at fault.  The US didn't cause 9/11.  Just because you committed some bad action in the past, doesn't mean that you caused bad things to happen to yourself in the future.  That's basically the idea that two wrongs make a right.

[bedstuy]

Why do you think Al-Qaeda picked the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the Capitol/White House to attack?

Symbolism, maximizing casualties, I don't really see why it matters all that much.

Also what makes 9/11 worse than military attacks-sanctioned by governments-on civilian populations? How many innocent people died in the firebombings of Tokyo and other cities in Japan (to say nothing of our country having the distinction of being the only one ever to use nuclear weapons on not one, but TWO cities).

Terrorism vs. a legal and necessary war against one of the most despicable empires in modern history.  It's a world of difference.  But, did Al Qaeda care about Japanese civilians?  No, they killed innocent quite a few Japanese civilians on 9/11 for crying out loud.  And, what's the logic there.  You can slaughter the innocent civilians of any country that has ever done anything wrong or any country that has fought a war?  That's just ridiculous.

Nobody is denying that 9/11 was a horrific atrocity. But I don't see why we-the people of the United States-shouldn't at least question the long history of the United States government (as well as transnational corporations, which the US dominates) doing horrible things, ostensibly in our name. Or how the United States' economic, military, political, cultural, and ideological power have all worked against the interests of other countries and cultures-again, all in the name of American ideals. Yes, we do a lot of good things as well, but again, what is "good" by American standards is assumed to be good for the rest of the world.

Who said don't question the US?  I didn't.  You are portraying the US and Al Qaeda conflict in a ridiculous way honestly.  Is Al Qaeda some group of leftists who were inspired by Howard Zinn to repay America for its misdeeds?  Not by a long shot.   

Now, you could just chalk this all up to the US acting in its own interests as the world's superpower.
But there's also the unfortunate reality that we do not live up to our own ideals, which is true in international relations as well as in our domestic politics. Thus, we get accused of hypocrisy and sanctimoniousness-and there's definitely a significant deal of truth to that accusation.

All of this is to say; even though the US dominates the world, our perceptions of the world (and ourselves) are by no means universal. That is something we have to collectively understand. People outside the US both love us and hate us-the natural consequence of being the sole superpower.  

Hope that made sense.  

Here's the problem, there's nothing we can do that would make Al Qaeda and their fellow travelers happy with us.  We're a cosmopolitan, secular, pluralist democracy and that's antithetical to the Al Qaeda Islamist ideology.  If we were the nicest country ever, they'd still have a beef with us.  If this was an attack led by Howard Zinn, sure, you might be somewhat correct.  But, this was an attack by Islamist terrorist group with Islamist terrorist aims.  Sometimes they'll accuse us of hypocrisy and use words like imperialism and such.  But, they're ultimately not looking to us and demanding that we adhere to human rights.  Al Qaeda was pursuing their religious and political goals, which we should all find abhorrent.  This wasn't an act of God punishing America for what we've done wrong.  This was an act of war by a group on another group.  Unless you want to argue that Al Qaeda had some good political points, I think your whole premise is nonsense.

[bedstuy]

Again way to strawman the actual point.

I'm not arguing that Al Qaeda are heroes, I'm arguing that US actions in the Middle East and other areas can be linked to the rise of said groups and inevitably why they (as PRs post demonstrates) they chose to attack NYC in that particular day instead of say bomb another Jewish discotheque in Tel Aviv.  Even if you believe in pragmatic foreign policy it isn't that hard to see that there would be blowback from playing policeman in the way we did during Reagan and Clinton.

To be fair ISIS is pretty horrible and more Bushs fault than Obama's.

If you insist on continuing to grossly misinterpret our points, consider this debate finished.

You can link 9/11 to a court case in the 1960s that allowed the Port Authority to condemn a bunch of shops in the Financial District.  You can link 9/11 to British imperialism as well.  You can link 9/11 to the failure of airport security.  The mere linkage in a sequence of events doesn't necessarily matter to allocating blame or fault.

But, look at it this way, imagine you're allocating the fault pro-rata.  You don't say, well, the US is 40% at fault because they got involved in international politics and Al Qaeda was thus compelled to attack New York City and DC.  That is like saying, the reason that someone shot you and stole your hubcaps was that you parked your car in a bad neighborhood.