Don't Commemorate Sept. 11

Slate ^ | September 8, 2003 | Christopher Hitchens

[FreedomCalls]

I was flipping through the magazines at Wal-Mart and ran across the special LIFE magazine "100 most important photographs" edition. It had photos of Pearl Harbor, but it interestingly also had photos of dead Marines in the surf taken somewhere in the South Pacific in 1943. The caption said something to the effect that photos of dead Americans had been banned but that in 1943 Roosevelt thought Americans were becoming too complacent with the war and he authorized the publication of those to remind Americans what the fighting was all about. Very timely with what we are going through this week. It will be interesting to see how the press covers it on Thursday.

[Hank Rearden]

Who did that?

No, seriously, who on this site "tried to stimulate fake weepiness"?

Well, I asked who, besides me, remembered those threads. I remember them; no, I can't point you directly to them because I didn't bookmark any of them.

I clearly remember, as the 11th of every damn month approached for months and months thereafter, the deluge of "never forget"s started. As if the 11th of January was in any way meaningful.

It's just a small part of the Weep 'n Grief Industry trying to grab yet another piece of American consciousness. Like one big damn Oprah show.

We don't need regularly-scheduled weepiness - we need cold-hearted, deadly-accurate killers out there doing the job for us, dropping the bastards where they stand.

That's what I care about.

[MattAMiller]

Wrong guy completely. He's a lefty but he was a savage critic of the Clinton administration. He wrote a column for The Nation for many, many years and resigned in protest of the magazines blame America first editorial policy following 9/11. He was also one of the most lucid, articulate, and cogent advocates of war with Iraq. And beyond that he's simply a pleasure to read, I've been a fan for a long time.