Happy 8th, A Bit of Wit!
Sunday, 11 September 2011 13:42![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
a_bit_of_wit_2Yes, indeed. Eight years ago today, this LiveJournal was created. Started right after I began going to school in New Paltz, you guys have seen a lot of my life since. Eight years ago, it seemed, LiveJournal was the shit--hell, in order to create one, you needed to get a friend code from someone. Now, LJ has spread its legs wide, and anyone can just slide right in and make one. It's seen a lot of me, and seeing old entries just makes me nostalgic. Even now, I wish I was still going to school in New Paltz--that year was one of my best, it seemed. I may not have graduated with a BFA, but what I got was an MRS., infinitely more valuable than a piece of paper worth $40,000.
LiveJournal's not the shit that it used to be--when many of my friends jumped onto the bandwagon, our friends' pages were bustles of activity. Now with Facebook and Twitter, we no longer feel the need to write out journal entries, when we can now speak our minds anytime, anywhere, in real time. My once-proud friends page has dwindled to just a handful of regulars; sometimes days go by without a single update. Even I don't post to this thing as often as I would like, although that's slowly changing. I pay for it, might as well use it. And I suspect I'll have this LJ until the site dies, which I'm hoping won't be for a long time.
Ironically, I did not deliberately choose September 11th as the day to begin this LJ. The day holds no symbolic meaning for me--it just happened to be the day I made this. And with all the negative connotation surrounding this particular day, I have at least one happy reason to celebrate.
I'm going to try today to make it a point to not go on news sites or catch what's going to be the culmination of weeks of 9/11 hype. It sickens me to no end that this day has become so exploited to hell and back, and I just want to crawl under a rock. So, since everyone else seems to have something to say about today, I'll throw in my two cents.
Never forget, they say. How can I forget? How can I forget when it's constantly bashed over my head, whether I like it or not? How can I forget when the day has been exploited to hell and back? What if I want to forget? What if I want to stop being forcibly reminded of a horrible event that happened 10 years ago? I cant, because you won't let me. You won't even give me the choice. What have we learned in the last 10 years since that terrible day? Certainly, we learned how to be more cynical and hateful of people who are not white.
We've become very wary of brown-skinned people who may look Indian, Asian, Middle Eastern...our government and our news media have done their damn level best to demonize them. Xenophobia has run rampant. Bigotry against anyone of perceived Muslim faith has certainly shot up. Just look at all the kerfuffle when the idea of a mosque near the former World Trade Center hit the news. That brought out the worst in us. Never have I seen such a violent perversion of our 1st Amendment. Freedom of religion does NOT mean we have the right to stop others from practicing their own. We constantly hear from politicians, pundits, talking heads, that the Muslim faith is a dangerous faith, and that the Muslims want to subjugate us and bend us to their will. Really? Muslims want to kill us all because we don't follow their faith? I'm sorry, but Catholics and Christians certainly have to take the cake for the number of people they've killed in the name of their God. To be honest, I'm shocked that we haven't, in our manufactured fear, rounded up the Muslims and put them in "internment camps," just like we did to the Japanese Americans during World War II.
I'm willing to bet any amount of money that the vast majority of Muslims, just like the vast majority of Catholics and Christians, are kind, good-natured, loving people like most of us. However, good, loving, kind people never make the news. It doesn't sell. It doesn't generate ratings. It doesn't create clicks and pageviews. All we hear about are the crazies, the fundies, the extremists--and it's those stories that we base an opinion on; a dangerous created stereotype--that ALL Muslims are murdering fuckheads who want to kill us all in a jihad, that ALL Catholic priests are pedophiles, that ALL Christians want gays and women who get abortions to rot in hell. Congrats, mainstream media and our government--you're doing a damn fine job of sewing discontent. Are you not going to be happy until you create a second Civil War?
Let's see, what else...oh, yeah, we've learned how to exploit the day for political gain. People got elected on promises to keep us safe. Hell, we have laws now that give law enforcement carte blanche to spy on you. I'm waiting for the next era of McCarthyism to begin. We've also learned that those people who mattered the most that day get no respect. It took Congress nearly TEN YEARS to finally pass a health care bill to take care of the first responders--you know, those people who gave time, blood, sweat, and tears to save people as the buildings collapsed around them. You know, those people who are now chronically sick from breathing in the remains of buildings and bones? TEN YEARS. That should've been item #1 when Congress met immediately after. But no. TEN YEARS they dicked around, figuring out ways to fuck them over while personally enriching themselves.
What else have we learned in the past 10 years? We've learned how to go broke by fighting bogus wars under the guise of fighting terrorism; wars that are doomed to fail, just like the war on drugs. You can't snuff out an idea like you can a disease. No matter what we do, there are crazy people in this world who do crazy shit. That's the end of it. Beneath the mask of terrorism, there is an idea.
And ideas are bulletproof.
So, yes, the significance of the day is forever lost on me. Every year, we build up hype for it, as if it was some massive championship sporting event. Can we stop picking at the damn scab every 11th of September? Ten years is an awful long time to be rehashing what's already happened. Life goes on. Like anything else, this will eventually fade into history, and maybe then, you'll finally stop beating 9/11 over my head and give me the choice to forget it.
So, what's the plan for today? I'm gonna make some cookies, and spend the day most likely gaming and catching up on Doctor Who whilst doing some laundry. But just for shits, here's a look back at my other entries that happened on this day.
9/11/03: And so it begins...
9/11/04: Hey, wanna play with my reproductive cycle?
9/11/05: Happy Birthday, A Bit of Wit! Also, a battles post for Character Battle 3 occurred this day.
9/11/06: Three years ago today... Also, a battles post for Character Battle 5 occurred this day.
9/11/07: (blow party horn here) Also, a battles post for Character Battle 7 occurred this day.
9/12/08: A frying pan-theist!
9/11/09: Six years ago, in a galaxy far, far, away...
9/11/10: Happy 7th, A Bit of Wit!
Wow...reading some of those old entries again makes me long for a simpler time, when all I had to worry about was April and school. Ah, well, it is what it is. Hopefully the next year brings happiness and continued improvement...and more school, more photography, and more April. Cheers, everyone.
LiveJournal's not the shit that it used to be--when many of my friends jumped onto the bandwagon, our friends' pages were bustles of activity. Now with Facebook and Twitter, we no longer feel the need to write out journal entries, when we can now speak our minds anytime, anywhere, in real time. My once-proud friends page has dwindled to just a handful of regulars; sometimes days go by without a single update. Even I don't post to this thing as often as I would like, although that's slowly changing. I pay for it, might as well use it. And I suspect I'll have this LJ until the site dies, which I'm hoping won't be for a long time.
Ironically, I did not deliberately choose September 11th as the day to begin this LJ. The day holds no symbolic meaning for me--it just happened to be the day I made this. And with all the negative connotation surrounding this particular day, I have at least one happy reason to celebrate.
I'm going to try today to make it a point to not go on news sites or catch what's going to be the culmination of weeks of 9/11 hype. It sickens me to no end that this day has become so exploited to hell and back, and I just want to crawl under a rock. So, since everyone else seems to have something to say about today, I'll throw in my two cents.
Never forget, they say. How can I forget? How can I forget when it's constantly bashed over my head, whether I like it or not? How can I forget when the day has been exploited to hell and back? What if I want to forget? What if I want to stop being forcibly reminded of a horrible event that happened 10 years ago? I cant, because you won't let me. You won't even give me the choice. What have we learned in the last 10 years since that terrible day? Certainly, we learned how to be more cynical and hateful of people who are not white.
We've become very wary of brown-skinned people who may look Indian, Asian, Middle Eastern...our government and our news media have done their damn level best to demonize them. Xenophobia has run rampant. Bigotry against anyone of perceived Muslim faith has certainly shot up. Just look at all the kerfuffle when the idea of a mosque near the former World Trade Center hit the news. That brought out the worst in us. Never have I seen such a violent perversion of our 1st Amendment. Freedom of religion does NOT mean we have the right to stop others from practicing their own. We constantly hear from politicians, pundits, talking heads, that the Muslim faith is a dangerous faith, and that the Muslims want to subjugate us and bend us to their will. Really? Muslims want to kill us all because we don't follow their faith? I'm sorry, but Catholics and Christians certainly have to take the cake for the number of people they've killed in the name of their God. To be honest, I'm shocked that we haven't, in our manufactured fear, rounded up the Muslims and put them in "internment camps," just like we did to the Japanese Americans during World War II.
I'm willing to bet any amount of money that the vast majority of Muslims, just like the vast majority of Catholics and Christians, are kind, good-natured, loving people like most of us. However, good, loving, kind people never make the news. It doesn't sell. It doesn't generate ratings. It doesn't create clicks and pageviews. All we hear about are the crazies, the fundies, the extremists--and it's those stories that we base an opinion on; a dangerous created stereotype--that ALL Muslims are murdering fuckheads who want to kill us all in a jihad, that ALL Catholic priests are pedophiles, that ALL Christians want gays and women who get abortions to rot in hell. Congrats, mainstream media and our government--you're doing a damn fine job of sewing discontent. Are you not going to be happy until you create a second Civil War?
Let's see, what else...oh, yeah, we've learned how to exploit the day for political gain. People got elected on promises to keep us safe. Hell, we have laws now that give law enforcement carte blanche to spy on you. I'm waiting for the next era of McCarthyism to begin. We've also learned that those people who mattered the most that day get no respect. It took Congress nearly TEN YEARS to finally pass a health care bill to take care of the first responders--you know, those people who gave time, blood, sweat, and tears to save people as the buildings collapsed around them. You know, those people who are now chronically sick from breathing in the remains of buildings and bones? TEN YEARS. That should've been item #1 when Congress met immediately after. But no. TEN YEARS they dicked around, figuring out ways to fuck them over while personally enriching themselves.
What else have we learned in the past 10 years? We've learned how to go broke by fighting bogus wars under the guise of fighting terrorism; wars that are doomed to fail, just like the war on drugs. You can't snuff out an idea like you can a disease. No matter what we do, there are crazy people in this world who do crazy shit. That's the end of it. Beneath the mask of terrorism, there is an idea.
And ideas are bulletproof.
So, yes, the significance of the day is forever lost on me. Every year, we build up hype for it, as if it was some massive championship sporting event. Can we stop picking at the damn scab every 11th of September? Ten years is an awful long time to be rehashing what's already happened. Life goes on. Like anything else, this will eventually fade into history, and maybe then, you'll finally stop beating 9/11 over my head and give me the choice to forget it.
So, what's the plan for today? I'm gonna make some cookies, and spend the day most likely gaming and catching up on Doctor Who whilst doing some laundry. But just for shits, here's a look back at my other entries that happened on this day.
9/11/03: And so it begins...
9/11/04: Hey, wanna play with my reproductive cycle?
9/11/05: Happy Birthday, A Bit of Wit! Also, a battles post for Character Battle 3 occurred this day.
9/11/06: Three years ago today... Also, a battles post for Character Battle 5 occurred this day.
9/11/07: (blow party horn here) Also, a battles post for Character Battle 7 occurred this day.
9/12/08: A frying pan-theist!
9/11/09: Six years ago, in a galaxy far, far, away...
9/11/10: Happy 7th, A Bit of Wit!
Wow...reading some of those old entries again makes me long for a simpler time, when all I had to worry about was April and school. Ah, well, it is what it is. Hopefully the next year brings happiness and continued improvement...and more school, more photography, and more April. Cheers, everyone.
