Are we really likely to forget?

Well, the human memory is most certainly not permanent. If you aren’t constantly reminded of something, why, yes, you will forget it sooner or later. Besides, it’s not likely to get passed down into next generations if there is no constant reminder, either.

Without the constant reminder day in and day out I’m always aware of December 7. I wasn’t alive then, but I learned enough about it to understand it’s significance. I’ll be spending the day today with old friends, hopefully not talking the whole time about 9/11. I don’t feel it’s disrespectful to not spend every waking moment re-living it.

No, I won’t forget.

I hate all of the hashing over the whole thing again, constant reminders, etc.

Well I’m not sure but I do know this. If there’s no reminder of some sort you will lose memories rather easy.

@Hibernate : I don’t know where you are, but where I live the skyline is a reminder. Nobody’s going to be losing those memories any time soon.

I think sometimes, the industrial military complex wants us to stay constantly scared, as do the terrorists.
I won’t forget to honor those who died in a senseless killing, but I refuse to play into the hands of the murders and be terrorized.

We don’t need to be reminded. And if it was possible to forget, why would this be a bad thing?

@JilltheTooth believe me that if those who continuously talk about it would stop after a few decades you’ll loose a lot of memories about 9/11. I didn’t say you’ll completely forget but you’ll lose a lot memories of that particular date.

Honestly, I wish I could forget some of it, but I know I never will. The facts will always remain with me, but reliving the emotions and fear that day, I could do without. This year, I vowed not to watch a single thing on tv about it and so far I’ve stuck to that. I’ve seen just about all of them over and over again and it’s time to move on. I have the newspapers from the days following 9/11 and the 1 year anniversary paper. I have a book with pictures from that day as well. Those things I will keep for future generations to see, but I don’t feel the need to look at them every year and relive those moments again and again.

Maybe this will kickstart a project to do something at GZ. Right now it’s 2 glamorized square holes in the ground. What’s the hold up? Seriously, it’s been 10 years. Somebody make a decision already!

I am having a hard time with all this focus on 9/11 this year. It feels far too close to be reliving it again. Maybe it is because of some personal losses I have suffered in recent weeks and also reflecting on the misguided path America has been on for ten years but I don’t a desire to wallow.

I wish we could focus more on how to work together and solve the problems we currently face.

I suspect that there’s more to the “never forget” reminders than just reminding us of something we’re not likely to forget. It’s as if someone benefits from having a hate week, and that stoking the hate/fear/loathing aspect of 9/11 by continuing to pick the national scab and prevent healing somehow keeps somebody’s base energized and ready to run out and vote for the party most likely to drop money in big business’ pockets in the guise of patriotism.

There’s nothing wrong with patriotism or being American, but I think there are better ways to go about remembering 9/11. Remembering how people came together in adversity is a great way to breed hope and love instead of misguided hate. Help your neighbors. Hug your family. Affirming and celebrating life instead of remembering the hate is the way to go, in my opinion.

Of course no one will forget. I think the saying is telling people to always remember “what they did to us”. Like indirectly telling people to keep the vengeance in their heart.

I really think some focus on those Iraqi civilians who got killed in operations like Shock and Awe is required. 3000 plus Americans got avenged and the toll was even much greater on that side. Add to that the thousands of US soldiers killed in all that vengeful process.

We won’t forget. It’s the generations who were too young and didn’t feel the impact who will.

I have often wondered how long it will be before someone denounces 9/11 as to have never happened ? Twenty, thirty years or more? Like landing on the moon has been denounced as never happening or the atrocities of the German prisoner camps of WW11 :-/ how long I wonder
I still have the the papers from that week stored in my loft, I’ll never forget it.

There are many voices from people calling for us to withdraw from Afghanistan, and just let them be.
They have forgotten.
Of course, we will eventually leave, but we shouldn’t until we are sure we have resolved this correctly.

Yes, reminders are useful and necessary. Only then can we avoid repeating mistakes and shape a better future. The ‘never forget’ principle is very much alive in Germany 66 years after the Third Reich and it is my hope that my grandchildren will honor it as well.

@mattbrowne – Are you saying that it is possible that the population could forget 9/11 if it were not for the perpetual commands of “never forget”? And if so, what are the mistakes that we risk repeating?

I don’t think the “never forget” thing is about not forgetting that we used a tragedy to justify invading countries, killing tons of US soldiers, killing tons of innocent people in other countries, undermined our privacy and freedom, and racked up a huge debt in the process. I agree with others that this is really a rallying cry for some kind of vengeance or nationalism.

With the jihadists, the biggest mistake we made was existing in the first place…sorry ‘bout that shit.

Here is an article I read today about the misuses of 9/11 in its aftermath. I’m not saying I agree with every point but it offers a compelling perspective..

Of course we would. If slavery was never mentioned it would be mostly forgotten by now.

Actually, now that I think about it, it is possible for the younger generation to forget. I was watching a show where multiple young people were being interviewed in Japan about WW2, and many of them didn’t even know the U.S. dropped two nuclear bombs on them lol.

There are a LOT of events, important events, that have been forgotten, especially before the advent of writing.

@Dutchess_III Well….slavery we have tried really hard to move on from but anyone could light up a dirtybomb here from now on. Sometimes the rehashing of slavery will reignite more fake outrage about stuff from generations past. Sooner or later we have to let it go because it’s under our control but all we can do if someone manages to attack us is to react to it.

I do see where you were going with this and understand completly.

Recently, the entryway to my workplace was redecorated. Now that I think about it, this was probably in light in the coming of this anniversary. I am amazed. OK, before this we already had a standard-sized American flag on an indoor staff close to the main door (along with the state flag and a corporate flag) and two very large flags, one set above an internal entrance to the main aisle on the factory floor and another hung right over that aisle (this second one presumably because heading inside the factory you would not see the first one unless you looked back over your shoulder).

Now in addition to all that, between the main door and the internal entrance to the factory aisle, we have… well I have to call it a shrine to the U.S. military with seals and flags of the major uniformed combat services. Accompanying it is a mural with quote from a speech from a prominent former and late president (I’ll leave you to guess. Hint: he’s not a Democrat) on the subject of freedom.

This is not going to prevent me from “forgetting 9/11”. This does not improve my morale or make me any prouder to be an American or make me appreciate the sacrifices of veterans more (and veterans count among my closest family and friends). It does make me wonder if someone higher up is compensating for something. And it also makes me wonder if we’ve gone further down the road towards the sort of totally overblown obsessive fetishism and worship of military exploits that characterizes fascist regimes.

A bunch of kids in my daughters school thought Pearl Harbour was Lady Gaga’s backing singer…......okaaaaaaay!!!

@hiphiphopflipflapflop ; You have a factory job? I thought those were extinct in the US! congrats!

Forget what? Really, there is no good reason, beside funding the military, to keep shoving it down our throats.

What we have already forgotten, or perhaps never knew in the first place, is that 3 million Iraqi refugees have been created since 2003. 100,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed in that time, a very conservative estimate. To recite their names, if we knew them, would take not a day but a month.

It’s not really that surprising. I’m not sure how many remember the air raid drills during the Cold War. Where schools ran drills in case of a nuclear attack. everyone would crawl under their desk. People actually built bomb shelters to protect against nuclear fallout. Most of this has been forgotten. Because we were never attacked.

I can see that many want to believe this is some sort of conspiracy, but we were attacked and the world has changed as a result. We had let our guard down because we had always been protected by vast oceans. That’s simply not the case any more. ‘Never Forget’ is not a rallying cry to attack anyone but rather a a reminder not to let our guard down. The ‘Shoe Bomber, the ‘Underwear Bomber’, and the truck bomb in Times Square are all reminders that the threat is still real. You can look at it as causing fear or you can use it to fortify your resolve. Your choice.

Prior to 9/11 conventional wisdom said to cooperate with hijacker’s. Do as you’re told and keep your mouth shut. 9/11 changed all that. Flight 93 is an inspiration. Frankly, I get choked up when I here about Todd Beamer and his last words, “Let’s Roll”. There’s nothing wrong with remembering our Heroes. In fact I think it’s a great thing and thier stories should be repeated.

Yes, after our generation disappears to the ages, no one is really going to hold it in that much significance. Kind of like Pearl Harbor, yeah it was a devastating attack on US soil but you don’t see a good portion of the population memorialize it.

We all seem to have forgotten the Oklahoma City bombing. I guess it’s different when a war hero and a citizen are to blame. No way to bump up the defense budget in that one.

@tinyfaery, interestingly McVeigh was executed June 11 of 2001… that’s how much I’ve forotten about Oklahoma City.

I take it differently than many of you. I will “never forget” not just the horror of that day, but also the heroism. The way adversity seemed to bring us together as Citizens of the United States of America. How, seemingly for the first time in a long time Fire Fighters who previously were either overlooked or even looked down upon, were being honored for their bravery.

I also think that “never forget” means that we as a Nation should never again be so pompous as to think that this can’t happen to us.

My daughter was two years old when the attacks happened.
She knows something terrible happened; but she won’t have felt the depth and breadth of the day because she’s too young to remember.

She doesn’t know the panic that I went through, especially after the second plane hit, knowing my cousin was either already there or on a fire truck heading directly towards where everyone else in the area was running away from.
The feeling of helplessness when the buildings came down.
The feeling of fear hearing about the Pentagon and then the last plane to go down in a field in Pennsylvania…”we’re under attack”

Those here who have this “what’s the big deal” mentality or think it’s been shoved down our throats… you don’t think that it’s important that we don’t forget what happened that day?
This is especially true of this generation of kids who are so desensitized by the imagery they’re seeing in movies, television and video games. (Battlefield Los Angeles, the movie 2012, the Road, and other near apocalyptical/apocalyptical and post apocalyptical movies)

My daughter’s class was shown a documentary in school on 9/10 about the attacks. There were some who were deeply moved and others for whom the film had no outward affect on, whatsoever, even snickering at some of the photos of the people lost on that day.

So, I think it’s important that we “Never Forget” and we pass along to these kids what happened that day. “Those Who Forget History Are Doomed To Repeat It”
(I know its’ a trite and over-used saying, but if it applies anywhere, I believe it applies to 9/11)

@christine215 I think along with “never forgetting” it’s crucial to evaluate what we’ve learned from that day and how to act going forward. I hope we can start to do that, otherwise we haven’t learned from the past, we have merely commemorated it in stone.

I haven’t forgotten OKC.

@tom_g – Yes, it is possible that large parts of the population in 2070 or 2080 could forget 9/11, if it were not for the perpetual commands of “never forget”. A lot of things will happen over the next decades. The mistake that we risk repeating is forgetting that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. That religious extremism can lead to deeds of mass murder. That catching terrorists must be combined with a strategy to end the recruitment of new terrorists (to avoid that this happens at a far greater rate that we are able to catch them). That the act of catching terrorists should not be called a crusade. I could go on about the lessons learned. There are more. All of this has to end up in history books. And parents and teachers and students in 2070 have to talk about it. Like they have to talk about how Nazism can arise and spread. That brainwashing is possible. There is no guarantee that it never returns. We have to work hard to prevent this.

By the time my great grandchildren are grown, it’ll all be “ancient history”. Similar to the way we are so quickly forgetting the price our ancestors paid for freedom. It’s how it works.