If only someone had a bumper sticker or window appliqué to remind meSo I was driving to work today and I saw this on the back of some decrepit Chevy or Buick or whatever; I can't really remember because I was got very angry and was soon distracted by my own thoughts. I was angry because I'd finally had it, after 5+ solid years, with the 9/11 industry, which, unsurprisingly, has penetrated deeper into this portion of the country than anywhere else.
Let's just get one thing out of the way right now: the 9/11 industry = someone profiting off of 9/11. Don't imagine that the funds from these bumper stickers, magnets, t-shirts, hats, posters, belt buckles, lighters, et cetera are being funneled directly from your wallet to some WTC widow's fund, or to buy equipment for firefighters, or to build memorials somewhat less ephemeral than the rusting back doors of your Econovan. Your money is translating into BMW payments and Caribbean vacations for murder-profiteers.
Now don't get me wrong, I understand capitalism and all that jazz, there's a natural order of things, vultures, so on and so forth. It's not the profit motive alone that bothers me, it's the toxic combination of cynical money grubbing and extreme sanctimony. There's a line from the movie Fight Club about selling people their own fat asses back to them that seems particularly apt when we talk about the types of self-righteous people who take it upon themselves to be the de facto guardians of 9/11 victims' memories while forking over the big bucks to Boss Hogg. Gee, thanks. In an amazing coincidence, these are usually the same vicarious thrill seekers and tragedy whores who love to remind you that they knew someone who's cousin worked in the Twin Towers, or that someone in their dorm's godparent was in the city that day, or whatever. I could be wrong about this, but I bet that people who were actually present at the WTC on 9/11 don't relish recounting to strangers in bars the frantic scramble down sixty flights of smoke-filled stairs, the burning bodies hitting the sidewalks at unbelievable speeds, or the desperate attempts to let their love ones know that, yes they were not in those buildings when they collapsed.
Beyond the money and the self-righteousness is the disgusting fact that 9/11 has effectively become a shorthand justification for the most brutish, self-serving, morally expedient, and (dare I say it?) un-American activities and policies that our political betters in the White House can dream up. 9/11 has been transformed from a unifying, apolitical event without historical precedent to just another point on the timeline of outrages that opportunists will invariably bend to their advantage. The sinking of the Maine, the sinking of the Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, the Gulf of Tonkin "incident": whether we agree with the moral justifications of the reactions that followed these events or deplore them, the fact that we react at all soon puts lie to the notion that these things ought to be "out of bounds" or "beyond politics." The Bush gang understood this well and acted accordingly: now the American people debate just under what circumstances torture may be justified and how much illegal domestic surveillance is enough to keep us safe while the President and his cronies still mark time in the White House.
Thus 9/11 is bifurcated into the event itself and the symbol; when we are implored to "NEVER FORGET", which are we supposed to remember, and to what purpose? Frankly, it seems ridiculous to suggest that anyone who was cognizant of the terrorist attacks when they occurred will ever forget the event, yet clearly this is the same audience for which the bumper stickers and other memorabilia are intended (unless people are really concerned that the 10-and-under set is not properly keeping the flame). No, what we're being asked to remember is the symbol, that is, the justification for whatever political viewpoints the bearer espouses in relation to the attacks. The slogan's glibness makes it incontrovertible, and that is its true genius; whatever sentiments the bearer has freighted it with magically become incontrovertible, too - at least in his or her own mind. For a lot of people, that's much easier than having a bumper sticker that says "I Heartily Endorse The Last Five Years of Total Bullshit."
