TheaterFire

Talking to my students about 9/11

Posted by Bright_Lynx_7662@reddit | Xennials | View on Reddit | 226 comments

Hi all. I’m talking with my (college) students about 9/11 on Monday. From our generation’s perspective, what should I share?

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226 Comments

dirtysouthfed@reddit

The jumpers. Dear God, the jumpers on live tv. They’ve been pretty much erased and rarely talked about but the absolute *HORROR* of watching people jumping to their deaths on live television has never left me. It absolutely took my breath away.
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GeorgeDogood@reddit

Message Sent
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sheglows76@reddit

My spouse and I had just gotten married moved from the Midwest to Southern California. It was very surreal to be so far from home and so far from where it happened. However, the impact was still great. It was extremely strange not to hear airplanes and to see the interstate devoid of trucks for weeks. Also, our main source of news was online which was a huge shift from having to wait for the nightly news.
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brightandgreen@reddit

In Canada this speech was denounced by our prime Minister, she faced violent threats against her. And 20+ years later there are no lies detected: https://herizons.ca/archives/cover/the-speech-that-shook-the-country
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wakejedi@reddit

I had a Vinyl cutter and made some *Fuck Bin Laden* stickers and cleaned up. A few of my friends got pulled over and the cops told them to remove the "U" as you can't have "Vulgar" language on a vehicle. Flash forward to today and I see Fuck Biden stickers daily. Thats how far we've fallen.
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TheRichTookItAll@reddit

Great time to discuss false flags from the past that have been admitted to, made public, and were 100% true.
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TheRichTookItAll@reddit

(obviously you can't do this or you would be fired.) That's one of the reasons you can bet the official story is not true because you're not allowed to discuss both sides of the debate.
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Bellatrix_Shimmers@reddit

Gas gouging. I was working at a deli that was attached to a gas station. They turned on the store radio so we were listening to it happen instead of watching. Well the Boss Hog (owner) drove up from the capital upon hearing of the sudden boom in sales. There was a line as far as the eye could see of scared people wanting to fill their gas tanks. He told me to go outside and change the sign to raise the gas price. I refused. He was a bit taken aback this girl said no but he had to deal and ended up doing it himself. I peace’d out. (Yes, it was those pre digital manually changed number plates like the olden days.) Later that week the news declared it was gas gouging and anyone who was overcharged could go and get a refund for the difference. Dunno how or if that is worth mentioning but that was a core memory for me that day.
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WoefulKnight@reddit

The two or three days afterward where everyone was united in grief and general sense of community. I think that part has really been lost over the years especially as the country became so much more divided. Also, the complete and absolute blanket coverage on TV for the week afterward. The TV guide channel would be running CNN. Every single broadcast and cable channel was running some form of news. MTV, Home Shopping Network, CMT... you really couldn't escape it.
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leighalan@reddit

Unity for some. Muslim Americans weren’t invited (or anyone that generally looked “Middle Eastern”).
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WoefulKnight@reddit

You are absolutely right about that - I don't mean to overlook what Muslim Americans had to go through, but more to reference that sudden proliferation of flags everywhere, diners going quiet for a moment of silence... things like that.
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briannadaley@reddit

Things like that…Like trying to rename fried potato sticks into “freedom fries,” because the French didn’t support our reactionary response against Afghanistan for a crime mostly committed by saudis? I remember a lot of unity around a misplaced revenge response. I remember being so proud of my congressional representative for her lone dissenting vote in the authorization of use of force after 9/11.(Barbara Lee speaks for me!) I remember my godfather (a metal-working artist) spending weeks in ground zero helping untangle steel rebar. I also remember the look in his eye and dead quiet that met me the single time I asked him about the experience. I remember reading about attacks on Muslims & Sikhs and hearing people speak in ways about strangers in a strange land that shocked me. I remember hate rebranded as patriotism.
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porrkontot@reddit

No no no. *Everyone* was with you on Afghanistan. It was when Bush wanted to invade Iraq and take down Saddam, because of “weapons of mass destruction” that no one else could find any evidence of that many countries, France included, backed out.
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briannadaley@reddit

My mistake, you are absolutely correct. Since both responses were so deeply misguided in my view, I forgot that the big international schism came with the second offensive wave against Saddam.
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GrumpyKaeKae@reddit

To be far, Bush did try to justify Iraq using Afghanistan and 9/11, so Iraq felt like it was just an extension of the current war 9/11 response. Only later did we realize how lied to we were about that. I remember being confused about things at first as well. I do very much remember how hated the 2nd Iraq war was and how no one supported it.
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catratcatdog@reddit

I get that. My younger cousins are half Saudi and they were 12 & 14 years old on 9/11. Kids were so terrible to them, and I’m sure those kids picked it up from their parents. The older one even legally changed her last name when she turned 18 to help when filling out job applications.
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Tribble400@reddit

God Bless America was compulsory at every America ballpark. The jingoism was disgusting, and our bloodlust got the better of us.
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JayEllGii@reddit

That’s exactly what I was thinking in the days and weeks after, as a freshman art student in Brooklyn who had watched the towers burning from across the bay. All the flags, the jingoism, the mindless shallow patriotism, the “U-S-A! U-S-A!” chanting. It all had me very uneasy. None of this felt constructive or helpful, or like anything that would deal with the tragedy and prevent others. I was right to be worried. I wish I hadn’t been.
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Tribble400@reddit

I remember a 9/11 related flag being dragged out at .......the Olympics? I should check the date. Anyway, the expectation was that the world should mourn our loss. It was so arrogant. It must have been the Olympics.
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JayEllGii@reddit

Well, personally I don’t have an issue with wanting the world to mourn with us. (By the same token, despite my hatred of the Israeli government and its brutal oppression of Palestine, and the horrific mass murder it’s carrying out right now, I’m immediately suspicious of anyone who refuses to condemn the Hamas slaughter, which is the lowest of low moral bars. Despairingly, many people are happily refusing to meet it.) But what the US was doing was far beyond that. We wanted the whole world to be on board with our hyper-reactionary policy built around blunt vengeance, with no clear or rational objectives, or thoughtfulness for the long-term implications for what we were doing. And that’s BEFORE we destroyed Iraq under false pretenses.
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Tribble400@reddit

I think that the attack in Israel was inevitable, given Israel's treatment of that population. Revenge is now Israel's goal. They have already evened the score, but they'll continue. After Israel has killed enough "animals" and grown tired, will you still condemn the next attack from Gaza?
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pcells@reddit

Well at least we didn't hijack and fly planes into skyscrapers. So we showed some restraint.
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AenonTown13@reddit

Thank you!!!! Everybody else can FUCK OFF!!!!
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Tribble400@reddit

Yeah. Big buildings are irreplaceable. Dead humans are cheap.
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Particular-Court-619@reddit

One thing that may be surprising to folks today who grew up with Trump as the head of the Republican party and with their main knowledge of Bush being the invasion of Iraq is that W was actively discouraging and trying to put a check on Islamophobia... to whatever degree of success he had and however sincere that effort was
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JayEllGii@reddit

That’s the one, ONE thing Bush deserves any credit for. Particularly since almost nobody in his coalition or voting base would listen to that.
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Particular-Court-619@reddit

PEPFAR has entered the building.
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JayEllGii@reddit

Okay, I’ll grant him that, too.
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briannadaley@reddit

I mean, it’s not a fundamentally different situation than Drumpf defending Putin. Republicans will always defend their paycheck, even at the risk of alienating their voters.
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supergirlsudz@reddit

True, at least he tried. I shudder to think how Trump would handle something similar.
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sky-lake@reddit

This is a really important thing to share. I recall a tv show did a hidden camera thing where they had a guy walk around wearing a turban (he was Sikh, not Muslim) and it was person after person yelling at him or (at best) "just" giving the middle finger. I recall people openly saying things like "bomb the entire area" and everyone would either agree or stay silent.
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warm_sweater@reddit

Yep I was in college when 9/11 happened. Very shortly thereafter fliers went up around campus about respecting all people, and that your classmates were not the people behind the attack. Sad that it had to be said.
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DanasPaperFlowers@reddit

This was really hard to watch. I was in 9th grade when 9/11 happened. I'd been a student at a karate studio in Los Angeles (in the san fernando valley) for many years, many of the instructors were middle eastern. Our head sensei told us he cancelled a trip that all the instructors were planning to take to a seminar because the image of 6 very fit middle eastern men walking through the airport in the few days after 9/11 was not going to be unnoticed and they didn't want to deal with whatever fallout that may have brought. Some people stopped attending their classes because they were middle eastern, though as far as I noticed most did not. They were the best teachers I've ever had, they were just as broken-hearted as everyone else but the years of discrimination they faced was very ugly.
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Fit_Psychology_2600@reddit

No kidding! That’s what happens when your brothers in religion blow up a building!
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Carpeteria3000@reddit

This to a degree, yes, but also the state of fear that was installed that lasted for over a year, if not more. "When will the next attack happen? Where will it happen? How?" The government suggesting we should go to Home Depot and buy rolls of plastic sheeting and duct tape to cover our windows in case of a chemical attack. The random mailings of anthrax in envelopes. Unease and terror that subsided into a weird sort of malaise and an imbalanced acceptance as the war drums started up over in Iraq and Afghanistan. A feeling of helplessness and hopelessness that took over and maybe never truly went away.
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lemurgrl@reddit

I remember going to visit my then-boyfriend’s family in Florida at some point during the next year… we had planned to take a day trip to Disney, but cancelled at the last minute because there were reports/rumors that theme parks were about to be targeted.
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Carpeteria3000@reddit

We had a Disneyland trip planned for October 2001 before 9/11 went down. We thought about canceling, but ended up going anyway. I felt awful about the reason for it, but it was the least crowded I’ve ever seen any Disney park before or since, and it was kind of amazing. But also depressing.
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brackthomas7@reddit

The no fly order was pretty crazy too. Not seeing any air track when you live by the airport was so strange.
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tip0thehat@reddit

As I recall we didn’t even have a firm notion of who was behind it for a few days, just guesses. I think it was frustrating for a lot of people not having a perpetrator to direct their anger towards.
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JayEllGii@reddit

I knew who Osama bin Laden was — I remembered him from the attack on the USS Cole. So he actually was the first person I thought of as I was watching the towers burning. Well actually, that’s not true. My first thought was that it must be a domestic attack of revenge for Timothy McVeigh, who had been executed four months earlier. I had read articles about how law enforcement was worried that domestic extremist groups would avenge him. So that’s what I thought this must be at first. Bin Laden was my second guess. I remember briefly thinking “Saddam Hussein?….No, that doesn’t make sense.”
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BDS83@reddit

This. Also 9/11 is what started every news channel having a ticker at the bottom for headlines. Prior to 9/11 it was just the financial ones that had it. This is where we saw news really start to become what it is today
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Klutzy-Programmer392@reddit

Lol, unity. Not if you didn't want to glass the niddle east there wasn't fucking unity.
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MissIndependent577@reddit

I remember going out to the store and buying any magazines I could about it, in the days/weeks after. I still have them today.
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rakkquiem@reddit

The Food network was the only one I remember being “normal”.
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penguinsfan40@reddit

I remember Comedy Central was still airing some regular programming as well
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baconandpotates@reddit

The oddest thing I associate with 9/11 is the birth of Adult Swim on Cartoon Network. It launched in 2001 and we watched Home Movies, Sealab 2021, The Brak Show, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Harvey Birdman. It was such a relief to just laugh at these absurd shows and take our minds off what was going on in the world.
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vinciblechunk@reddit

A friend of mine was like "you gotta watch this Sealab thing" and I happened to tune in the day Stimutacs aired. One of the funniest things I have ever watched. I still quote it.
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Emergency-Ad-3350@reddit

South Park did an episode where stans mom is just laying on the couch staring at the news after 9/11. Rewatch that episode for some nostalgia
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funatical@reddit

It was months of unity. "Things have changed and we will never go back.", and we didn't. Things got worse. The shallowness of American culture took a back seat to our ire.
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PWEI313@reddit

I live in Michigan, so pretty far from ground zero. Even so, for a few weeks, every time an ambulance or police car raced by, I wondered if there was an attack nearby. It was nerve wracking. Those were much simpler times despite 9/11. Social media wasn’t really a thing, at least not how we know it today. Identity politics weren’t nearly as front and center as they are today. I think most people were more optimistic about their future immediately before 9/11 and even shortly thereafter than they are today. Watching the towers collapse on live TV was surreal. The sense of vulnerability was real. The sense of unity across all of America was inspiring. I was glad when we took the fight to Iraq and Afghanistan. That feeling wore off as the situation turned into a quagmire. I’d rather see the US fight a dozen proxy wars and direct wars on foreign soil before we ever experience another 9/11. The divide among Americans today disgusts me. We still have more in common that should unite us than the differences that divide us. Some days, I feel the only way we’ll be united again is to suffer an attack on our soil. We have the luxury to get caught up in so much stupid shit that divides us. If we felt threatened by a foreign enemy again, maybe we could look past our differences for a bit. I fear that day may be nearing as our division creates weakness. Tell your students they are goddamn lucky to live in the US despite what they may think. While the US is an absolute mess today, it could be way worse. It is also possible to course correct, realize the promise of this great nation, and be good stewards of world. But we need to get over ourselves and come together once again.
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SteakJones@reddit

The hush of petty bullshit from everyone for about 2 months after. Then it was back to flipping the bird in traffic.
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AtTheLeftThere@reddit

Everyone was so united in the aftermath of 9/11, I'd say even for several months to years. We were so united that we reelected George W Bush. That's not something that would have happened without this.
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SteakJones@reddit

Oof… I’d like to make it clear that I had no part in re-electing him.
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Lostscribe007@reddit

I did. I was in my early 20s and a part of a very pro Republican pro military super American family. Even when things didn't make sense I loved the United Americans feeling so much I ignored it and just doubled down on pro Government anything. The lesson I learned is always question things and never follow the crowd.
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AtTheLeftThere@reddit

Same. But my family was deceived. Mostly for the last time tho
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captain_paws_tattoo@reddit

I remember when Trump was in office, and I turned to my then partner and asked, "did you ever think we'd miss George Bush?"
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DynamitePills@reddit

One of the small towns near me in the South suburbs of Chicago erected a fairly large sign that charted the current terrorism threat level. That thing had to be changed manually when the threat level changed and the sign stayed up until 2011 when Homeland Security ditched the color coded warnings.
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Bellatrix_Shimmers@reddit

Gas gouging. I was worked at a deli that was attached to a gas station. They turned on the store radio so we were listening to it happen instead of watching. Well the Boss Hog (owner) drove up from the capital upon hearing of the sudden boom in sales. There was a line as far as the eye could see of scared people wanting to fill their gas tanks. He told me to go outside and change the sign to raise the gas price. I refused. He was a bit taken a back this girl said no but he had to deal and do it himself. I peace’d out. Later that week the news declared it was gas gouging and anyone who was overcharged that day could go and get a refund for the difference. Dunno how or if that is worth mentioning but that was a core memory for me that day.
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Prestigious-Bee4302@reddit

How much better everything was before 9/11.
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HarrietsDiary@reddit

The willingness in which Americans gave up their rights in the name of patriotism and for the illusion of safety.
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Aachannoichi@reddit

Definitely this. I remember when I was in college in Alaska I had this really scary professor who said the Patriot Act scared him. He said he didn't think it was a good idea that the government could legally spy on you, arrest you, and detain you for an undisclosed amount of time and all without any legal repercussions for them and he encouraged us all to read up on the Patriot Act. It really is scary what the government can do under the guise of "keeping people safe."
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jamesdcreviston@reddit

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Benjamin Franklin
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kyraeus@reddit

The funny part here is, I've watched on this same sub where the people quoting things like this for 9/11 still advocate for 'common sense gun laws'. Same concept, whether you like guns or not. Either we have the right to protect ourselves or we don't. And if we don't, I guess don't come crying when a completely unarmed populace is being taken advantage of even further by an even more radicalized and unscrupulous dictator.
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JayEllGii@reddit

The two things are not the same at *all*. That’s an absurd comparison. Firearms should be heavily regulated, require mandatory registration and renewal, and be entered in a national registry shared between states. Laws have to be made consistent between states, which together with mandatory re-registration would be a huge blow to the black market. That is not remotely the same as arguing that the government should have elevated surveillance capabilities and extra-Constitutional powers to arrest you and detain you without a warrant or charges.
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kyraeus@reddit

Righto, whatever you say bud.
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mrmadchef@reddit

One of my state senators (at the time), Russ Feingold, was the only dissenting vote on the Patriot Act. I disagree with him on a lot of things, but looking back, he was absolutely right to oppose it. It also created some headaches in my personal life years later. Mom is hard of hearing, and has been reliant on hearing aids all her life. I ended up as an authorized user on probably half of her accounts so that I could talk to companies on her behalf, because no matter how many times she told call center employees to SLOW DOWN, SPEAK UP, AND ENUNCIATE because she couldn't understand them, they just didn't get the message. Thankfully she now has a CapTel.
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isummonyouhere@reddit

it’s important to remember that the biggest spying scandal from that era was the Terrorist Surveilllance Program in which the Bush admin instructed the NSA to wiretap calls without FISA warrants. that program had nothing to do with the patriot act and was later ruled illegal.
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HarrietsDiary@reddit

I mean that’s not untrue, but half of Americans polled in 2002 stated they would be okay in giving up their civic liberties in return for increased safety. And the Patriot Act has had a long, long shadow.
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planet_oregon@reddit

The parallels with Israel carpet bombing Gaza as revenge
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909lop@reddit

Carpet bombing has a definition [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpet_bombing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpet_bombing) and it's not what's happening in Gaza. We can condemn Israel's actions and still be truthful
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planet_oregon@reddit

Cool let’s condemn it
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Glum-Reading-772@reddit

Man, you're on speed. You're posting more than once a minute, calling people F-wads, etc. Chill out.
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planet_oregon@reddit

Nah
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stykface@reddit

Way to be a buzzkill on an awful day. Terrible things happen and politicians react, but this doesn't mean we as civilians wanted it. What can we do? Our hands were tied. And this can be applied to anything... like giving up your right to bear arms for the illusion of safety, same thing, and people DO want this to happen. So if your motive was a political statement I think it was a distasteful one.
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1block@reddit

You think many Americans think it's unreasonable to wand everyone coming into a D-League basketball game in Wichita? I think we swallowed it hook line and sinker and haven't looked back since then.
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1block@reddit

Yeah, it's hard to say the terrorists didn't win when we permanently scaled back freedoms due to fear. That's literally the point of terrorism.
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tiletap@reddit

Yes. Zoomed in at the days surrounding it, and the surreal feeling everyone had is one thing, but zoom out at the a couple years beforehand and subsequent years after, and I think it puts the significance in sharp focus. Everything changed after that, and how it was weaponized to justify military action, shutdown dissent, them versus us. The effect on anyone who looked vaguely middle Eastern, the jokes and casual and enthusiastic killing during the war, Gitmo, etc. Online people would share all kinds of videos, under the guise of patriotism, email forwards/chainmail, etc. It was a crazy time.
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KingOfBerders@reddit

“So this is how Liberty dies…with thunderous applause.” -Padme
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Bright_Lynx_7662@reddit (OP)

For sure. It’s a civil liberties class, so that’s on the list. It’s framing a lead up to the Patriot Act and subsequent Fourth Amendment cases. 👍
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AdelleDeWitt@reddit

How much it changed things. The Patriot Act, the surveillance of citizens, especially muslims. The endless war. The "coalition of the willing," and "you are with us or you are the enemy."
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AnothIro@reddit

I forgot the stupid fucking freedom fries. So damn stupid.
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DynamitePills@reddit

I was on a road trip passing through central Indiana around this time, and the little vending machine on the men’s room wall that has the shitty Cracker Jack sex toys and cheap condoms was selling Freedom Ticklers, which is still one of the more surreal things I’ve ever actually laid eyes on.
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Coraline1599@reddit

That’s what stood out to me, the capitalism shoved into every nook and cranny, American flags, freedom fries, red white and blue clothing, ribbons, “remember 911” tchotchkes and Christmas ornaments. There was a lot of cashing in on the tragedy.
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NoGlass701@reddit

Email chains: my dad sent me one a few days after 9/11 that said don’t go to malls on Halloween because they’ll be attacked by terrorists.
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Drslappybags@reddit

If possible, find some news reports from September 10th. Use that to show how normal everything used to be.
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jberg1987@reddit

https://preview.redd.it/h5487p9180xb1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e44da471b887d7a426625a2d525cbd273b771741
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mywhataniceham@reddit

i lived in nyc at the time - i left work to donate blood, and there was a line out the building and a block long - everyone wanted to volonteer or help in some way. the week after there were missing persons posters with pictures and phone numbers everywhere - stapled to the plywood outside of construction sites, on bus stops, lots of people were looking for family members. it was the saddest week in the city i’ve ever seen. the subways were shut down so everyone walked home, i walked across the queensboro bridge with hundreds of others to get home with the smoke and ash floating in the sky from the trade center.
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SawgrassSteve@reddit

My memories of that day and the weeks that followed were of people walking around in a daze, hearing stories from people who couldn't contact their relatives, and an overwhelming paranoia. Also with flights being grounded, people were renting cars with strangers to travel halfway across the country to get home to their families. It was like a nationwide bout of depression. No one I knew wanted to eat out or go out in public. I went out to eat at a local restaurant and was thanked by the owners and staff for coming out. My party might have been their first customers in 3 days.
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Four-Triangles@reddit

How it was 1/15 as bad as the Gaza attack!
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Mr_Snub@reddit

The immediate censorship of music. I remember songs being pulled from my local radio station, and Jimmy Eat World having to change their album from Bleed American to a self titled album.
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Bright_Lynx_7662@reddit (OP)

Really? I look that up and mention it for sure.
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BreadButterHoneyTea@reddit

The Dixie Chicks also got somewhat(?) cancelled for being antiwar.
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Muffins_Slagathor@reddit

https://www.kerrang.com/amp/here-are-the-164-songs-that-were-banned-from-american-radio-after-9-11 I remembered reading this not too long ago.
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pooticlesparkle@reddit

I was a freshman in an upstate NY college when this happened. We had a large number of NYC kids on our campus. I couldn't figure out why one classmate was crying so hard on her cellphone on her way to class. I didn't have a cellphone at the time (I wasn't allowed to have one until I graduated college). I didn't watch TV regularly. I was rushing to class, and one classmate was screaming,'I can't get through' while frantically dialing their cell. I got to my classroom, and a paper was taped to the door 'Class canceled today due to tragic events'. I was like, huh? Wonder what is going on. Went back to my dorm room, and everyone's AIM away messages were frantic, sad, scared. They didn't explain anything. It was late enough in the morning that it was ok to call my friends, but I decided to turn on the news instead (RA, had a single so no roomie to clue me in). The news cut to Tom Brokaw proclaiming that this was an act of war on the US. Constant cuts to the planes colliding with the tower. Realizing that bodies were jumping from a SKYSCRAPER, not papers falling or debris. I was numb. I felt like garbage for not stopping and helping the frantic classmates. I couldn't believe someone wanted to kill us. Why? Was I safe? What would they attack next? Fear, vigils, hatred towards Muslims, Middle Eastern hatred, all were in the news for months to follow. US danger of attack was always orange (attack risk was measured in colors now). It was sad and scary, and my friends were sent to fight a war.
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16miledetour@reddit

I will never forget the jumpers. That was worse to me than everything else. So many jumpers on live tv.
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Antaine1916@reddit

Just how normal everything seemed right up to the point when it started, and how, even after it started for a bit, we had little to no idea the magnitude of what was unfolding and how the world afterward would be forever different. College students have not touchstone for that. Every impactful event in their lifetimes has paled in comparison, and their entire worldview was fashioned in the world changed by that event.
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WhisperINTJ@reddit

Before the second plane hit the tower, people thought it was just a terrible accident, human error, alcohol, a medical event or something like that. We didn't automatically, collectively think it was terrorism. After the second plane hit, our default was reset to terrorism. Whenever anything terrible happens now, we assume it's terrorism until we hear otherwise.
View on Reddit #12786923

Murda981@reddit

I was in college, the first plane hit just before my physics class started. I remember hearing about a plane hitting a building but had no idea the magnitude or even where it happened (I lived near Baltimore so my first thought was a small plane hit something there). One of my classmates kept leaving and checking the news our professor did a problem involving a plane in order to try to get our attention. We had no idea of the magnitude or what happened. When I got in my car after class the radio station I usually listened to was nothing but the news. I tried other channels and they were all the same. That's when I realized the magnitude of what happened.
View on Reddit #12777538

rakkquiem@reddit

One of the strangest things was how quiet it was. I was in college, and campus was just quiet. Nobody talking, or if they were, in very hushed voices.
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16miledetour@reddit

God it was so quiet and weird. I forgot that part.
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16miledetour@reddit

Movies always had the Russians as bad guys. games also. After 9/11 it was always middle eastern baddies.
View on Reddit #12786648

Muffins_Slagathor@reddit

I was 18 at the time, graduated in 2001. Literally felt for our little generation, that were thrusted into an adulthood of uncertainty and illusion. I remember the sense of community in the few months afterwards, the non stop coverage, the panic at the gas pumps (I believe some places at the moment went up to $3-$4 at the time from like the $1 range), and sadly the great divides we are still facing today.
View on Reddit #12777935

16miledetour@reddit

Same age. Shit went from “college is awesome” to “holy shit everything is fucked”. I remember if you walked by any tv that was on for weeks all you saw was the towers burning, falling, or the rescue efforts. It was ingrained in us. It is still one of the most impactful moments of my life.
View on Reddit #12786524

SaltFatAcidHate@reddit

Yes. For everyone, but particularly for those of our generation just entering adulthood, 9/11 changed everything.
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16miledetour@reddit

Moved out of my parents house 2 weeks before to go to college. It was crazy how safe I felt before and how unsafe I felt after.
View on Reddit #12786405

velvetjacket1@reddit

How any attempt to contextualize why foreign bad actors would want to harm us was shot down as anti-American. We were told they just hated our freedoms. No reflection on geopolitics and our involvement in Afghanistan during the Soviet Era.
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JayEllGii@reddit

To this day it’s viscerally embarrassing that childish garbage like “they hate us for our freedoms” actually works on fully grown adults.
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therealpopkiller@reddit

This is a hugely important point
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lbutler528@reddit

For most of your students, they will not have been alive when it happened. It’s similar to us with the Kennedy assassination or Pearl Harbor. It’s a good chance to talk to them about not only 9/11 but also primary and secondary sources (I’m an elementary school teacher, so I include this when we talk about it).
View on Reddit #12786023

GoldenGoof19@reddit

It knocked a ton of us off track, and it took some of us years (decades?) to recover. Some of us never recovered. It didn’t matter if we knew anyone involved or not, seeing it on TV and just having it take over every single aspect of the country for months/years was enough to cause trauma to many many of us. The world went from a hopeful place (naive I know) to a scary place, overnight.
View on Reddit #12785885

Treacherous_Wendy@reddit

How terrifying the first few hours were everywhere in the country. We had no idea what was happening or if there were more attacks coming. Sully’s plane was a literal miracle coming down like that. So. Many. People. Watching the coverage live between the two planes. My god. You would *HEAR* the loud thumps and know those were people dying. Hearing some of the last phone calls from those victims is absolutely harrowing. I was in college in the Midwest at Indiana University and our campus was fucking crazy. Classes were canceled and everyone was in front of the tv. You couldn’t get a cell phone call to go out when it was all happening…cell towers were nowhere what it’s like now. I only managed to call my sister because I saw the campus phone wasn’t being used. I picked her up at her dorm when I left class and we watched the news all day. Our dad was working in Chicago at The Sears Tower (or whatever it’s called now) at the time…we didn’t know if that rogue plane was headed there. The nation really pulled together in a way that I don’t think we will ever experience again. It didn’t matter who you voted for, you were an *AMERICAN* and someone fucked around with us. We all loved Rudy Giuliani.
View on Reddit #12785764

BlueWarstar@reddit

It was a time when nearly everything stood still it felt like. I had heard the first plane hit the tower on my way into work five minutes later I walk to the lobby and they had the TV on a news station I watched it for the replay of what happened, and they were speculating about why it happened. Shortly there after the second plane slams into the second World Trade Center building and no one needs to speculate anymore. Confirmation of other planes being unresponsive in the air and likely hijacked come in. It was incredibly shocking, wondering why anyone would do such a thing. In complete disbelief I go to work telling everyone else what I just saw and for the rest of the day we basically didn’t get much of anything done. We would go in the back do something and then come back to the lobby to watch if anything else happened. There was at least two or three people watching the TV at all times and if anything substantial happened or was mentioned one of us would go back and tell the rest who then would come out and see for themselves. Such as when the next plane hit the pentagon it was crazy we kept trying to find out how many more planes were in the air and or high jacked at some point all air travel was grounded and finally the plane that crash landed in a Pennsylvania field comes down likely headed to the white house. They actually had a recording or live call from one of the passengers on that last flight talking about what they were going to do before it reached its destination. But there was still plenty of uncertainty many things that were not shared or common knowledge for hours if not days before a more cohesive story would come to light. At the beginning no one was claiming the attack. It was a best guess based on who the hijackers were. Such a crazy few days to follow, we had to go in like nothing happened but still little to nothing got done as everyone was consuming news feeds and looking for answers. I felt numb and or in a daze just going through the motions. As the realization that nothing would ever be the same sank in. It was a life and societal catastrophe that changed the trajectory of everything I had known. Life as I knew it was over, yet it was still moving on forwards and I still needed to find my way. It was a shared experience yet how everyone chose to react to it was dramatically different. Some hunkered down in fear, isolating themselves, afraid to go anywhere unfamiliar or even out of their homes safe for necessities. Others raged out spewing hatred towards anyone that resembled the handful of hijackers. Some dove into their communities for connection, support and comfort while many others joined the military to fight for what was right. Yet others still became more compassionate than before realizing one only does these things out of hate and the only way to defeat hate is with love. So many peoples lives changed for better or worse or possibly just indifference yet were still changed by their surroundings. It was a time of chaos and uncertainty, togetherness, fear, pride and so much more all risen to the heights I had never felt before. Prior to 9/11 I remember always carrying a pocketknife with me (Swiss army knife style with little tools and such as well from boy scouts I had as a kid) you were aloud to have it as long as it was no longer than __?__ (I don’t remember I want to say like 2-3inches. You were allowed a lighter and so many other things that were banned. Heck some people would bring 2liter bottles of Coke onto the plane with them. Though of course on flights over 3 hours we would get a TV dinner style meal served to us on the plane. Most of the time other than takeoff or landing you could walk throughout the plane, some planes even had a bar area (my dad took me into that area a few times) with tables and people playing cards, smoking, drinking and some even had music. It was more like a train in the air than the sardine can it is today. Walking all the way to the gate to say goodbye when someone left or waiting at their gate as they arrived was common practice. Thinking back it’s like we lived in an entirely different world and I think how did we get here and then I realize it’s because so many people in positions of power made decisions out of fear. An when you make a decision out of fear you remove a part of your freedom for the illusion of freedom.
View on Reddit #12785551

Sprinkles415@reddit

I remember I was a freshman in high school and I was living in San Francisco at the time I first heard about it during class in the morning and teachers were watching it on tv and soon after that they excused the the entire school 🏫 it created a panic 😱 and a lot of kids went around the neighborhood creating panic too a lot of corner stores that appeared to look like the Enemy no education was taught a lot of judgements made and everyone couldn’t trust anyone Everyone felt like where is it going to happen next
View on Reddit #12785521

BreadButterHoneyTea@reddit

There is an very moving poem by a Palestinian-American woman from Brooklyn written soon after the attacks, [Suheir Hammad's First Writing Since](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDyLNgLHprI). I thought of it again recently because of the current war. It gives a rarely-heard, eloquent description of the American Muslim experience following the attacks and I wish everyone could hear it. Some notes: 1. South of Canal (St.), the location of the Twin Towers 2. The fact that initially we did not know what was happening, that this was an attack, and if it was an attack who was behind it 3. A reference to media airing archival footage of Palestinians celebrating or poor children dancing after being given chocolate, and claiming that they were celebrating the 9/11 attacks 4. A reference to Bin Laden and the Taliban having been funded by the US during their war against the Soviet Union 5. A reference to Bush's famous "You're either with us or against us" line
View on Reddit #12778401

FeistyMcRedHead@reddit

Thank you for the good share/link. First time watcher, here.
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mycatlovesprimus@reddit

Graduating college that year was NOT FUN. No jobs
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translucentcop@reddit

I showed my college class the 9/11 documentary that the Naudet Brothers made with FDNY. They were blown away. They just knew the image of the Twin Towers on fire and everyone covered in dust. They did not know and got to see the sheer panic, disbelief, and the chaos. Afterwards they spoke about how they grew up “knowing” about 9/11 and Osama Bin Laden but were really taken aback watching the New Yorkers react and having no idea what just happened and how the world would change.
View on Reddit #12785154

SaltFatAcidHate@reddit

For poor or working-class kids, the U.S. military was an opportunity to get a college education, some solid income, and even travel abroad. After 9/11, those enlisting almost always knew that they could be putting their lives in danger.
View on Reddit #12784833

MSK84@reddit

I did this with a university class I was teaching and nearly the entire class said "I wasn't born yet" - it was a great lesson for me...I found out that I'm old AF.
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FeistyMcRedHead@reddit

That many of us are still sensitive to it. Parents, friends, strangers, all impacted.
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specks_of_dust@reddit

Boomers talk about how carefree things were when they were young, and for the most part that seems to have carried into adulthood even as the Vietnam War trucked on. That war ended, and while the quality of life should have been improving for GenX, it was actually whittling away behind the scenes for decades. 9/11 was the clear and absolute stopping point for an improving quality of life. For Xennials, we were reaching adulthood around the time of 9/11. We graduated into a post-9/11 world and our adult lives have been defined by that event. The immediate false solidarity, the hyper-vigilant security state, the invasion of Iraq, the "War on Terror," were all things we didn't know in childhood but were sold to us as adults. Oddly, it kind of mirrors our experience with technology. We were born into an analog world and grew up as the technology grew up. We knew both worlds. If 9/11 was K-Mart: * Boomers got a fleet of shiny, brand new K-Mart stores and blue light special prices. * GenX got deteriorating stores with ever-increasing prices. * Xennials woke up one day to find that the K-mart they had just applied to work at had burned down and everyone inside had died. * Millennials remember K-mart from their childhood and how things suddenly got worse after it burned down. * GenZ has only ever known K-Mart as an overgrown parking lot they pass by on their 12-mile bus ride across town to get to WalMart.
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SaltFatAcidHate@reddit

Well put.
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Utdirtdetective@reddit

It would be interesting to share about how several of us watched at least part of the events as they unfolded on live television, which was the first time that the world was able to watch live unscripted horrors of terrorism and that everything we had been taught all the way through high school about American immunity to foreign attacks etc was all a lie. I watched some of those lies burn down when my classmate in junior/senior jazz band ran into the studio pushing the TV cart as fast as he could, and whipping on the news...about 30secs before the second plane hit the WTC. We were glued to the screen for rest of the day while the school admins tried their best to manage the rest of the schoolday and week to follow.
View on Reddit #12775613

PhilosopherAway647@reddit

Oh it was definitely scripted
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Swimming-Welcome-271@reddit

What do you mean in this context?
View on Reddit #12784150

PhilosopherAway647@reddit

The buildings clearly were rigged with explosives, obviously premeditated.. building 7 went down for no reason... the pentagon announced a day prior that it was missing trillions of $... I mean come on, it's been over 20 years, we can acknowledge that it was far more scripted than what was initially told to us.
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idontwantanamern@reddit

I was sitting in my bedroom and watched as the second plane went into the tower. It was absolutely surreal. I could not stop watching and listening to what was going on. And then the Pentagon. That real-time events and hearing people gasping, trying to sort out their feelings, retracting statements, walking off screen, shaking on camera, etc. was like nothing I had ever really seen. Now, I'm not sure if it's because I've been watching a lot of coverage of what's been going on in current events now, but a lot of footage from 9/11 has been coming up in my YouTube suggestions. Rewatching it is just as surreal as it was the day it happened: Love with Regis and Kelly, Howard Stern's radio show, NYC news stations taking calls from people and losing contact from their helicopter feed, the cold opens of shows returning for the first time after. It's actually really interesting to watch. And thinking about how shows got cancelled because they had certain content that was too sensitive, commercials got pulled, song titles got changed & songs were temporarily banned from the radio/videos banned from MTV, movies release dated were pushed out or not released at all. There was this eerie sense of nothing ever being the same again -- and in some ways, that was true because it really amplified an existing divide that has only cracked further apart -- but things also just... Went back to normal. It was this weird "okay. I guess that's that". We were told to be strong, move on, and recover. And we just kind of did.
View on Reddit #12781778

valleysally@reddit

I agree with you the news cycle. It's hard to imagine a time where we didn't have instant access at our fingertips. I was in class when my teacher got a call from the wall phone and she said NY was attacked. The classrooms didn't have tvs in them and the internet wasn't available. So we all crammed in the AV room to see the news. We had to continue in class and only relied on what we overheard from that room. I remember back in class learning about WW2 and I had a question about did people in America know about the atrocities of the Holocaust. The answer was sort of, because news was so slow to travel. They knew things were bad, but it took a long time to learn how bad. I like to think 01 was a modern age, but news that day, there were no answers, just a loop of falling building.
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jimmiec907@reddit

I was on wildfire crew working a large remote fire in the Sierra Nevada mountains near Lake Tahoe. The Forest Service brought up a satellite TV from Sacramento so everyone at fire camp could watch live coverage during meal times. That’s how intense it was. Crazy times …
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davwad2@reddit

For however long it was between when the first plane hit and the second, I thought it was a terrible accident. After the second plane hit, I was reminded of an article about Osama bin Laden that I came across while researching something. Another thought that crossed my mind that day: "this is my generation's 'Pearl Harbor,' and this is going to be bad." And it was. The Patriot Act was (and still is) bad. The Afghanistan War was bad. The Second Iraq War was bad. Going back to how I felt that day, I didn't know what to expect, my sense of security was shattered. My older sister got married the following November and the flights to and from home were somber and quiet.
View on Reddit #12784224

xzelldx@reddit

I woke up after it had happened, so I didn’t watch everything as it happened. In a very real sense, I woke up to a changed world. Before 9/11 I couldn’t have imagined cable Tv replaying something like that over and over. Arguably we have something worse now, but trying to imagine this being one of if not THE most horrible thing any of us had seen could give them more context to why people reacted the way they did. My first husband ended our relationship when he got deployed in 2006. My second couldn’t stand to be hugged because of the reaction to the anthrax vaccine he’d had. The causal effects are really hard to put into perspective.
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DelightfullyPiquant@reddit

A lot of us thought it was fake at first that morning. I thought it was a new movie advert or publicity stunt. Nothing like that could ever happen here right? When a second plane hit, and then the pentagon, seeing all the older adults crying, it hit… oh god! are we going to war? Are more cities getting attacked? Is it safe to go to school or work? And just getting out of high school at the time, are we going to be drafted? Is this our Vietnam? Is my life over? That’s what stands out for me the most for our micro generation, especially for us boys coming of age. Growing up hearing so much from the generation that went through Vietnam, and then now this threat of going to war and simultaneously being just the right age to be conscripted. In hindsight, it seems the fear of a draft was maybe overblown. But when you’re that young and never experienced anything that severe before,the paranoia sets in quick. You’re just praying the real adults know what they’re doing and have your best interests at heart (lol).
View on Reddit #12777779

trashdemons@reddit

I remember thinking, "Wow, how do you fuck up flying a plane SO bad that you hit a skyscraper?" Then the 2nd plane hit. And so did the realization that this was intentional. All day in school, we sat in stunned silence and watched as people committed suicide (jumping from the burning towers) on live TV.
View on Reddit #12784069

Far_Cut_@reddit

As a Canadian, we definitely worked together to get flights safely landed here. It strengthened our relationship, but I miss the days of being able to move easily across the border.
View on Reddit #12783988

Aethansilver@reddit

As long as I live, I’ll never forget seeing people lined up along the street that morning in downtown Phoenix, AZ, USA and wondering what was happening. Were they trying to enlist? Was it a run on the bank? Nope. They were all there to donate blood. Still makes me tear up to think about that. For different reasons now than it was. Then, it showed me people really can come together. For a short while, I found faith in humanity. Then we spent the next 20+ years finding every conceivable way to undo the one solitary shred of good that came from that day.
View on Reddit #12783641

KewlTheChemist@reddit

Remind them how “lucky” it was that the Bush Administration and Congress just happened to have a nicely written and world-worsening Patriot Act ready to go in the event something like this specifically happened.
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minimalfighting@reddit

One thing I'm not seeing from others because it was small, but huge. The American airspace was grounded. You couldn't fly in the US at all. I lived in Seattle, which has military bases and plane building among other things, so we had fighters flyover a few times during that period. That shit was weird. Lots of panic when you would see a plane flying near or looking like it was flying near downtown. Also, we all grew to doing whatever we wanted (to a certain extent) with a slap on the wrist or just to be told to leave. Afterwards a friend was getting pictures of a tunnel for a class project and the police arrived, cuffed, patted down, questioned, then released. It was when see something, say something began.
View on Reddit #12783619

bgva@reddit

How shows like SNL or Letterman/Leno were reluctant to turn to comedy. Before he went nuts, Rudy Giuliani went on SNL to talk about how we have to move on as a country. LORNE: Can we be funny? RUDY: Why start now?
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Dudeinairport@reddit

Don’t forget that the Bush admin was intentionally trying to blur the lines between Al Queda and Saddam Hussein so we could invade Iraq. I’d like to think if 9/11 hadn’t happened Bush wouldn’t have been able to rally support for an Iraq invasion.
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SH01-DD@reddit

I bookmarked this site a while back. You can actually watch footage in real time to maybe give them a sense of the day. [https://911realtime.org/](https://911realtime.org/)
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BennyOcean@reddit

Teach them about building 7.
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Bawbawian@reddit

we watch 3,000 people die on live TV. and then everything got worse.
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Training_Big_3713@reddit

I think it’s important and interesting to remember how hard communication was then compared to now. People had cell phones, but not smart phones and no video calls. Communications to the city were very limited because the lines were maxed out.
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SaltFatAcidHate@reddit

This is really important to emphasize to college kids. There was only a glimpse of social media on computers back then, ICQ and chatrooms and such, and for some people, cell phones were around, but certainly not smart ones.
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ReignInSpuds@reddit

I just remember all the Christian crusaders in this country making it all about them, as per the fucking usual.
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Remarkable_Horse_968@reddit

https://preview.redd.it/s6vpop9mpzwb1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=08c8dd8edcf5a025cade03b44f2b61525664105a That's NY. It was a war zone. Entire parks, roads, highways were turned into triage centers. 1000s of Americans died on US soil. Not a couple, not 10s...THOUSANDS. My coworkers inside law enforcement and the FBI spent weeks picking body parts out of the rubble, both at WTC plaza and at the plane crash sites. 100s more people have died from cancers directly linked to breathing the air at the sites. It is and was an absolute horror show.
View on Reddit #12782422

ColdBrewMoon@reddit

How insanely surreal it was to see no planes in the sky or any helicopters going around. The air was deadly silent for the two days or whatever. It really felt like any minute a war was gonna break out.
View on Reddit #12782384

More_Than_The_Moon@reddit

That it was one of the first times, generationally, that the US stood still.
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Geekboxing@reddit

I just remember it being a thing where, I'd watch the news reports on TV, and I'd see the impact, and my brain was like "Is that real? No way, that's not real, this is like a movie." It was very surreal to see a thing like that unfolding in real life. Big cognitive dissonance because you just do not expect to see a thing like this happen, it seems fictional until it sinks in. The only other two times in my life I can recall feeling this way were when the Jan. 6 Capitol riots happened, and when the Challenger shuttle exploded.
View on Reddit #12782331

phjenny@reddit

How our government went to war on baseless claims of wmd in Iraq and we were in conflict for too damn long and then left that country in shambles. Afghanistan too. Fucking senseless war IMO.
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LifePedalEnjoyer@reddit

Don't say the Iraq war was baseless. There was an intel report that fully described a scene from The Rock starring Nicholas Cage and Sean Connery.
View on Reddit #12780979

phjenny@reddit

Touché
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Training_Big_3713@reddit

And that war was basically live television too. Journalists were present for the attacks
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AnothIro@reddit

A few thoughts - I worked at an internet company on an overnight shift when it happened and it was very quite then got really busy. Main issue - people couldn't load CNN because their servers were overloaded. People basically overloaded the early web pages trying to get information in those early hours. The change in atmosphere. It wasn't just the new guidelines on Airlines and the loss of things like walking to the gate with your family, but afterwards we just got meaner. It's like everything was a little looser back then and everyone got VERY protective after the "United" feeling wore off. And that protective wasn't the good type. It was a paranoid protectiveness where you eyed people with suspicion. ​ The racism that crept up from so many different facets towards Muslims and anyone looking like they might have a chance of being from the middle east was bad. I also feel like people went from knowing Muslim's kinda existed to intense hate which was just weird. A lot of people also just got married or intensified their relationships because it was so shocking that in the US so many people were just gone in such an abrupt way as a reaction. TV shows, movies, or games with anything that might remind someone of the attack were immediately pulled or modified. Big Trouble is one of the movies I remember the most as it was set to release like a week after 9/11 and was pushed back to 2002. The twin towers removed from Spiderman. 24 was actually delayed air due to the attacks. I sometimes wonder what things would be like if the attack had never happened.
View on Reddit #12781915

AnothIro@reddit

Also forgot the respect for first responders, military, etc went up in that short time. People supported fire-fighters, police, anyone in the military as part of that patriotic push that was happening.
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mattmentecky@reddit

How prior to 9/11 a common trope in every romcom or sitcom was rushing to the airport gate to profess their love for someone just about to board the plane.
View on Reddit #12776399

DisciplineShot2872@reddit

Or Dogma, where Bartleby and Loki pass eternity consigned to Wisconsin by people watching in the airport terminal. And screwing with clergy.
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MayflowerKennelClub@reddit

oh my god the first time i had to do this was in 2003 and it was also my first time flying alone and i had a panic attack and my dad had to get a boarding pass to come with me and calm me down lol 😭
View on Reddit #12778421

ladybug1215@reddit

I was doing a semester abroad that fall, and when I left on September 1 my parents, my aunt, and my little cousins all walked back to the gate to see me off. I remember being able to see my dad at the terminal window as the plane pulled away. Three months and one world-changing day later, they all met me on the other side of the security line.
View on Reddit #12777764

Remarkable_Horse_968@reddit

The willingness of Americans to believe their own government planned the attack and the absolute horror the attack actually was. Show them pictures and videos of people jumping from the buildings and ask them "why, do you think, these images are no longer shown or discussed?" Also, if you read this and think "9/11 was an inside job," you're an idiot and should be ashamed of yourself.
View on Reddit #12782002

DocBEsq@reddit

The way the country changed. I was abroad when 9/11 happened and I can say, without a doubt, that the country I came home to was not the country I left. Rights were curtailed, racism was suddenly in the open, dissent was frowned upon, fear was the dominant emotion. Honestly, the country has seemed a much uglier—emotionally—place since then. I know that it’s not as simple as this, but I do see 9/11 as the turning point.
View on Reddit #12778493

Muffins_Slagathor@reddit

I feel this on every level. Just coming into adulthood at that time, our young eyes got opened wide quickly.
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RevealFormal3267@reddit

The collective "Oh crap" sentiment that the rest of us in the broader world had the moment we witnessed it, knowing the wrath that was to follow. Allied countries offered immediate condolence and support, and even heads of hostile states, save for Iraq, were pretty quick to publicly condemn the attack.
View on Reddit #12781755

penguinsfan40@reddit

I lived near Pittsburgh International Airport and I remember fighter jets flying low around the area and just the lack of commercial airplanes since they were all grounded. It was so weird not hearing a plane every 5-10 minutes. I was in high school and just felt like the country’s spirit was wounded. I told my dad I wanted to put a flag up that evening and went out and got an flag pin that I wore every day for the next year to I’m my mind try showing unity and that our spirits weren’t broken.
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Riply-Believe@reddit

I was attending Pitt at the time. Quiet skies was bizarre. Not to mention Flight 93.
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TappyMauvendaise@reddit

It was the last time the whole country was united. Present bush’s approval rating went up to 91% or something.
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Tribble400@reddit

Don't touch it. Go back farther in history. I never learned about Vietnam in school for a reason.
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Cold-Nefariousness25@reddit

I just talked to my students about it. I gave my personal story. The students sat completely still taking it all in. I told them about how all flights from the northeast (at least where I was) were canceled and imagine thinking about that, even during the pandemic there was not a mass cancelation of flights. I said I tried to get in contact with family that were traveling that day and a lot of the phone lines were completely jammed. I've heard Gen Z are making jokes about it, that was not what I got from my students at all. I think they just have a hard time relating to it. Then I punctuated it by saying that there hasn't been anything moment like that in most of their lifetimes. One student said "What about when Brazil won the World Cup". Another said what about when bin Laden was killed. I explained that some people didn't watch or didn't care about those events, and the world didn't completely stop, even though that was important to you.
View on Reddit #12781240

Riply-Believe@reddit

One thing to be aware of is that schools make kids watch the 9/11 footage every year. I had no idea until my kid was talking about it with a friend. My kid is 19, and we live in a rural area of PA. I have a 21yo "foster" kid who was raised 30 miles from the Mexican border in a heavy cartel area. BOTH had the same experience in school. There is certainly a ton of insight to offer, but be aware that these kids have been watching graphic footage every year since grade school. I was shocked to learn that.
View on Reddit #12781230

ThingsOfThatNaychah@reddit

TVs on all day, everywhere. The 24-hour news cycle really dug its claws into the world. Peter Jennings worked almost around the clock. Companies immediately cashing in on the temporary sense of patriotism that swept the USA. Biggest fad since gigapets. Who else remembers the awkward looking too-wide flag stickers seemingly everybody had on their cars in those days? Nowadays, people with flags on their cars are usually full of hate and bigotry, but for a little while back then, it was a symbol of unity for many. Talk about Rudy "leaking hair dye lunatic" Giuliani when he was Rudolph "America's Mayor" Giuliani, and his son was behind him on TV smiling, waving, and hamming it up for the cameras. Talk about the collective crush so many Americans had on Tony Blair when he was able to articulate the situation better than George W. Bush could ever dream of doing. Mention the decision to remove images of the WTC from new movies (including Spider-Man 2) that were shot before the towers fell. Cameron Crowe's *Vanilla Sky* was the first one to be released that dared to keep it in. Most of us didn't care. Some people were super upset, and some even petitioned that Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers have its title changed.
View on Reddit #12781160

AtlJayhawk@reddit

I'm a back to school x'er/xennial and have had several classes where the kids just didn't get it. I've heard "doesn't seem like that big a deal" wayyyyy too many times. None want to discuss it. Doesn't directly affect them, so they don't care. This is an R1 university. These students have no idea who Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, or Kim Jong is. They think Lincoln was president in the 1950s. They don't know who fought in the revolutionary war, who the civil war was between, and have never heard of the Gulf War. A 19 year old argued extensively with me that the AIDS crisis happened in the 1960s. I told her I went to AIDS funerals and she didn't blink an eye realizing I wasn't born until 1980. This is just a small tidbit of the lunacy I have encountered every day for the last 2 years. Even though I'm only a sophomore, the professors confide in me and rant about their frustrations. Don't get me started on the majority of young men's opinions on women. It's disgusting.
View on Reddit #12777693

therealpopkiller@reddit

Where do you teach, Dipshit University?
View on Reddit #12781027

OPMom21@reddit

I’d mention that the Bush Administration used 9/11 as a pretext for launching the war in Iraq, a war based on lies. Cheney and Rumsfeld, along with a cadre of other Neocons, had made their intentions clear years earlier in their Project for a New American Century manifesto, which specifically mentions a catastrophic event, a “new Pearl Harbor,” that would be the impetus for launching multiple wars in the Middle East with the goal of American dominance. Interesting stuff that the media ignored.
View on Reddit #12780653

ialsohateusernames@reddit

The sheer amount of confusion, uncertainty, and poor intel is often overlooked because we look back with 20+ years of information. There were reports of further attacks by plane, bio weapons, activated terrorist, etc. I was in the military and my intel folks just told my Squadron to watch the news. “They know more of what’s going on than we do right now”. That aspect of 9/11 in the days after was similar to what happened right after Pearl Harbor from what I’ve read and heard from my grandfather. It’s also comparable to the early days of the pandemic.
View on Reddit #12780452

HOU2CA@reddit

One of the things that always stood out to me was how quiet it was that day. I was in college and walking around campus no one was sitting on the lawn, no one was listening to music or even talking. Everywhere there was a tv people were gathered just watching, not saying anything, just watching.
View on Reddit #12780430

carriealamode@reddit

How much our life fundamentally changed in the way we do things. Airports etc. pre and post 9/11 life is noticeably different
View on Reddit #12780318

Seychelles_2004@reddit

Many have mentioned the exteme Islamophobia, but tied into that was the extension to anyone who was "brown." I'm south asian and my boss made me have police escort back and forth to my car because some dude yelled at me on the street walking to my office the following morning. The number of Sikhs who were killed. My dad having to sit in a meeting at work where people were advocating to have him and an Egyptian lady fired bc they could be Muslim. Or my mom panic buying mini-American flags for us to have in our cars just in case. See if you can find some stories from people that didn't fit into the post-911 coming together of America.
View on Reddit #12780055

481126@reddit

Eventually even the most staunch person got sick of hearing God Bless the USA on the radio or well actually Toby Keith was more annoying but that came later.
View on Reddit #12780027

481126@reddit

The Sikh temple by my house had its windows smashed on September 13th. The "Unity" & everyone coming together didn't extend to brown people. That people wouldn't want Middle Eastern looking people on the bus - what if he has a bomb in his backpack? We didn't realize what we would see watching the live coverage. Things they don't share in the playbacks. It reminds me of Columbine - we didn't know what it was. Now when yet another mass shooting happens we know what it will be. We had no idea. We had no frame of reference.
View on Reddit #12779958

Cruz_Blackwell@reddit

In 1998 when I was in high school, I toured a masque and met with an imam as part of a religious studies class (I went to Catholic School). I can’t imagine this happening in 2002.
View on Reddit #12779687

Vegetable_Burrito@reddit

The time before the fucking TSA and the Patriot Act.
View on Reddit #12779683

Routine_Ask_7272@reddit

I was a senior in high school. On that day, at the lunch table, we knew this was a “Pearl Harbor” moment. We knew the attack was going to start a war. I was just about to turn 18, so it was extra scary. Very soon after 9/11, we entered Afghanistan. Then, there was the Anthrax scare. Then, we started hearing about Iraq’s “Weapons of Mass Destruction.” Then, a year and a half later, we invaded Iraq. Crazy times. Prior to 9/11, the NASDAQ crashed. We were in a recession. We were told to “fight terrorism” by spending and improving the economy.
View on Reddit #12779521

ahoypolloi_@reddit

How it cemented the horror show that is 24/7 news as a constant in our life. We’re all the worse off for it. How those of us who protested the Afghanistan war and Iraq war were treated like traitors — even tho we were right from the start — and how that’s sadly being mirrored in Gaza now.
View on Reddit #12776709

witch_and_famous@reddit

The Iraq invasion was when I realized my parents were brain dead. I said “Iraq has nothing to do with this” and they said “but Sadaam KILLS his own people!” exactly like all the anchors said it on Fox news. *Anything* could justify the USA invading a foreign land like we own the place. And when I point out the US does the same thing to its citizens the mental backflips start working overtime. I was treated abominably by people who consider themselves “patriots.”
View on Reddit #12777960

Icculus33_33@reddit

To be begrudgingly fair, this was not limited to Fox News. It was inescapable from any news outlet.
View on Reddit #12779413

MonkeyBred@reddit

South Park during this era was on point! It might sound flippant to say this, but really, Sharon on the couch mumbling about the 24/7 news was a real reflection of the state of our experience.
View on Reddit #12778792

Principessa-@reddit

Tell them about the propaganda we were absolutely flooded with immediately after, and how we were socially primed to agree to war.
View on Reddit #12779214

Boring_Pace5158@reddit

I taught a geography course, one day I was explaining the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Kid raised his hand and said: "you mean we supported the people who did 9/11?" I said, yes, play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
View on Reddit #12779135

TMFPB@reddit

How iconic the twin towers were and how shocking it was to watch that plane fly into those towers. Also, how scared we were to think about what might come next, not just in the US but in ally countries as well. I was in Toronto Canada and my friends and I were scared to walk around our city. We felt if this could happen in NYC it could happen anywhere.
View on Reddit #12779061

DSii1983@reddit

I’ve shared this in another post before. I was a freshman at Columbia and it was, I believe, our third day of classes. I also was dating a NYC firefighter at that time. He had stayed with me in my dorm the night before (it was a single, lol) and got up early to go on a golf trip with some of the guys from the firehouse. I walked him to the gates and then went back upstairs to go back to sleep. I woke up to pounding on my door just after the first plane hit and watched the second hit on the TV in our common area. You could see the towers burning from the roof of our dorm. My bf called me shortly after to say every fireman in the city was being called into work and it was honestly the first time I ever experienced dread. The next few days were terrifying. I didn’t know if he was ok or if his friends were ok. I finally saw him that Friday; he had been at the site the whole week. He looked like he aged ten years in a couple of days. He lost so many friends. But that night was the first time he said “I love you” to me; he was my first bf and so it was the first time I had ever been told that by someone not in my family. It was a beautiful but also very very sad moment. It was spoken from someone who had just seen absolute carnage and the worst of what life can do to you. I spent the next six years with him and so much of that time was spent going to funerals and memorials and street dedications…now I work for the Department and I can’t even express how that one day still impacts and influences every day at work. It’s still very much alive. I don’t know…all of this to say is that I never have forgotten what those days after felt like and that it was a day I remember as losing my innocence, my faith in humanity. I guess I was lucky to have to that point. But it’s like there was my life before that day and then there was everything after.
View on Reddit #12779049

a_dance_with_fire@reddit

- The differences pre 9-11 and post 9-11 (such as changes to air travel, privacy laws, huge rise in islamaphobia, etc). The world was never the same after. - overall symbology of that attack (iconic buildings, no one ever thought something like that could happen, not government related except the attempt on the pentagon, etc). - differences if it were to occur today as there was no social media. Last phone calls from loved ones on the planes. Random photos / videos people happened to take that day. Not knowing what was happening. - the good that people showed. How people in Canada opened their doors as planes got diverted. Shutting down of air space. How people searched the rubble and did what they could to help. - how common it was for people to be glued to the tv in the coming days to stay updated (again no social media). - the implications of going to war considering it was a generation since that happened. How some of us had friends who signed up to go to war, and either never came back or if they did, they were never the same
View on Reddit #12778936

fuggettabuddy@reddit

I was 2,000 miles away from home. 26 years old, I sobbed on the phone to my dad. He said the best we could do was to pray for our president.
View on Reddit #12778838

stealthc4@reddit

Rudy Giuliani was once respected
View on Reddit #12778836

LeroyJacksonian@reddit

How the world came to a stand still for nearly a whole day. It’s one of those “I remember exactly where I was and what am I doing” events. I, myself, remember exactly where I was standing in my house and thinking it was a joke when my mom told me what she’d just seen on the Today Show. Disney and Universal in Orlando closed for fear they could be targeted. Almost all flights were grounded. A lot of other business closed for the day and sent employees home. It was a day of complete shock - from people watching the Today show while drinking their morning coffee watching the first plane live on TV to the footage from Live news of people on the scene (and the news crew) running for their lives from the cloud of debris when the 2nd tower fell to the evening when every channel was either live news coverage or some kind of somber programming or repeats. I remember MTV playing a series of videos almost in a loop, Yellow by Coldplay in particular. A lot of other comments have made some good suggestions in regards to the aftermath and effects on life going forward including the beginning of Security Theater, Attempts of Copycats (remember the Shoe Bomber?), The Culture of Fear and the beginning of terms like ‘the War on Terror’, the beginnings of the War in Afghanistan, etc.
View on Reddit #12778703

EagleEyezzzzz@reddit

Just what a pivotal moment in time it was. We went from feeling like our country was safe and there was an invisible safe barrier around the US wars were fought over on the other side of the country, to feeling like terrorism could happen anywhere in the US. It was a massive loss of innocence/naïveté for our generation and really the whole country. I also have a lot of thoughts on how Republican capitalized on tragedy to further their wars and political goals, but that’s probably not appropriate for school (even though it’s black and white fact) …..
View on Reddit #12778669

MonkeyBred@reddit

I recall my parents recounting the quietness following JFK's assassination. 9/11 was like this for me. That morning, in Dallas, driving to work at the mall, I never listened to the news, but I-635 wasn't aggressive, high speed, or with accidents. It was just 20-30 MPH below the speed limit, eerily quiet... like a herd of zombies glued to their car radios. I was the only fool in a rush and was soooo confused. They closed the mall several hours after 9AM because there were several connected towers, and they didn't know why tall building pairs were being attacked.
View on Reddit #12778460

Training_Big_3713@reddit

The amount of nation pride and commercials showing neighborhoods with American flags
View on Reddit #12778438

frougle_mcdugal@reddit

I remember all sports being cancelled the rest of the week. It felt so weird not having football on Sunday. I know that sounds trivial, but it was a microcosm of how normalcy would be absent from everyday life.
View on Reddit #12778142

honeycrrrispp@reddit

What’s always fascinated me (growing up in a very conservative family at the time) was the turn away from privacy as the frame/reasoning behind certain policy concerns (gun ownership, parents “rights,” small government). You’ve said already that this is lead up to the patriot act and I think it is worth noting that the “success” of the act is all the more jarring of a turn in the politics of the era when you consider the context of the 90s after Waco & Ruby Ridge, when conservative religious folks were literally up in arms over the government being in their business.
View on Reddit #12776927

Bright_Lynx_7662@reddit (OP)

I had the same experience.
View on Reddit #12777522

honeycrrrispp@reddit

Oh interesting!! I was really active in evangelical youth stuff and in the weeks following 9/11 there was a rally and it was like…absolutely instant, intense, re-defining of what it means & looks like to be “on our team.” It made my head spin & instantly set me on a path of questioning because the change was so…easy and opportunistic, like, where is the integrity here? It blew my mind (and made me very depressed)
View on Reddit #12778118

The_Grinning_Bastard@reddit

That American imperialism abroad had a hand in it.
View on Reddit #12777943

Rich_Text82@reddit

Cover the highlights e.g. airport security changes, goofy jingoism(freedom fries), and ah yeah, those trillion dollar endless wars in the Middle East.
View on Reddit #12777922

Vorpal_Bunny19@reddit

The rampant Islamophobia after.
View on Reddit #12774605

witch_and_famous@reddit

The residual effects I think we are still witnessing today. People are quick to condemn Palestinians to death because to them Muslim=evil.
View on Reddit #12777335

Vorpal_Bunny19@reddit

That’s part of why it was on the top of my mind. It feels like history repeating itself on a few different levels.
View on Reddit #12777683

JohnMpls21@reddit

It was a generational experience. Using commercial planes as weapons. My classes were canceled and I watched tv all day. Literally every channel was news. Nat Geo did a good doc about a couple years ago.
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witch_and_famous@reddit

I was three weeks into my first semester away at college. I was witnessing the events happen alone with no support network in a time before I could text my friends for us to check up on each other. I sat in the student union with other students I didn’t know watching the news on a massive projector. My Spanish teacher from El Salvador failed every student who didn’t show up to class that day. She was totally unfazed. But she looked exactly like the lady who killed Selena so honestly fuck her.
View on Reddit #12777605

jamesdcreviston@reddit

Bring up that you could actually walk people to their airplane gate before that!
View on Reddit #12777455

awnothecorn@reddit

That there was a lot of togetherness, but there were also huge lines at gas stations to top up and people rushing grocery stores. I worked in my hometown's grocery store, and that was one of the best days we had because people were just stocking up on shit, and not bread and milk like before a storm but salad dressing and steak.
View on Reddit #12777422

SchmalzTech@reddit

I don't know what to share really other than how successful an attack it was. The success wasn't necessarily the thousands killed, but that it weakened our free republic by eroding the liberty we once had. So many cowered and were not only allowing, but demanding to trade their constitutionally enumerated liberties which are largely a unique part of our culture for the mere *perception* of safety, and how we are now subject to more tyrannical control from an unelected bureaucracy who can use the system to persecute anyone they perceive as a threat to their power. I hope this is a segue into the abuse of the FISA courts among other things. The patriot act passing was when I realized that we effectively live under a one party system and most of the back and forth in DC is theatre. Also, I am a fan of reading the Federalist papers to get the real intent and viewpoints of the founders, so maybe bring that in as well where appropriate.
View on Reddit #12777155

witch_and_famous@reddit

Islamophobia started immediately. Sikhs trying to donate blood afterward were attacked in line by white Americans just because they wore turbans. It was picked up by the White House and repeated ad infinitum. Every comment from GWB for 7 years was “terrorists” “terrorism” “axis of evil” “9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11” God how I wish one of those fucking shoes had hit him.
View on Reddit #12777153

DownVegasBlvd@reddit

Definitely would highlight the economic impact it had throughout several industries that basically crippled our futures.
View on Reddit #12777059

Traditional_Cat_60@reddit

Republicans will use tragedies to justify wars shift trillions of dollars from the lower and middle class to their upper class cronies
View on Reddit #12776839

Rick_Flexington@reddit

Two quirks of capitalism: 1. bush declaring we could win by spending money shipping 2. Every store was suddenly selling flags
View on Reddit #12776639

circus4fools_u_me@reddit

PNAC project for a new American century, a rightwing thinktank of bush admin neocons detailing the need for a Pearl Harbor-like event to gain public support for war and military spending. Rebuilding America’s Defenses, came out the year before
View on Reddit #12776539

Drilling4Oil@reddit

The event itself, and equally importantly, the *response* (patriot act, GWOT, crushing of dissent from official narrative via social engineering, the overt abandonment of formerly established principals of the rights of individuals, the introduction of information streams via cable/broadcast/web news as a lens through which to see the world in real time, overt unaccountability of government officials to be held responsible for failure) shattered the sensibility that, "everything will turn out fine, because somehow it just always does".
View on Reddit #12776513

Quirky0ne@reddit

I would take about the good of the people as well. How many people were in the towers that worked together to get out. How planes were all grounded and how communities took travelers in such as those in Newfoundland that opened their homes. Of course you talk about what happened after and the fear and loss as well. I just think it’s important to recognize the good too.
View on Reddit #12776310

Atillion@reddit

How everyone banded together under the flag and patriotism for like a week, then became even more nasty and divided than before. How it was invoked incessantly to gain support for massive shock and awe wars where we invaded other lands and committed atrocities not unlike the ones happening to innocent people this very day. How it highlighted to a generation that maybe we're not the good guys.
View on Reddit #12774973

Lali_mco11@reddit

I would say it was longer than a week
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Atillion@reddit

True, I was over oversimplifying. For academia, I'd say it took about 3 months to wear off for me.
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talrich@reddit

I’d point to the 9/11 commission report which showed that the nation wasn’t too divided to have hard discussions. Conservative and liberal friends read it and discussed it. Sure, parts of the report blamed Clinton while other parts blamed Bush, but these days it’s hard to even imagine the parties would allow the process.
View on Reddit #12775696

OnthelookoutNTac@reddit

You’re a college professor, asking a bunch of randos on Reddit, how to put your lesson plan together? Where do you teach, so I can tell everyone I know to avoid that school?
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Bright_Lynx_7662@reddit (OP)

Settle down, dude. I’m not asking for a lesson plan. I’m asking what perspectives people think are important to share. But thanks for your wild overreaction.
View on Reddit #12774957

piscian19@reddit

"Thoughts & Prayers"
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Miz_momo82@reddit

"America Strong"
View on Reddit #12774296