Filibuster Cartoons
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The other day, on a somewhat ghoulish whim, I decided to tour this cemetery near my house. My God. Have you been to one lately? Doe-eyed teddy bears and lawn flamingos. Sports pendants and Hotwheels cars. Enormous stones emblazoned with photos, clip art, embarrassing nicknames, and corny in-jokes. Awful, awful poetry. The sort of gauche cheesiness once exclusively reserved for roadside memorials for pretty sophomores killed by drunk drivers is now standard-fare for tombs of all ages.
Obviously, grief can pour out of us with an intensity that is not always easy to moderate or censor, especially in the aftermath of a genuinely unexpected tragedy. A friend of mine died in a car crash a few years ago, and I have to cringe when remembering some of the cloying things said at his funeral; not because the motivation was in any way disingenuous, but because grief can make us lose our dignity in a way that’s almost borderline disrespectful to the departed.
It’s for this reason that I’ve had a hard time stomaching the round-the-clock 9-11 memorializing that has dominated all forms of news media not only this weekend, but at least the entire previous week as well. Flashy montages of falling rebar, dust clouds, and Mayor Giuliani set against Sarah McLachlan’s warbling tones. Meandering, pointless editorials with nothing to say, but still professing to chronicle “all we’ve learned.” Extreme close-ups of tear-stained faces on 60 Minutes, again. President Bush yelling out of that megaphone, again.
David Brooks wrote a good thing in the New York Times the other day, in which he contrasted the grandiosity of this decennial with the 10-year anniversary of Pearl Harbor in 1951. It was not much of a big deal, David Brooks said. By 1951 America had not only long won World War II, but was close to winning a new war in Korea, too. Pearl Harbor was relevant for the families of the victims, but had lost its emotional standing within the larger American zeitgeist. Everyone had moved on.
Away from all the day-long chat shows and pull-out weekend supplements, the actual Ground Zero commemorations were tasteful and dignified, though I understand this was a rare exception to an otherwise troubling trend. On August 31, the Village Voice ran a striking expose of what they dubbed New York’s “memorial-industrial complex,” the vast network of architects, businessmen, politicians, lawyers, bureaucrats, charity workers, and even victims’ families and first respondents who have exploited the aftermath of the tragedy to enrich themselves through various schemes to keep the grief forever raw. 85 books about 9-11 will be published in the next nine months. The September 11 memorial museum will cost almost six times as much as the one that commemorates World War II (if it ever gets finished, of course). There are enough multi-million dollar “charity foundations” to buy several new WTCs by now, but of course that hasn’t been done yet, either.
The same compulsions of greed, stagnation, corruption, and ineptitude are obviously involved in perpetuating America’s other complex — the military-industrial one — that has been the other legacy of 2001. It’s absurd to argue that Afghanistan is somehow the most difficult and complicated war America has ever fought in her 235-year history, yet it will now hold that status — by choice, not fact — for decades to come. And then there’s Iraq, the proud recipient of all sorts of New York-style scams and hustles, care of unaccountable contrators, crooked politicians, and various international men of mystery. Were they good wars or bad wars? That doesn’t seem to be the point anymore.
I was 17 on 9-11, and have matured in an age in which the idea that America (or the West, for that matter) simply cannot win wars within a single generation or protect its people without engaging in endless, cast-of-thousands, budgets-of-billions, decades-long “projects” of unclear objective and uncertain consequence forms the mainstream consensus of our time. It hasn’t been fun, but luckily it kind of washes over you like a cool breeze after a while.
I used to think that 9-11 changed everything, and resented it for doing so, but I’m less sure today. A more accurate catch-phrase might be that it “exposed everything.” Exposed our vulnerability, sure, but also our hysteria, naiveté, myopic mawkishness, and general bureaucratic ineptitude for solving large problems in a rational and mature way. It exposed many good things too, and watching all of yesterday’s much-hyped documentaries on the big networks, it was comforting to be reminded that there is a spirit of selfless heroism and strength that can still be summoned from the hearts of so many, even in this selfish and indifferent age. But the very fact that we are moved so tremendously by such things, and feel the need to endlessly celebrate them in such a mushy, sycophantic, pink-flamingos-on-a-tombstone way, exposes something about our own insecurities and failings that’s more than a little unsettling.
More than flowers and books and museums and memorials and charities and speeches and songs and TV specials, I imagine the victims of 9-11 just wanted to finish living their lives in a world where every year was a little bit better than the one that came prior. We haven’t been able to fulfill that modest objective, of course, because it’s a goal that requires more than symbolism, more than slogans, and more than sympathy. It requires actual sacrifice, actual creativity, and actual leadership.
It requires more, in short, than we’ve shown we possess.
September 12th, 2011 at 2:20 pm
The town of Newfolden, Minnesota held a memorial service that included a symbolic re-enactment. I'm beginning to think that one day, September 11th will be America's bonfire night.
http://www.startribune.com/local/129595183.html
"What they've got planned in Newfolden will certainly be hard to forget. A non-military plane will buzz the crowd, followed by an unannounced explosion of fireworks, said Barrett, who leads the town's Evangelical Free Church. Then more than 100 motorcycles will roar in, creating a "wall of sound to mimic the noise and the chaos of that day."
More than 30 ambulances "with sirens blaring will effectively catch people off guard. Whether we were watching on our television screens or at the actual sites, there was a sense of 'we don't really know what's going on here' that was overwhelming and that's what we're trying to recreate," Barrett said."
September 12th, 2011 at 2:23 pm
Sigh.
September 12th, 2011 at 2:57 pm
The re-enactment of a horrifying massacre that killed thousands and traumatized countless others. It's what Jesus would do!
September 12th, 2011 at 3:26 pm
It should be remembered, but it doesn't need to be remembered garishly.
Altho, comparing it to Pearl Harbor, poll your non-Social Science major friends and acquaintances and see how many know the date of the attack.
September 12th, 2011 at 3:57 pm
I too was 17. Being an American myself and looking at how the America that formed my childhood and the America that came since the end of it is mindblowing.
September 12th, 2011 at 5:08 pm
Speaking of Jesus, we have now reached a point where crossed lines symbolize religious tradition and parallel lines symbolize the fragility of national security. It is now impossible NOT to symbolize right-wing authoritarianism.
September 12th, 2011 at 5:13 pm
Symbolism has become more important than substance in the American reaction to society and politics. If you say the right things, your inaction or the ineffectiveness of your actions becomes immaterial. Results don't matter anymore, only rhetoric and intent.
That was a really adorable domestic scene in the first panel. Your cynicism becomes strikingly apparent in the last.
September 12th, 2011 at 8:25 pm
Perhaps you'd like a commemorative switch plate:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/79822577/9-11-remembr...
Never forget.
September 12th, 2011 at 8:28 pm
I was only 8 years old at the time. I couldn’t understand what was happening then. Now, ten years later, I still feel as if I couldn’t understand. The only thing I can really do is remember.
September 12th, 2011 at 8:31 pm
To be fair… Pearl Harbor is remembered as "Pearl Harbor" not 12/7…
September 12th, 2011 at 9:12 pm
Nobody blinks an eye at Civil War reenactments. That was hardly rainbows and unicorns.
September 12th, 2011 at 10:48 pm
Yes, but it happened 150 years ago.
September 12th, 2011 at 11:28 pm
It's also not as one-dimensional. Civil-war reenactments are often concerned with issues of technology and military strategy, treating each side with pretty reasonable amounts of respect for these matters.
September 13th, 2011 at 1:33 am
Good cartoon summary of the last decade. It takes me back…
September 13th, 2011 at 5:20 am
Would a guy with hair that blonde grow a beard that brown?
September 13th, 2011 at 8:20 am
I know some people want to have a major experience to rememberthe date, as for me a quiet Sunday reflecting on the tragedy of that day that so many were murdered, and praying that the world might be so shocked even after 10 years that we not let this type of thing happen again. Thanks to our troops who are giving of their time and sometimes their all that are trying to see we not witness another tragedy.
September 13th, 2011 at 9:19 am
They made some pretty powerful peroxide in those days.
September 13th, 2011 at 11:36 am
Yeah, that was the joke! Don't you remember the bleaching fad?
September 13th, 2011 at 12:17 pm
There was a bleaching fad?
I wasn't very young on 9/11, so the fad slipped by me. I did get the Lifehouse and Dido refs in the first panel, though. And the beards and tats of today are hard to miss!
Let's rub prune juice into the wound: when I graduated from high school, the thing to get was a perm. Whether you were a man or a woman. And the Gulf War came and went, or so we thought.
September 13th, 2011 at 12:41 pm
This was a hard event to remember, just because it's so entangled with the events of the past decade. Taken on its own, assuming that's possible, 9/11 was an attack, and remembering the victims and celebrating the efforts and valor of the responders to the disaster on hand were all we needed. The elegance of the memorial service held in NYC was appropriate, as far as that goes, and we still honor first responders, police, and firefighters for their hard work and dedication. (I won't call it selflessness. Nobody does this sort of work without at least a little bit of reflection.)
Anyone who wants to talk about Iraq will probably still be talking about it going into the 10th anniversary of that war in two years.
September 13th, 2011 at 2:22 pm
… what kind of cemetaries are they running over in Canada? I've never seen anything that trashy, even in roadside memorials.
September 13th, 2011 at 3:48 pm
My wife decorates her father's grave for every holiday. I think Halloween decorations in a cemetery are a bit ghoulish, but she just wants to feel a connection to her father. I'm not going to get in the way of that.
September 13th, 2011 at 7:16 pm
The cartoon has a real Martin Handford feel to it. Dense and full of life. One of my favourites so far…
September 14th, 2011 at 12:21 am
I always love your artwork JJ
I was impressed to see our own John Howard memorialised in your cartoon.
It is a sad state of affairs that you note – we have sacrificed so much and are still no more safe than before.
September 14th, 2011 at 1:26 pm
I don't know what's sadder- everything you mentioned you the direction that fashion has took, as you drew. Tattoos and piercings, sadly, are perfectly normal these days
September 17th, 2011 at 9:25 pm
America loves LARPing, I guess.
September 19th, 2011 at 5:45 am
Civil war re-enactments also don't suddenly appear out of the blue with thousands of people firing mock cannons and rifles at each other.
September 19th, 2011 at 5:47 am
So will anyone remember June 28th in 3 years?
September 20th, 2011 at 11:14 pm
Re-examine your intro – a few knickknacks in a local cemetery offend you? Grief "makes us lose our dignity in a way. . . ." assumes the dead would be offended? The never ending slop in media was most definitely, dare I say it, very American. Oh dear, that is not nice is it. Comparing the local graveyard to 9/11 is also not nice. Is "niceness" buried in the trash as well. When you experience heart stopping, paralyzing grief . . . . you may find yourself observing such moments in a manner that may surprise your present self. Be not so cynical grasshopper.
September 24th, 2011 at 8:15 pm
I don't know how many people here are from New York City but I don't think there's been enough commemoration or remembrance of the attacks, at least not here. There will be thousands of security experts, psychologists, and other so-called analysts or historians who will pore over this for the next hundred years but I think it came down to us as the Western world not expecting this kind of attack and still trying to come to grips with that.
September 28th, 2011 at 6:53 pm
You have done a great work on this with lot of apt illustrations for the project, indeed not a replica of wikie. Thanks for sharing.
November 28th, 2011 at 8:16 am
" I imagine the victims of 9-11 just wanted to finish living their lives in a world where every year was a little bit better than the one that came prior."
It would be nice if those firefighters and others that saved lives on that day got their cancer treatments paid for, but nooooo thats to much to expect.
Theres some truely sick people in government. Almost a decade for anyone to get their healthcare paid for at all.