Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Down the Memory Hole

"We Will Never Forget."

Yeah, right. A Tufts University study led by Professor of Psychiatry Ernest Hartmann, MD, who is based at Newton-Wellesley Hospital and specializes in trauma as expressed in dreams, shows that "Americans aren't having nightmares—or dreams of any kind—that replay the 9/11 attack on New York." Hear that?
Instead, the 9/11 event has had the effect of increasing the intensity of imagery in dreams that superficially have nothing to do with airplane attacks on downtown New York.
So 9/11 hit us on an unconscious level. The memory itself will eventually become corrupted with false data and idealizations, but the core shock will always remain as a traumatic memory. That way, 9/11 can be invoked anytime or anywhere, to scare us into accepting anything and everything.

Here's more evidence that people are, in fact, forgetting. According to a study conducted by market research firm Longwoods International, air travel to Denver is "finally returning to pre-9/11 levels." Finally? America was brought to its knees not five years ago. Looks like "never forget" means "forget in five years." Look for further signs of pre-9/11 normalcy in the coming weeks.

Now this is not to say we shouldn't "move on" or anything. Because we should. But mark my words: people will forget. These are just some early symptoms of the mass amnesia we are all in the process of contracting. As soon as a sort of post-9/11 equilibrium of emotion and action sets in, the memory will be no more, leaving a mere scar on our subconscious minds. That scar will then forever be poked and prodded by opportunists who need but say "9/11" in order to get us to submit to their plans.

Remembering takes work. It takes a constant effort. That is the battle most worth fighting right now. Don't let the past die. Exercise your conscious mind, so that you can minimize the extent to which you are manipulated via your innermost feelings.

Even today, news organizations can't agree on what happened on 9/11. This week, Moody's Investors Service decided to lease a large portion of the new WTC7. According to Reuters,
Moody's Investors Service has agreed to lease 15 floors of 7 World Trade Center, the first of the skyscrapers destroyed on Sept. 11 to be rebuilt, a source familiar with the deal said on Tuesday.
But according to NY1, "NYC's 24-Hour Newschannel On The Web":
The original 47-story building collapsed in the terrorist attacks.
There's a big difference between the two. One implies that WTC7 was destroyed by the owner. The other implies it was destroyed by the terrorists. (Hint: it was destroyed by the owner.) I've got a real problem with this. It's not an insignificant detail. It is, in fact, a de facto assault on the strongest extant piece of evidence against the real perpetrators. To dive headlong into an overused literary reference:
The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth.
Stay tuned.