And 9/11 was already 16 years ago

[plastroncafe]

I think you need to revise your understanding of American History, if you honestly believe that terrorism wasn't an issue during previous immigrant waves.

Fear and threat of terrorism had been used against immigrant classes since the very beginning.
This is no different.

And zapp's opinion on religion?
Used to be leveled Catholics.
We've had exactly one Catholic President for pretty much all of the same reasons he says we should be afraid of Islam.

None of these arguments are new, they are just as short-sighted and ill-informed now as they were the last time they were trotted out.

[BubblyShell22]

I don't remember hearing about terrorism being a big issue back in the day. Maybe they did think of terrorism back then, but it's more prevalent now that these people who come over here are not all good people and some of them are radical terrorists. But, hey, we should just accept everybody with open arms and then let them kill us, right? Great logic right there, but this doesn't surprise me from someone who thinks incest is perfectly natural and should be accepted in society.

[snake]

Terrorism, in the definition we know today, was not considered a threat during the first immigrant waves. Not sure where you heard that.

The discrimination came mostly from citizens who thought the catholics/irish/jews would disrupt the values that were already in place.

Everyone forgets that the German and Dutch immigrants that came 30 years or so before the second wave actually settled quite nicely.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by snake

Terrorism, in the definition we know today, was not considered a threat during the first immigrant waves. Not sure where you heard that.

The discrimination came mostly from citizens who thought the catholics/irish/jews would disrupt the values that were already in place.

Everyone forgets that the German and Dutch immigrants that came 30 years or so before the second wave actually settled quite nicely.

Actually, Germans have suffered some discrimination in USA. It got worse during the world wars. I believe many changed their names to English versions. Braun became Brown and Schmidt became Smith, for example.

So many Americans claim German ancestry but it seems Americans of Irish and Italian ancestry have been able to flaunt and keep their culture more alive.

[ProphetofGanja]

Listen to this engineer

[Prowler]

Man, I don't think I'd ever want to work in a skyscraper, at least not in the top floors. If you work above the 50th floor and there is a fire or something and you gotta evacuate it must be very hard, since you're not supposed to use the elevators when there's a fire. Not to mention the people who were above the impact zone in those towers pretty much had no chance of getting out of there. And if any did, not many have been saved, I bet.

[plastroncafe]

Originally Posted by Prowler

So many Americans claim German ancestry but it seems Americans of Irish and Italian ancestry have been able to flaunt and keep their culture more alive.

Most of that happened after those particular ethnic groups came to political power, but not before. Speaking specifically of the Italian American community in my part of the country, many second generation Italian Americans were not taught to read or speak in their dialect.

The biggest wave of Italian immigrants came at the turn of the 20th century, when Italy was just unifying and Italian wasn't quite standardized yet.

But there were big issues with the Italian Anarchist movement, and regular Italians being equated with mobsters.

The great Molasses Flood, caused by incompetence, was blamed on Italian anarchists.

And this doesn't go anywhere near the prejudice and bigotry of Chinese Exclusion Act, or the Japanese concentration camps of WWII.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Originally Posted by plastroncafe

The biggest wave of Italian immigrants came at the turn of the 20th century, when Italy was just unifying and Italian wasn't quite standardized yet.

Italy united during the mid-19th century.

[plastroncafe]

Originally Posted by Original TMNT Cartoon Fan

Italy united during the mid-19th century.

Library of Congress says late 19th, so I went with that.

What brought about this dramatic surge in immigration? The causes are complex, and each hopeful individual or family no doubt had a unique story. By the late 19th century, the peninsula of Italy had finally been brought under one flag, but the land and the people were by no means unified.

https://www.loc.gov/teachers/classro.../italian3.html

[BubblyShell22]

Originally Posted by snake

Terrorism, in the definition we know today, was not considered a threat during the first immigrant waves. Not sure where you heard that.

The discrimination came mostly from citizens who thought the catholics/irish/jews would disrupt the values that were already in place.

Everyone forgets that the German and Dutch immigrants that came 30 years or so before the second wave actually settled quite nicely.

Yep, that's what I remember too. It wasn't about people killing each other, it was just about people who were different and how that would disrupt everything. But nowadays, things have changed and you have to worry about it whether you like it or not.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Originally Posted by plastroncafe

Library of Congress says late 19th, so I went with that.



https://www.loc.gov/teachers/classro.../italian3.html

Most of Italy had been united by 1861. The Papal States joined by 1870-1871, completing it.

[plastroncafe]

Originally Posted by Original TMNT Cartoon Fan

Most of Italy had been united by 1861. The Papal States joined by 1870-1871, completing it.

I can see the Papal States joining the Union as a huge impetus for especially Catholic Italians to BrExit, if you will. As for my own family it was the Rumblings of a volcano that brought us to America.

And when they got here they were often accused of Anarchy by virtue of being Italian, and weren't considered white on the US Census.

A fact that every Italian American organization I've witnessed has very loudly mentioned, right along with the fact that they were discouraged from speaking their own language. And then in the next breath the old be in favor of denying bilingual education two later waves of immigrants.

The hell of a thing.

[Sumac]

Originally Posted by Prowler

Since USA is so big, did people who live far from New York feel scared that day? I mean, Los Angles and NYC are what, as far as Portugal and Russia are from each other, more or less?

Can say for my experience in Russia.

I remember playing NES all day and then turning on TV broadcast in 6 of evening. All channels, even entertaining ones that did not normally had news programs were showing records of planes hitting skyscrapers.

My first feeling was, sort of ir-reality of everything. Like what I was watching on TV looked like some kind of an action movie. Later that day I felt like the world is on the brink of the big war, because, it really felt like a game-changer event.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by Sumac

Can say for my experience in Russia.

I remember playing NES all day and then turning on TV broadcast in 6 of evening. All channels, even entertaining ones that did not normally had news programs were showing records of planes hitting skyscrapers.

My first feeling was, sort of ir-reality of everything. Like what I was watching on TV looked like some kind of an action movie. Later that day I felt like the world is on the brink of the big war, because, it really felt like a game-changer event.

I honestly don't remember playing video games or watching cartoons at all during that day, even though we had two TVs at the time already and my family was watching the news in the living room, while the tv in my brother's room was free.

I didn't think a big war was gonna happen. I was 10 years old at the time and thus too young to comprehend how the world works still. I didn't even know what the WTC was until that day, so I had no emotional attachment to those skyscrapers. After all these years I think of them as "those two big towers that fell". I had no idea they were so well known worldwide. I only knew of the Empire State Building.

I think news stations worldwide began live coverage a few minutes after the first tower was hit. So those buildings must have been very important to the world economy for the media all over the world to immediately start covering it after the first plane hit.

Like I've said, I only recall being sad in the previous days to it due to school being close to restarting. It started two days after the attacks. I remember the attacks being discussed a bit and mentioned by a couple of teachers at school in the first couple of days.

Btw, when did it become confirmed who did those attacks? I mean, once the 2nd plane hit it was pretty much a given already that those weren't just horrific accidents, and the pentagon plane and the one that crashed in the countryside confirmed it, but I remember in 2002 and 2003 many people still not being sure who did it. Or maybe that was just people being sceptical.

[ProphetofGanja]

Spoiler:

[Refractive Reflections]

Originally Posted by Prowler

Since USA is so big, did people who live far from New York feel scared that day? I mean, Los Angles and NYC are what, as far as Portugal and Russia are from each other, more or less?

Back then before 9/11 (and even now to a substantial degree), most Americans were blissfully unconcerned and unaware of events past the big oceans (Pacific and Atlantic). It seemed that a lot of the political, social, and military instability was "over there" in the Old World (Europe, Africa, and Asia) and whenever the USA was involved in any type of combat or warfare after World War 2 (but even then, Hawaii seemed far off too), it was usually somewhere distant (i.e. Desert Storm, Vietnam War, Korean War, etc.) and not at their homefront.

The 9/11 attacks thrust Americans into accepting just how clueless they were to the international political scene, and weak in their perspective in being a target of terrorism, and to acknowledge that even a superpower with their expansive bordering oceans, can not immune/isolated from either one. This political shift is what Americans see as the defining moment that transitioned politics of the 1990s (mostly domestic issues), to politics of the 2000s (the war on terrorism).

From my experience in having friends and family throughout the country, almost everyone was scared that day (at least those that lived in or near major cities at least) because of the unpredictability of where these planes could be crashing (after the second jet crash at WTC), and the fear of whether the military would strike down any passenger jets; nevertheless, everyone in the country was shook up though since, as I explained earlier, almost everyone beforehand felt "insulated". Though I would venture in saying the east coast of the US had the greatest intensity of fear though since the crashes occurred in New York City, Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania.

[Katie]

That fear still lives today. Just look at some of the posts in this thread. Agreeing that it’s ok to exclude a certian ethnic group from our country because of what happened. I deal with it on the daily from the dude I sit next to at work.

I’m not scared of people. I’m not scared of terrorists. If something happened near me or God forbid I died, I would be ok. I’ve lived a good and peaceful life and no terrorist or threat of terrorism is ever going to change that.

Terrorists win when the successfully get us to change how we live and how we think.... seems to me like the won over a whole boatload of this country to me. Its so sad. We HAVE been conquered by them in a sense. As long as people in this country fear Islam and Muslims, The terrorists 100% won.

That day was scary. Maybe lifechanging. But I didn’t get angry. I didn’t let the fear overtake me.

[Prowler]

Messing with the politics and stability of Middle Eastern countries does that. And ofc as long as there's oil, nothing will change. Funny enough, the West is friends with Saudi Arabia, a country that finances terrorists and responsible for Wahhabism, a branch where most of those islamic fundamentalists come from.

[Utrommaniac]

The blissful ignorance is a pretty good thing to point out - even with being well past the "Red Scare" of the 50's.


I feel like the best comparison for this idea is one that Lindsey Ellis made on alien invasion films pre 9/11 and post 9/11. Especially in regards to how significant buildings were destroyed. Namely in her comparisons between Independence Day and War of the Worlds. Two similar concepts - alien invasions - with very, very different reactions. Or - what we expected or wishfully wanted from catastrophic attacks vs what we actually got.

So really, it's no wonder Independence Day remains a fun movie while War of the Worlds is mostly forgotten.

(Placing it not four years after 9/11 didn't help and it's...weird, weird inclusion of Hushabye Mountain from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Alien invasion filled with horrific events? Let's pop in a song originally performed by Dick Van Dyke.)

[Refractive Reflections]

Originally Posted by Katie

That fear still lives today. Just look at some of the posts in this thread. Agreeing that it’s ok to exclude a certian ethnic group from our country because of what happened.

The supporters of exclusion would point out to high statistical rates above the norm. For example, is it really bigotry if one points out the statistic of an unusually high death toll caused by a particular ethnic group? How often do we hear about Buddhists creating such violent and frequent acts of terrorism in comparison with Islam?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...rorist_attacks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...rorist_attacks
It's not like this fear is unsubstantiated.

Originally Posted by Katie

I’m not scared of people. I’m not scared of terrorists. If something happened near me or God forbid I died, I would be ok. I’ve lived a good and peaceful life and no terrorist or threat of terrorism is ever going to change that.

Do you have children? I doubt most parents would virtue-signal speak like that. If you had children, I highly highly doubt you would be at peace with the terrorist attack if your children were left orphaned or permanently injured.

Not scared of people? Are you living in one of the worst crime-rampant, poor inner cities of America? If not and you can afford to live away from those areas, you are already contradicting yourself, proving that you are scared of people, because crime can be considered a form of terrorism. ...Just ask those who have to fear about powerful, territorial gangs roaming the streets in the "da hood".

Originally Posted by Katie

Terrorists win when the successfully get us to change how we live and how we think.... seems to me like the won over a whole boatload of this country to me. Its so sad. We HAVE been conquered by them in a sense. As long as people in this country fear Islam and Muslims, The terrorists 100% won.

People of the world fear Islam and Muslims because of the violent, visceral retaliation if their ideology is criticized/mocked, unlike other religions (Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Christianity, Judaism, Shinto, etc.) that society has no problem mocking or criticizing since they don't expect such harsh retaliation.