61
Raw Video of College Campus "Osama Death Flash Mobs"
This is not quite what I expected to see in response to the death of Osama bin Laden. I guess it makes sense? It must have been weird for them to have tried to understand 9/11 in 5th grade. Good thing we don't have a draft. I guess.
Needs more burning of couches.
@Clarence Rosario My alma mater provides: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnhDK2j4yag
@Clarence Rosario: Fuck the Ottoman. Empire.
I guess it's kind of fitting (at least considering how ten years ago the people most likely to get riled up about national security all lived in places like Oklahoma and Kansas and myriad other spots least likely to be the target of a terrorist attack) that the people getting the most riled up about the death of Osama bin Laden should be those least likely to have been paying attention yet when 9/11 happened.
places like Oklahoma and Kansas
@Matt Langer Totally. I mean, when was Oklahoma ever the site of a terrorist attack?
My students were all jittery and wild today. Most of them walked down to Ground Zero last night (the ones who didn't were glued to the Mets game). I was surprised at the unanimity of their patriotic response; no cynicism at all. Not sure what to make of that.
The opposite of patriotism is not cynicism.
Not saying you said it was, but what you wrote does offer that reading…
What to make of that? Well, it doesn't look like U. is making them critical thinkers (to be generous about it).
@rrot I meant what I said. My students displayed patriotism. None of them displayed cynicism, which is their general M.O., especially a week from the end of the semester. And critical thinking is not the opposite of/alternative to patriotism, either.
Grooves, prof.
But you're not right about the relation between critical thinking and patriotism, particularly if you view what we're seeing here as "patriotism."
@rrot: Please, do provide me with a glossary so that we can have the same "conversation."
It's weird, right? Everyone I work with is indifferent, at best, recognizing that his death doesn't change a thing in terms of terrorism or US foreign policy.
Last night, Brian Williams compared the celebrations outside of the White House to Vietnam War protests. There was no apparent irony in this comment. Our college campuses also used to be sites of protest. A lot has changed, eh?
@Matt Cornell There's no reason for anyone to take the WH crowd seriously. The closest large group of residents is (The) George Washington University, and most students there fall into at least one of these 4 categories: (1) political wonk types (2)from the Tri-State area (3)Young Republicans and/or (4) assholes. I'm generalizing, of course, but those are groups likely to be pretty psyched at the news.
That comment does make BriWi a little less of a dreamboat, though. :(
@Matt Cornell I remember similar things during the first gulf war. No flash mobs or internet back then but there were a lot of banners hanging from dorm windows and I went to a fairly liberal school.
@Neopythia I went to San Francisco State during the first Gulf War. There was a shanty town built by protesters on the front lawn near the student center. It was occupied for the duration of the war. But yes, there were also pro-war demos. I wonder if this kind of thing disappeared with the end of the draft.
@Vicky There may be no reason to take WH celebrations seriously. But what to make of Maddow's celebratory tone in reporting from there last night? http://twitter.com/#!/maddow/status/64904703514906624
@Vicky As a recalcitrant GW alum who was at the White House last night (you can put me in the "asshole" category, if you're wondering) it was way more than just GW students. Were they there first? Yes, they only had to walk 5 blocks. But as soon as CNN put up shots of "a crowd gathering outside the white house," tourists started showing up, kids from all the other DC schools (there was a damn Hoya Saxa chant going for awhile there) as well as a bunch of military types. Oh also, there was a Caps game, so more people were downtown and drinking than usual. Yeah, the cute girls sitting on people's shoulders and the drunk guys with flags tied about themselves were probably mostly GW students. But the 5 or 6 small groups like that were the only ones the cameras were filming, out of the several thousand people who were there last night.
You'll notice most of NW DC is made up of political wonk types and assholes. Feel free to not take us seriously though, the government doesn't either.
@cherrispryte Hail to the buff etc!
@cherrispryte Was it? Okay then. I saw a *lot* of GW apparel on display (including frat shirts, etc) and CNN(?) quoted some kid as saying "It's America! He's Dead! It's Time to Party". I'm not going to take that seriously. For what it's worth, I'm a DC resident and GW alum, too.
The only way I could be happier about Osama's death is if I had gotten the opportunity to pull the trigger myself. Yay for the US Navy Seals!
@El Matardillo Wait, you know this is The Awl, right? Did you mean to leave that comment at the NYPost?
@El Matardillo Yeah, dude. If it's not about bear videos or fucking steaks WE DON'T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT IT.
@Matt Langer I dunno, I think that's kind of a valid opinion. (EVEN HERE.) I feel a bit of that somewhat? Like, I'm not much of a killer but I think I would be pro on killing him??? Mostly I would be pro on locking him up for forever but you know how well that would end. IDK.
@Matt Langer Well, instead of pulling the trigger, I suppose I could stab him in the eyeball right through to the brain with a giant Awl, if that will make you feel better. 99.99% of America is thrilled he is finally dead and that our guys did the job that needed to be done.
Some people need killing. He was at the top of that list.
@Choire Sicha: What Choire and Matt said. I'm ambivalent about killing anyone (as always) but this operation seemed designed to get rid of him with the minimal amount of grandstanding and martyring. And fuck yeah, go Seals.
Sorry, I meant what Choire and Matardillo said.
@Choire Sicha: Capital punishment opponent here. . .but yeah, the guy needed to die. Like long, long ago.
But Jesus. This is not quite party material.
@KarenUhOh I disagree!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M11SvDtPBhA
@KarenUhOh It made Facebook quite disconcerting for a while, all my pinko bleeding heart friends cheering for a death.
@C_Webb @KUO YEAH.
@Choire Sicha (I read somewhere that he was offered a chance to surrender, but refused?) I'm pro- on the getting rid of the guy, but a little bit anti- the celebrating, because I wish there was no need for violence ever. "A necessary evil," there was this nun I think who twittered that last night.
@barnhouse @KarenUhOh @Choire
'No capital punishment, except this one guy who's really asking for it, and then strictly no celebrating afterwards. Bwahaha. Ahem.'
What a happy formulation. It reminds me of certain optimistic countries that forever abolished capital punishment, because of its wrongness, right after they executed their WWII traitors.
@KarenUhOh I guess that's how I feel about it too. Yeah, the asshole is dead. Good. But all this public cheering about it… kinda gross.
Even if there were still a draft, it presumably wouldn't have affected the scenes above, due to educational deferments.
Hey BrianVan, doesn't this just make you want to go to an alumni event?
@Matt It's a good thing they tore down Pencader and put up those fancy new red brick buildings or all those kids would have suicided already.
(TOO SOON?)
The kids chose the only 24-hour quiet study space on campus to whoop it up here on my campus. The last time something like this happened, the Red Socks were sweeping the Cardinals in the World Series.
@boyofdestiny: and then my classmate got shot in the eye with a rubber bullet and died.
@HiredGoons Yeah, that was pretty awful : (
I am just realizing that kids in college are of a younger generation than mine. I want to tell them all "don't gloat".
@whizzard I believe the phrase is "Act like you've been there before."
I just find something slightly distasteful about reacting to a death in precisely the same way as to a basketball win/loss. Aaaand I'm officially an old.
@MollyculeTheory I didn't cheer, but then again I didn't beat the spread.
@MollyculeTheory that's the thing – our society is so juvenile. For most of those folks, this is nothing more than some kind of a game.
For their generation Osama Bin Laden was the monster under the bed, and Barack Obama killed him. If I can't share their jubilation, I can understand it.
@Smitros As someone who is part of this generation: No. We are not that dumb, or we are that dumb but in a different way (see: flash mobs).
I pretty much cringe at any non-Olympic occurrence of "USA! USA! USA!" chants.
Thanks for that, George W. Bush.
It's a given that I can't stand "the patriots" (fans of Tom Brady, too), but the new group of people who piss me off are those who say "it's not in my nature to celebrate anyone's death", as if that's some sort of a supreme state to which they have arrived through life experience and wisdom, when it's (most likely) just a symptom of a lack of experience (and thinking) that allows them to proclaim such idealistic "state of mind". Yeah, the douchebags from safely distant states acting as if their stupid local baseball team won The "World" Series deserve all the ridicule, but (for example) try to imagine yourself in the role of the people who actually went out in those helicopters and did this killing for the benefit of all of us: would they be somehow below us if they celebrated this (which I'm pretty sure they did) because ("oh, you know") unlike us, they are not so advanced to be above celebrating deaths/killing/being soldiers like we are? No, more likely, unlike us, they actually had to go and do this shit (and somebody had to do it). That's the difference between life and philosophy, and I am tired of people grandstanding with their beliefs over things (such as war and killing of you enemies) they don't know shit about.
@Niko Bellic I'm a veteran. It's a great day for America!
@El Matardillo You certainly could have the right to celebrate this without anyone looking down at you for it. I personally think it's a great day for (more importantly) "accountability" (as I heard a "victim family member" say it today on TV), not just America (although, it's certainly a better day for America than a lot of them we've had in recent years).
@Niko Bellic Actually, sometimes it's the difference between experiencing the violent tragic death of people you love, or not having that experience. My mom died of a gunshot wound to the head, so I'm not a big fan. Ditto a number of families of 9/11 victims, whose response was to say, wow, if this experience sucks so much for me, I shouldn't wish it on other people. Death sucks, even when it's necessary, and celebrating it raucously is insulting and tacky. Not to mention that in strategic terms, OBL's death means dickall at this point.
@Niko Bellic I don't think anyone is criticizing the reaction of the actual Navy SEALs involved here – for one thing, no one knows what their reaction was. And if they did celebrate their success I doubt anyone in the world could fault them. College kids taking to the streets to chant "USA!" are another matter altogether. This is of a piece with outlandish public mourning of celebrity deaths – an attempt to take some huge world event and make it about themselves, as if they (said college students) had done something worthy of celebrating. A little more sobriety would be warranted.
Saving yer hollering for when we shut down Gitmo*, stupid kids.
*as if.
@flossy Seriously.
I was in fifth grade when 9/11 happened and didn't understand it at all for years, despite hearing so much about it from adults and trying to learn about the dynamics of it all… To have such a black & white, good/evil view of the world as these students above do is kind of an embarrassment to this generation. Or I might just have a really low tolerance for flash mobs.
@flossy oh! but it was the 'interviews from Cuba'* that led to his death! (*to quote Rumsfeld)
OBL Found in Pakistan hiding in a Bluth Model Home
http://twitter.com/#!/L_OrangeBleue
Oh man. I am in the University of Delaware video. Also (and I promise I'm not trying to promote myself, here, but I thought I'd offer some perspective) I wrote about the event depicted above this morning at backleftlitz.tumblr.com
Okay, I am of this generation (I was in 7th grade when 9/11 took place) and I have decided that reactions to Osama's death are pretty much a rorschach test revealing to me all sorts of disorders I didn't want to know about my facebook friends.
I'm not sure which group I want to punch more: flash mob jingoists drinking and saying things like "Osama: suck America's throbbing cock of justice"* or my hippie friends who have chosen the occasion to demonstrate their moral superiority by talking about the beauty of life and how they mourn all death, even that of Osama (also "butterflies, hope, love, fields of daisies").
*Real statement made by acquaintance from high school
@Kelly Heitz: Wow, I thought I had it bad with all my high-minded friends re-posting MLK Jr. quotes with varying relevance to the matter at hand.