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[–] 30 points 1 day ago (8 children)

Perspective matters a lot.

I've heard a bizarrely high number of relatives and friends complain that they vividly remember people cheering right after the 9/11 attacks. And the folks cheering tended to be whomever this relative thought was problematic - stupid woke college kids, scary Muslims, scary Israelis, smug neocons, bitter aging Marxists, rural yokels, California/Texas shitheads - an absolute grab bag of People I Don't Like.

Certainly, over the last 25 years, I've seen a lot of social media and partisan news advance the theory that someone was cheering after 9/11. In the same way, I've heard pundits insist people were spitting on Vietnam Veterans in airports back in the 60s/70s. Or the various Crime Wave / Drug Crisis horror stories of the 1980s that seemed to inspire every low-budget TV thriller and family drama show.

If you're not even alive as this stuff happens, it's easy to get all the wrong information from elder peers who did live through it. Or just through the increasingly distorted retellings offered up by a media more keen on selling narrative than document the recent past.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 day ago* (2 children)

    That's what Donald Trump claimed. He claimed to have heard people cheering, even though he was miles away at the time. He's repeated the story many many many times, and his supporters are repeating him.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    That’s what Donald Trump claimed.

    It was a regular FOX News Channel allegation. Afghans were cheering, Iraqis were cheering, Syrians were cheering, Libyans were cheering, Gazans were cheering, Somalis in Minnesota were cheering, Hasan Piker was cheering, Zohran Mamdani was cheering...

    Pick your "Muslims I Don't Like" Flavor of the Month. They were cheering, I tell you.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 day ago

    I distinctly remember hearing:

    There were rooftop cheers from a Muslim community in New Jersey.

    There was cheering in Gaza.

    That rooftop thing was a continual news cycle item for weeks. I recall it being debunked but none of the details.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    GenXr here. The only people documented as cheering for the 9/11 attacks were the "Dancing Israelis".

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m17oElr86AM

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago

    This whole story hinges on the claims of a nosy housewife calling the police on some people she mistook for Arabs.

    Out of that report, and the eventual deportation of the arrested Israel men, came a cascade of increasingly embellished accusations.

    It's all just layers of bullshit.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 child)

    Edit- turns out I'm a purveyor of propaganda. Ignore the myths I spouted below.

    Pretty sure there are documented cases of Vietnam vets getting abuse when they returned. Spit on or or called Baby Murderers. This was before airport security so anyone could just hang out at airport terminals. Mai Lai massacre was real and publicized before the end of the war and you had veterans testifying before congress like John Kerry or throwing away their medals in front of crowds. The famous photo of the girl on fire was widely publicized, it won a pulitzer award.

    This might not have been the norm or even super common experience of returning vets, but I'm pretty sure it happened to more than a handful.

    Maybe others heard stories in bars and VA halls and remember the trauma vicariously, but the nation was deeply divided over the war. Kent State shooting didn't happen in a vacuum.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 day ago

    Pretty sure there are documented cases of Vietnam vets getting abuse when they returned.

    There are scenes in Rambo: First Blood and Platoon that included this event. But there is no notable actual incident or documented recurrence of it happening IRL.

    I’m pretty sure it happened to more than a handful

    Congratulations, you're experiencing the Mandela Effect.

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