SHORT WRITINGS

GLITTER 911
September 11, 2021 (posted to instagram)
The [above clip] may seem insensitive and inappropriate to post on a day when many in the US are expected and taught to mourn innocent lives lost in NYC at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. I post this as a reminder of innocent lives lost around the world and lives STILL falling to a devastating system of power that is neoliberalism.
In the [above] short clip are icons and representations of ideology which we call symbols—as is the case with most images. The clip is from "9/11," a once living spectacle.
9/11, as it is known, was a visual metaphor made viral primarily on television screens through world media outlets, in real time, from physical dimensions. Now existing in archives and repertoires, many, especially in the US, are told to memorialize and remember this day through these images. Too often this memory is framed as an "attack on our freedom and values." It was an "attack on values" as it is often said, but those "values" need to be examined as they may not be our own as individuals. 
On September 11, 2001 an attack was carried out on neoliberalism, world trade, and the war machine with which the systems of capitalism have a symbiotic relationship. This happened at the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, then dubbed “Ground Zero.” 
9/11 was an attack on a "value" system, a system that has caused the loss of millions of lives and will continue to destroy many more (now primarily through environmental disaster). The spectacle that was of course, a tragedy on 9/11/2001 was 'glitter' in multiple meanings of the word. In one meaning, which this clip points at, 9/11 was a shiny spectacle, entertainment via screen that distracted many while the world transformed in an instant via policies and public opinions and invasions fueled by fear. [1] These weaponized, fear-inducing images and "reminders" of 9/11 were ultimately used to benefit the war machine and its relationships of greed, power and colonization (see Halliburton and then Vice President Dick Cheney for one easy to digest instance). 
The symbolism that is these buildings, 9-1-1 emergency, and the buildings name are nothing in comparison to what they housed and stood for. This must be examined if the towers are in fact bearers of “our values.” Mariah Carey must also be examined as the above clip ask of us. Not Mariah as an individual but as an icon and symbol of US popular culture. One who later blamed 9/11 for the box office failure of her film Glitter released the week of 9/11 as seen above in her promotional poster for the film Glitter, juxtaposed to the now iconic images of the fiery towers. As an iconic cultural influencer, Mariah Carey is rarely brandished as a symbol of "our values" like the twin towers. One might argue that as an influential creator and media mogul, Mariah Carey is a symbol of our culture and thus explicitly reflects "our values" of neoliberalism.
However, it was the towers appropriated and imbued with “our values and freedom” in the instant they were struck intentionally by a plane. This prescribed symbolism was a strategic campaign of neoliberalism, using its most sophisticated tool; media. And now, post 9/11, we in the US are totems of neoliberalism under attack from a dangerous Other. We must see the “Other” labeled as people of the Middle East (specifically Iraq and Afghanistan) and Middle Eastern descent, and we must see ourselves as patsies in a not so elaborate scheme—in hindsight. 
Because these symbols were not examined, two wars were directly waged in Iraq and Afghanistan almost immediately after 9/11/2001. It is safe to say, in 2021, easily discover and observe the continued devastation inflicted on innocent lives, primarily not in the US. I acknowledge the first responders and their battles with health and healthcare, and the many traumatized families in NY and the US. This is not to legitimize any lives lost, but again, to think of the many lives lost we in the US may forget because of the glitter, spectacle, distractio,n and propaganda (I cannot get the recent images from Kabul out of my head).
There was only one vote in Congress on 9/14/2001 against the invasion of Iraq. It was Rep. Barbara Lee of California. We must pay her our respect and thank her for understanding and thus teaching us the meanings of these symbols and images and the weapons they became.
And the time-traveling TikTok-er that shot the [above] clip is Luigi Cazzaniga. The clip is from a longer 23:00 video [2] shot as the amateur videographer moved through Manhattan on the morning of September 11, 2001. He too understood these symbols and knew how to produce the images to support them. 

As many of us on social media become evermore visually literate and productive of images, we must remember their power, their influence and acknowledge the symbols and meaning they carry and create. We must empower ourselves to critique the ever-growing flow of digital media and remember that there are many sides to history, stories and images, only one is in the spotlight while the others fall behind.


Other Sources:
1 What Do Pictures Want?
https://g.co/kgs/ecK4KM

2 Luigi Cazzaniga Tape, Enhanced Audio, seen at 6:46
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwEPNZ3ZV00
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