Sept 11, 2011
Its ten years after the Sept 11th attacks. I have been thoroughly desensitized to the disaster. Each year I cringe as the attacks are trotted out to justify our madness over the last ten years and to remind us that we are supposed to be scared and servile.
Sept 11th 2001 was the day the United States of America went mad. Thats what we should be talking about each year on the 11th day of September. The Neo-Cons made their grab for power, legitamized a lackluster president and various misadventures abroad. We went crazy with fear and let evangelicals lead us into their misguided holy war against the Muslim world and let the banks, the contractors, and the hateful lead us into two wars that have both lasted the better part of a decade. That is what we should be discussing.
There are a lot of people over the years that want to prove that the 9/11 attacks were perpetrated by the government. There are plenty of conspiracy theorists out there that will be happy to tell you that the buildings were rigged to explode or that it was a missile that slammed into the pentagon. Although I am largely certain that all that is bullcrap, I get really annoyed when I hear talk like this.
It doesnt matter if the government or some nefarious faction carried out the 9/11 attacks. What matters, and what people should be outraged by, is the aftermath of the attacks. 9/11 truthers should direct their outraged at the Iraq War and how we were manipulated into attacking a country that never had a damned thing to do with 9/11. People should be flipping out that the attacks were used to justified the passage of the patriot act, the use of torture, and extra judicial killings. That is the real conspiracy.
Instead of positioning ourselves, militarily, economic, and morally to withstand the rise of India, Russia, and China we have pissed away the respect of the world, nearly a decade of economic prosperity, and an immense amount of blood and treasure. Countries like North Korea were simply waiting for a time like when the US's attention is stuck elsewhere. Now countries like the DPRK and Iran are well positioned to develope nuclear weapons. Despotic regimes all over the world were able to tighten their control and justified it via fears of an insane USA that might attack at anytime. The madness of the US has also enboldened and empowered anti democratic/anti-American factions in many countries. Sept 12th, 2001 Bush delcared the world unsave and then wentabout realizing that self-fulfilling prophecy.
But this is a story as old as history isn't it? I am sure the Romans were dealing with the same opportunism and fear-mongering years after Hannibal terrorised the Italian countryside. Years later, warmongers would engineer a war with a weakened and mostly harmless Carthage.
I grew up in the brief period between the fall of communism and the 9/11 attacks. Back then we talked about the "Peace Dividen" and how the triumph of democracy was just around the corner. For me this sense of optimism is best exemplifed by a show from the 90's called Babalyon 5. In the show the various races of space were seeking to solve their problems through a UN-like body in order to keep the peace.
Today, we can't even get our own democracy working. The wheels of justice are clog by money, faith and hate. We are a country gone mad.
So every year in September, I think about how we were interrupted. Instead of buying into the "rememberance" or the profitable solemity that the media has been blasting across our screens this week, I prefer to instead remember and mourn the America that existed on September 10th, 2001.
Sept 11th 2001 was the day the United States of America went mad. Thats what we should be talking about each year on the 11th day of September. The Neo-Cons made their grab for power, legitamized a lackluster president and various misadventures abroad. We went crazy with fear and let evangelicals lead us into their misguided holy war against the Muslim world and let the banks, the contractors, and the hateful lead us into two wars that have both lasted the better part of a decade. That is what we should be discussing.
There are a lot of people over the years that want to prove that the 9/11 attacks were perpetrated by the government. There are plenty of conspiracy theorists out there that will be happy to tell you that the buildings were rigged to explode or that it was a missile that slammed into the pentagon. Although I am largely certain that all that is bullcrap, I get really annoyed when I hear talk like this.
It doesnt matter if the government or some nefarious faction carried out the 9/11 attacks. What matters, and what people should be outraged by, is the aftermath of the attacks. 9/11 truthers should direct their outraged at the Iraq War and how we were manipulated into attacking a country that never had a damned thing to do with 9/11. People should be flipping out that the attacks were used to justified the passage of the patriot act, the use of torture, and extra judicial killings. That is the real conspiracy.
Instead of positioning ourselves, militarily, economic, and morally to withstand the rise of India, Russia, and China we have pissed away the respect of the world, nearly a decade of economic prosperity, and an immense amount of blood and treasure. Countries like North Korea were simply waiting for a time like when the US's attention is stuck elsewhere. Now countries like the DPRK and Iran are well positioned to develope nuclear weapons. Despotic regimes all over the world were able to tighten their control and justified it via fears of an insane USA that might attack at anytime. The madness of the US has also enboldened and empowered anti democratic/anti-American factions in many countries. Sept 12th, 2001 Bush delcared the world unsave and then wentabout realizing that self-fulfilling prophecy.
But this is a story as old as history isn't it? I am sure the Romans were dealing with the same opportunism and fear-mongering years after Hannibal terrorised the Italian countryside. Years later, warmongers would engineer a war with a weakened and mostly harmless Carthage.
I grew up in the brief period between the fall of communism and the 9/11 attacks. Back then we talked about the "Peace Dividen" and how the triumph of democracy was just around the corner. For me this sense of optimism is best exemplifed by a show from the 90's called Babalyon 5. In the show the various races of space were seeking to solve their problems through a UN-like body in order to keep the peace.
Today, we can't even get our own democracy working. The wheels of justice are clog by money, faith and hate. We are a country gone mad.
So every year in September, I think about how we were interrupted. Instead of buying into the "rememberance" or the profitable solemity that the media has been blasting across our screens this week, I prefer to instead remember and mourn the America that existed on September 10th, 2001.