The 20th Anniversary of "The Incident"
I think there's only one thing to say today that I haven't said before, other than the other thing that I haven't said before, which is that there is now a coherent generational perspective of people who weren't even alive for September 11.
But the main only one thing is that, as an addendum to my recent entries about Afghanistan, I have become deeply disillusioned in the United States. I am incredibly disappointed in my own country, and furious toward the conservative maniacs who have dragged us to this ruin through their sheer numbers and their structural advantages in our electoral system. It is deeply wrong for us to be leaving the female population of Afghanistan to their cruel fate, not to mention the minorities of Afghanistan and to a lesser extent the entire Afghan population. But we are not capable as a country of providing that deliverance. We are powerless, as a nation, to do the right thing. And that has left me deeply disillusioned in the US. Is this dark moment a nadir, or a sign of things to come? Only time will tell.
September 11 was an act of war against us, but, in the twenty years since, we have given "the terrorists" through our fecklessness and incompetence more than they could ever have hoped to achieve on their own. We, ourselves, ended the Pax Americana and the global era of liberal democracy.
This country still has a lot to offer. I'm not of a binary mentality on it. When I think of emigrating, I think to myself how America is all I have ever truly known, and I would feel deeply isolated without it. I've been gradually absorbing cultural and historical information about Canada in recent years, but even if I migrated tomorrow I think it would be a long time before I could ever feel like a Canadian, to say nothing of a member of any other nationality. And America, for all its problems, still is a noteworthy land of opportunity and freedom.
But, my oh my, my disillusionment runs deep today.
We could have done so much better than this.
But the main only one thing is that, as an addendum to my recent entries about Afghanistan, I have become deeply disillusioned in the United States. I am incredibly disappointed in my own country, and furious toward the conservative maniacs who have dragged us to this ruin through their sheer numbers and their structural advantages in our electoral system. It is deeply wrong for us to be leaving the female population of Afghanistan to their cruel fate, not to mention the minorities of Afghanistan and to a lesser extent the entire Afghan population. But we are not capable as a country of providing that deliverance. We are powerless, as a nation, to do the right thing. And that has left me deeply disillusioned in the US. Is this dark moment a nadir, or a sign of things to come? Only time will tell.
September 11 was an act of war against us, but, in the twenty years since, we have given "the terrorists" through our fecklessness and incompetence more than they could ever have hoped to achieve on their own. We, ourselves, ended the Pax Americana and the global era of liberal democracy.
This country still has a lot to offer. I'm not of a binary mentality on it. When I think of emigrating, I think to myself how America is all I have ever truly known, and I would feel deeply isolated without it. I've been gradually absorbing cultural and historical information about Canada in recent years, but even if I migrated tomorrow I think it would be a long time before I could ever feel like a Canadian, to say nothing of a member of any other nationality. And America, for all its problems, still is a noteworthy land of opportunity and freedom.
But, my oh my, my disillusionment runs deep today.
We could have done so much better than this.