Did OBL win or did he just end up as a useful tool for helping our masters to take a huge step forward in turning the US into an authoritarian anti-democratic oligarchy? (Which, TBH, isn’t really all that much different from what the Founders likely wanted.)
The huge decline in the US state is what I mourn about 9/11. (BTW, over dinner last night, the mother-in-law was telling me how 54 of 55 members of her father’s family was wiped out as a result of the Holocaust (the sole survivor apparently suffered mental issues) — you know, something conservatives and much of the pundits at the Unz Review are cool with. So, you know, maybe I have issues with how we responded to 9/11.
I got the anger at the time. I just didn't see how killing civilians in Afghanistan was going to help anyone. And what I felt then was pretty much what I feel now. Impotent fury and targets we shouldn't lash at. I suppose there's catharsis in killing people you can pretend to blame, but I think it only works for really terrible people.
"They hate us for our freedoms" said the second-dumbest president ever. And then he and his Party set out to make the terrible mooslims not hate us by . . .
. . . passing the Patriot Act which seriously curtailed those freedoms! That'll show 'em!
. . . bombing the shit out of civilians because killing people's wives, husbands, children, fathers, cousins, friends is always a good way to make them feel affectionate toward you. Just look at how much we loved Muslims after September 11, 2001!
. . . invading a country that had nothing to do with the attacks and killing many more wives, husbands, etc.
. . . cynically using the attacks as a partisan wedge and loudly saying that Democrats are pro-terrorist because they're Democrats who hate America.
There’s not a millimeter of distance between the fantasies of Noonan, et al, and the ongoing lying about 9/11 by TFG, most recently starring “two big firemen” rescuing everyone from his “creaking” building at his direction. It’s all narcissism, personal and national.
I remember that time. I was lucky and was practicing in a small town where I was known for my leftist views and respected for my skills. So when I said things about these invasions being BS I was treated as "Oh, it's just the town atheist mouthing off again" kind of thing. I do remember betting a judge a bottle of the best Scotch we could find that no WMD would be found. He has yet to pay up. I'm still bitter.
The small-town reactions to 9-11 were interesting in a grandly disgusting sort of way. There was this whole undercurrent of "those city people got wut they deserved" going on at the same time that all the hicks in the sticks tried to appropriate the anguish and horror for themselves. The result was a tsunami of stupid that washed over this land and has yet to recede. Tiny towns became convinced they were next on al Qaeda's hit list, and the new Department of Homeland Security was over-eager to nourish such fantasies. Little burghs with populations of under 1000 received armored vehicles and military weapons, most of which has now decayed to the point of uselessness because while DHS handed out the equipment like party favors, it did not provide any funding for upkeep.
“most of which has now decayed to the point of uselessness because while DHS handed out the equipment like party favors, it did not provide any funding for upkeep.”
There might have also been a 'We hate it but it’s ours and you don’t touch our stuff!'. A fair number of people have died protecting a spouse they can't stand.
I was not in a small town, so I did not witness any "they got what they deserve" talk.
I do think often of the David Foster Wallace essay on his 9/11. He was in rural Indiana and drove over to the house of a couple of old ladies, iirc, to watch the coverage with other people. And as they started to ask him questions about NYC -- as the only guy they knew who'd been there -- he realized they had no reference points for what they were seeing. They'd barely been to Indianapolis -- they were picturing New York sort of like that. (I have been to Indianapolis and it would get its ass kicked by Morristown, NJ.) So now how big are the towers really? How many people work in one? It was more than the population of their town, more than everyone they saw in a year, and they were crushed by the TV images, but also they were suddenly out deep in unfamiliar water in every way. They didn't understand the terrorism, or the workings of the world that had come to this -- but also, they didn't understand even their own country's leading city. He was very gentle in his essay, iirc, but its implications... endlessly unfold.
Actually I'm sure I am remembering a lot of details wrong. You are getting my impression of the essay 17-20 years later, not good reporting on it. But anyway. I think about it. And I do remember hinterlanders panicking that the Bumpus County Fair was going to get terror-attacked next. I have to admit, it did seem possible. If I were al Qaeda, I'd've picked five shopping malls and sent two guys with AKs to each one, pull a Rome-Vienna but in Minnesota-SLC-Phoenix-etc. Lotta bang for the buck, there. I gave that 1 in 3 odds of happening in early 2002 -- but even so, it annoyed the hell out of me that we were spending money to give every village a tank. That had a blatantly Maginot Line feel to it. And by 2003 it was obvious we were not going to get attacked -- but we were still living in red-alert paranoia. 9/11 did destroy my belief in Americans as a pragmatic and unafraid people with a government that would generally seek to do the least harm.
Repeating myself, but I've noticed a profound dearth of editorials on the need for rural people to understand better us callous sophisticates in The Cities.
We were living in a leafy suburb of Boston at the time and someone held a block party about a week afterwards. When all those nice, liberal folks decided it would be a good idea to sing "America the Beautiful" in the middle of the street is when I started worrying something bad was going to happen.
JFC, totally. Some idiot on twitter last night was reminiscing about how, after 9/11, all members of Congress gathered on the steps in a spirit of unity to sing the national anthem. "You wouldn't see that today." It was fucking cringe-inducing and awful then. But at least you could tell yourself "All right, people are terrified, and this childish and offkey display is going to help some, I guess" -- you could tell yourself that, and then take a slug of whiskey and hope that was all it was. But to actually reminisce fondly about that moment 20 years later? It boggles. The. Mind.
Well, on 1/6 they were all cowering together in the Capitol while Trump's goonsquad assaulted our government, so there was one moment of pants-staining unity.
Fuckin-A. Every year the 9/11 zombies come out from under their rocks to regale us with tales of brave carpooling and courageous mall shopping, and then berate us for our insufficient blood lust, or something. And fucking Noonan! Still pushing the manly manliness schtick she spewed back then. Sick of this shite.
A 9/11 every two days! My wife and I were fully vaccinated by the beginning of April, right about when every adult became eligible for it. Since then, over 100,000 Americans have died of COVID, almost certainly avoidable if they were vaccinated. Meanwhile the forever-brats stamp their feet because you can't make them do anything they don't want to, then they threaten to get their 2nd amendment toys out if you come a-knockin' to try and persuade them to grow the fuck up.
Recall that Noonan wrote a column in which she waxed erotic about Ronald Reagan's feet. In any rational world, she would have been laughed out of the profession, reduced to writing weight-loss brochures or tourism pamphlets. But this being America, she has a sinecure and is treated as a respected thinker and analyst.
Periodic reminder, and the thing that stuck with me the most: that Rudy ("Noun, verb, 911") Giuliani tried to *cancel* the results of that day's mayoral primary, in which he was ineligible to run, so he could continue to be Mayor-for-life despite what the city's voters wanted. So yeah, they've always been anti-democratic, not just anti-Democratic.
They’ve lusted to be flat out fascists since at least the 80s, arguably back to Buckley/National Review in the 50s. Rudy, OTOH, was always pathological.
They invented "premature anti-fascist" and applied it Americans who fought for the Republican side of the Spanish Civil War, all while espousing "America First".
I would even say that if you were living in a Southern state from the 1920s to the 1940s--Texas to Florida--you were already living under fascism.
I hadn't heard that -- and unless I misremember it was just the Democratic primary that day and they just had it later. I do recall Freddy Ferrer reporting that Giuliani wanted to postpone the *general* election, which is much worse.
On the bright side, "The Project For A New American Century" now lies in ruins. The pigfuckers who saw 911 as Christmas in September gave it their best shot, and the world is still not an American protectorate. I'm hoping the collective national leadership got the message and will calm the fuck down for the next few years. At least when it comes to imperial wet dreams.
What I remember most was the paranoia. I was at work, at my office job in San Francisco, when it happened, and we were told we could take the rest of the day off. Walking to BART, I kept looking up at the tall buildings, wondering if whoever hit New York and D.C. would be sending planes into the Transamerica Pyramid or the Bank of America building, too. I went home, collected my son from grade school, and hunkered down with him and my wife, grateful for small things. The myth of American invincibility was destroyed forever that day. No wonder so many people went mad, and never got better.
Some are born to shittiness; others have shittiness thrust upon them. Still others are born shitty and spend their entire lives becoming even shittier, the absolute worst, most inexcusable pieces of shambling human garbage imaginable.
Fuck every one of those assholes Roy listed in his righteous litany. Fuck them for turning 9-11 into a grotesque annual celebration they pretend is a solemn memorial. Fuck them through every level of Dante’s Inferno, then line them up and do it all again. Repeat as necessary.
So.
Did OBL win or did he just end up as a useful tool for helping our masters to take a huge step forward in turning the US into an authoritarian anti-democratic oligarchy? (Which, TBH, isn’t really all that much different from what the Founders likely wanted.)
The huge decline in the US state is what I mourn about 9/11. (BTW, over dinner last night, the mother-in-law was telling me how 54 of 55 members of her father’s family was wiped out as a result of the Holocaust (the sole survivor apparently suffered mental issues) — you know, something conservatives and much of the pundits at the Unz Review are cool with. So, you know, maybe I have issues with how we responded to 9/11.
Brilliant, Roy. We're having a 9/11 every two days indeed.
Fuck All The Way Off And Take Karl Rove With You should be put on a billboard or cross stitched on a sampler or something.
Amen.
I'm glad it's fading for you.
I got the anger at the time. I just didn't see how killing civilians in Afghanistan was going to help anyone. And what I felt then was pretty much what I feel now. Impotent fury and targets we shouldn't lash at. I suppose there's catharsis in killing people you can pretend to blame, but I think it only works for really terrible people.
"They hate us for our freedoms" said the second-dumbest president ever. And then he and his Party set out to make the terrible mooslims not hate us by . . .
. . . passing the Patriot Act which seriously curtailed those freedoms! That'll show 'em!
. . . bombing the shit out of civilians because killing people's wives, husbands, children, fathers, cousins, friends is always a good way to make them feel affectionate toward you. Just look at how much we loved Muslims after September 11, 2001!
. . . invading a country that had nothing to do with the attacks and killing many more wives, husbands, etc.
. . . cynically using the attacks as a partisan wedge and loudly saying that Democrats are pro-terrorist because they're Democrats who hate America.
"They hate us for our freedoms, so we need to take everyone else's."
Yeah, that, too.
There’s not a millimeter of distance between the fantasies of Noonan, et al, and the ongoing lying about 9/11 by TFG, most recently starring “two big firemen” rescuing everyone from his “creaking” building at his direction. It’s all narcissism, personal and national.
TFG?
"The Former Guy," as Trump was named by Charlie Pierce. The appellation has stuck.
In our Household, we use either "45" or "His Magnificent Orange Belligerence"
We call him " That Asshole".
HMO Belligerence -- sounds like a ship that's going to refuse to cover the seas.
I read a different word into the F
Yep, to my mind "That Fucking Guy" fits the acronym better.
Yup. "I've got the tallest building in New York!" was his *immediate* reaction. Narcissism on stilts.
I remember that time. I was lucky and was practicing in a small town where I was known for my leftist views and respected for my skills. So when I said things about these invasions being BS I was treated as "Oh, it's just the town atheist mouthing off again" kind of thing. I do remember betting a judge a bottle of the best Scotch we could find that no WMD would be found. He has yet to pay up. I'm still bitter.
The small-town reactions to 9-11 were interesting in a grandly disgusting sort of way. There was this whole undercurrent of "those city people got wut they deserved" going on at the same time that all the hicks in the sticks tried to appropriate the anguish and horror for themselves. The result was a tsunami of stupid that washed over this land and has yet to recede. Tiny towns became convinced they were next on al Qaeda's hit list, and the new Department of Homeland Security was over-eager to nourish such fantasies. Little burghs with populations of under 1000 received armored vehicles and military weapons, most of which has now decayed to the point of uselessness because while DHS handed out the equipment like party favors, it did not provide any funding for upkeep.
“most of which has now decayed to the point of uselessness because while DHS handed out the equipment like party favors, it did not provide any funding for upkeep.”
Well, thank Entropy for small mercies at least
I was not astonished to see how many people who loathe New York and all for which it can stand crying over our dead, as I've met some human beings.
Oh, there was some genuine grief. But it was quickly overwhelmed by a giant wave of jingoism.
There might have also been a 'We hate it but it’s ours and you don’t touch our stuff!'. A fair number of people have died protecting a spouse they can't stand.
Oh I remember https://alicublog.blogspot.com/2003/05/or-to-put-it-another-way.html
I was not in a small town, so I did not witness any "they got what they deserve" talk.
I do think often of the David Foster Wallace essay on his 9/11. He was in rural Indiana and drove over to the house of a couple of old ladies, iirc, to watch the coverage with other people. And as they started to ask him questions about NYC -- as the only guy they knew who'd been there -- he realized they had no reference points for what they were seeing. They'd barely been to Indianapolis -- they were picturing New York sort of like that. (I have been to Indianapolis and it would get its ass kicked by Morristown, NJ.) So now how big are the towers really? How many people work in one? It was more than the population of their town, more than everyone they saw in a year, and they were crushed by the TV images, but also they were suddenly out deep in unfamiliar water in every way. They didn't understand the terrorism, or the workings of the world that had come to this -- but also, they didn't understand even their own country's leading city. He was very gentle in his essay, iirc, but its implications... endlessly unfold.
Actually I'm sure I am remembering a lot of details wrong. You are getting my impression of the essay 17-20 years later, not good reporting on it. But anyway. I think about it. And I do remember hinterlanders panicking that the Bumpus County Fair was going to get terror-attacked next. I have to admit, it did seem possible. If I were al Qaeda, I'd've picked five shopping malls and sent two guys with AKs to each one, pull a Rome-Vienna but in Minnesota-SLC-Phoenix-etc. Lotta bang for the buck, there. I gave that 1 in 3 odds of happening in early 2002 -- but even so, it annoyed the hell out of me that we were spending money to give every village a tank. That had a blatantly Maginot Line feel to it. And by 2003 it was obvious we were not going to get attacked -- but we were still living in red-alert paranoia. 9/11 did destroy my belief in Americans as a pragmatic and unafraid people with a government that would generally seek to do the least harm.
Repeating myself, but I've noticed a profound dearth of editorials on the need for rural people to understand better us callous sophisticates in The Cities.
Briefly convinced that Kliban's first draught read 'The callous sophisticates laughed at Judyʼs unenthusiastic head.'.
We were living in a leafy suburb of Boston at the time and someone held a block party about a week afterwards. When all those nice, liberal folks decided it would be a good idea to sing "America the Beautiful" in the middle of the street is when I started worrying something bad was going to happen.
JFC, totally. Some idiot on twitter last night was reminiscing about how, after 9/11, all members of Congress gathered on the steps in a spirit of unity to sing the national anthem. "You wouldn't see that today." It was fucking cringe-inducing and awful then. But at least you could tell yourself "All right, people are terrified, and this childish and offkey display is going to help some, I guess" -- you could tell yourself that, and then take a slug of whiskey and hope that was all it was. But to actually reminisce fondly about that moment 20 years later? It boggles. The. Mind.
Well, on 1/6 they were all cowering together in the Capitol while Trump's goonsquad assaulted our government, so there was one moment of pants-staining unity.
RWers are mad we pulled out of Afghanistan because where else will we train future cops to run the streets like a fucking first-person shooter
fuckin' A!
Hear! Hear!
Anyone decent would appreciate your anger.
" We experienced 9-11 as a spiritual event. A profit center and a spiritual event."
"You know, now my building is the tallest in New York!"
Future former president Donald Trump calling into a local radio show on September 11, 2001 after the second tower fell.
And 18 years later he returned the favor and freed 5000 Taliban fighters
Even after four years watching Trump as president, I still couldn't believe that, so I googled it, and yep, it's true:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/911-memorial-trump-2001-video-world-trade-center-manhattan-new-york-a8532891.html
Seriously??
Ooops, never mind.
And on this, the 20th anniversary, doing commentary for a boxing match between an old, washed-up Evander Hollyfield and some nobody. As is befitting the solemnity of the occasion. https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/trump-s-9-11-boxing-gig-gives-maga-fans-exactly-n1278850
Belfort was an MMA champion, I guess. He is 44, so gets to be the young underdog
The fight lasted 119 seconds before Holyfield was done
Fuckin-A. Every year the 9/11 zombies come out from under their rocks to regale us with tales of brave carpooling and courageous mall shopping, and then berate us for our insufficient blood lust, or something. And fucking Noonan! Still pushing the manly manliness schtick she spewed back then. Sick of this shite.
A 9/11 every two days! My wife and I were fully vaccinated by the beginning of April, right about when every adult became eligible for it. Since then, over 100,000 Americans have died of COVID, almost certainly avoidable if they were vaccinated. Meanwhile the forever-brats stamp their feet because you can't make them do anything they don't want to, then they threaten to get their 2nd amendment toys out if you come a-knockin' to try and persuade them to grow the fuck up.
Agh.
Recall that Noonan wrote a column in which she waxed erotic about Ronald Reagan's feet. In any rational world, she would have been laughed out of the profession, reduced to writing weight-loss brochures or tourism pamphlets. But this being America, she has a sinecure and is treated as a respected thinker and analyst.
9/11 is over-- if you want it.
The memories are fading for me too, but it's always been my birthday first, and then everyone else's maudlin festival of tearful eagles.
Happy birthday. Sorry your day got hijacked —
Periodic reminder, and the thing that stuck with me the most: that Rudy ("Noun, verb, 911") Giuliani tried to *cancel* the results of that day's mayoral primary, in which he was ineligible to run, so he could continue to be Mayor-for-life despite what the city's voters wanted. So yeah, they've always been anti-democratic, not just anti-Democratic.
They’ve lusted to be flat out fascists since at least the 80s, arguably back to Buckley/National Review in the 50s. Rudy, OTOH, was always pathological.
They invented "premature anti-fascist" and applied it Americans who fought for the Republican side of the Spanish Civil War, all while espousing "America First".
I would even say that if you were living in a Southern state from the 1920s to the 1940s--Texas to Florida--you were already living under fascism.
Damn, forgot about the post-WWII red and purple scare. So much shit to remember, so few working synapses.
I hadn't heard that -- and unless I misremember it was just the Democratic primary that day and they just had it later. I do recall Freddy Ferrer reporting that Giuliani wanted to postpone the *general* election, which is much worse.
You didn’t hear it because 9/11 wasn’t the primary.
On the bright side, "The Project For A New American Century" now lies in ruins. The pigfuckers who saw 911 as Christmas in September gave it their best shot, and the world is still not an American protectorate. I'm hoping the collective national leadership got the message and will calm the fuck down for the next few years. At least when it comes to imperial wet dreams.
What I remember most was the paranoia. I was at work, at my office job in San Francisco, when it happened, and we were told we could take the rest of the day off. Walking to BART, I kept looking up at the tall buildings, wondering if whoever hit New York and D.C. would be sending planes into the Transamerica Pyramid or the Bank of America building, too. I went home, collected my son from grade school, and hunkered down with him and my wife, grateful for small things. The myth of American invincibility was destroyed forever that day. No wonder so many people went mad, and never got better.
Some are born to shittiness; others have shittiness thrust upon them. Still others are born shitty and spend their entire lives becoming even shittier, the absolute worst, most inexcusable pieces of shambling human garbage imaginable.
Fuck every one of those assholes Roy listed in his righteous litany. Fuck them for turning 9-11 into a grotesque annual celebration they pretend is a solemn memorial. Fuck them through every level of Dante’s Inferno, then line them up and do it all again. Repeat as necessary.
Damn right, say it brother!