[CW: Politics] Some Thoughts About 9/11 · 2:01pm Sep 13th, 2021
Yep, I'm sharing my political opinions. Folks who don't jive with that, keep scrolling. Everyone else who's interested, read on.
Originally posted to Sofurry.com on 9/12/2021.
It's that time of the year again. The 20th anniversary of the 2001 attacks on American soil. I know this is a day late, but guess I gotta blog about it all the same.
Now, I've made some rather performative, shallowly patriotic journals about 9/11 before - two of them come to mind that I wrote several years ago. However, my worldview has drastically evolved since those days. My politics have radicalized, which has shaped my attitude toward this uniquely American "holiday."
True, I still consider 9/11 a day of mourning. Unlike the performative grief the majority of my countryfolk put on, I don't just mourn the 2,977 innocents who lost their lives on that day in 2001. I mourn everything that came after it, inflicted by the US government in the name of those 2,977 victims.
I mourn the passage of the Patriot Act, which set us on a path towards an increasingly fascistic government and an overbearing security state endorsed by both major parties that protects nobody and threatens everybody.
I mourn the violence and discrimination that American Muslims and Sikhs have to endure on American soil, particularly each year around 9/11.
I mourn the over 900,000 people killed - more than a third of them civilians - and 38 million people displaced from their homes by our deranged, globe-spanning "War On Terror."
I mourn the normalization of dropping bombs on other countries without formal declaration of war, the de facto abolition of the Geneva Convention, and the destruction of human rights both at home and abroad in the name of "protecting freedom."
The world is a darker, crueler place ever since we embarked on our crusade (a very apt word to use, in my opinion) to "end terrorism." And guess what? "Terrorism" persists. It always will. Especially when our actions perpetuate a cycle of vengeance.
900,000 dead, 38 million displaced, and $8 trillion dollars sunk into forever wars all around the world that could have been spent improving the lives of ordinary Americans (Can't do that though, because that's "communism"). After all of that, what do we have to show for it? Sure, Bin Laden is dead, and not one of the tears I shed will ever be for him. But what else?
We've destabilized sovereign nations, destroyed and ended lives, and hollowed out the very soul of our nation. For what? So some asshole hiding out in Pakistan could be found and shot? Accomplishing that wasn't worth the price tag.
We didn't eradicate militant Islamism. Rather, we spread it through our imperialist aggression in the Middle East. We have given those people zero reasons to like or respect us. Their hatred is justly earned through every civilian casualty and war crime for which they can never be prosecuted in international courts.
It wasn't worth all this mess. None of it is justified. And we did it all in the name of 2,977 innocents. Do you think they'd be proud of us? How many would have wanted any of this to happen in their name?
One more thing that adds insult to injury: We lose as many Americans per day to COVID-19 as we did to 9/11. And yet a whole lot of the people out there lecturing me to "Never Forget" and to honor those lost on 9/11 refuse to cooperate with efforts to curb the pandemic, citing their "freedom." Pardon my French, but fuck that noise. People who can get vaccinated but refuse to, and happily go on helping the virus spread don't get to tell me which dead I'm allowed to think about.
That's all I have for you this journal. Just sharing everything that's been on my mind this year. If reading this made you angry, do me and everyone else a favor: Get angry at the government that did all this shit and the assholes egging it all on, not me for bringing it to your attention.
There is a proverb commonly but inaccurately attributed to Confucius: "If you seek revenge, you should dig two graves." We sought revenge, and dug our nation's grave in the process. If we keep going the way we have, you bet your asses we're going to fill it.
Amen men… amen…
Very well said.
The roots of American fascism go back much farther, of course, but the fascists certainly took advantage of the 9/11 aftermath to accelerate their program.