One of the school assignments that kids in the neighborhood are getting is three question worksheets for them ask their parents parents about 9/11. One sheet asked parents what they remember from the day. Another asks what they think are the three most important consequences of 9/11. Here are the answers I gave to that one:
1. An unnecessary war with Iraq.
2. Loss of civil liberties.
3. The growth of anti-Muslim prejudice and discrimination.
What are yours?
Bobbyk
I wouldn’t be surprised if you get some blow back on those answers. I happen to agree with you, I’m just sayin’…
JPL
The Bush Administration was going to war with Iraq whether or not 9/11 happened. That’s where their focus was and that’s why they chose to ignore warnings an al Qaeda attack.
NorthLeft12
I agree with Bobbyk. Unfortunately, your kid is the one who will probably catch the brunt of the blowback.
By the way, what is the range of ages of the kids who are getting this assignment?
Cermet
1) A war of lies that cost 100,000 to 300,000 people their lives
2) VP Cheney commented major war crimes to murder and torture even American citizens
3) The US legalized torture
Pavonis
I learned about the attacks when I arrived at school that day. I learned from some of my classmates who were happy that class would be canceled. It wasn’t; the usual lecture was given. The teacher told us she hoped that, by staying in class and studying, we could learn why terrorist attacks happen.
Weirdly, that morning before I left for school, I sung “The Star Spangled Banner” while frying eggs for breakfast, the only time I sung that making breakfast.
Baud
Taking it one step further, one of the consequences of 9-11 is Barack Obama. I wouldn’t necessarily put him in the top three, however.
Todd
Morning’ Ho is funny this AM with the desperation of the spin. Pataki is apoplectic.
Anibundel
1. The beginning of the end of the American Empire Age
2. The typical international instability that comes when the current status quo comes to an end.
3. A widening power vacuum that (as of today) shows no sign of being filled.
debbie
1. Further proof at Republican incompetency, which is exceeded only by their cold-bloodedness at achieving their goals, most recently affirmed by this:
vanityfair.com/culture/2012/10/kurt-eichenwald-500-days-excerpt
Pavonis
I think Bush would have lost the 2004 election without 9/11. His approval rate was falling and his tax initiatives (what eventually became the 2003 tax cuts) were faltering in Congress. In the long term, it might have been a bad thing for Bush to lose in 2004 because the Democrats would have taken the blame for the financial crisis and we might have entered permanent economic crisis under GOP rule. On the other hand, I can’t imagine Bush being able to start the Iraq War without the crisis atmosphere from 9/11.
bjacques
1. About 20 more years of military coups and dirty wars fought in the name of anti-Communism against increasingly desperate and vicious guerrillas fighting in the name of various brands of Communism.
2. Credibility for Chicago School neoliberal economics, implemented wholeheartedly next under Maggie Thatcher and then under Ronald Reagan.
3. A national wound that’s only now beginning to heal, thanks to the election of a president who was once tortured by the regime that came to power on that day.
Unless you’re talking about…
giltay
A brief moment when the world grew closer to America and shared their grief.
The subsequent squandering of that good will.
Giving nations an excuse to suspend civil liberties at the drop of a hat.
AlladinsLamp
Should September 11th be made a tax free shopping holiday each year, in commeration of the 9/11 attack?
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@AlladinsLamp: If this was not snark, geez.
John of Indiana
1. An unnecessary war.
2. The USA PATRIOT Act passing into law with nobody taking the time to actually READ the damn thing.
3. Bush’s second term.
shep
1. (Mostly unrecognized/unacknowledged) collective shock and post-traumatic stress.
2. Related collective ongoing fear and generalized anxiety.
3. Related significant erosion in trust of government’s ability to protect.
These are the psycho-social underpinnings of your three (bin Laden’s desired) effects.
Schlemizel
I’d say you hit the big three, can’t top those
JPL
@AlladinsLamp: Condi Rice might need some new shoes or does she only shop when folks are drowning.
Chris
@JPL:
I don’t agree. They may have wanted to, but they wouldn’t have been able to drag the country along without 9/11.
I had to watch the Frontline Special “Bush’s War” over the weekend for class, and dear God, is it ever depressing to relive. Oddly it was John Yoo, not the higher ups, who sparked my renewed contempt the most – the good little clerk Just Following Orders who harmed more people at the stroke of a pen than any guard at Gitmo.
I think my list is the same as yours, as far as that goes.
Schlemizel
@AlladinsLamp:
Not just tax free shopping how about a 100% tax free day? No tax on income or capital gains on the 11th! Smells like freedom BIT-chezz!!!!
arguingwithsignposts
What, no cake?
Richard
1. 9/11 and the resulting culture of fear was shamelessly exploited politically and was the primary reason Bush got reelected in 2004. Before 9/11, the country was souring on Dubya. After 9/11, we had phony terror alerts every time something would come up that might hurt Bush. Of course, those alerts “mysteriously” ended after the election.
2. Bush’s reelection meant that the crash of 2008, which might have been averted by a President with saner financial policies, became inevitable. As I recall, there was a key rule change made by Bushco relaxing the capital requirements for banks that was at the heart of the disaster. No doubt, a bursting of the housing bubble was inevitable, but the consequences needn’t have been as severe as they were.
3. Trillions of extra debt. Hundreds of thousands of extra dead. A high price to pay for Bush’s aircraft carrier photo-op, which seems ever more perverse as time goes on.
Elizabelle
What I remember from that day: that beautiful blue late summer sky, despoiled by smoke and dust and violence. New Yorkers covered with dust. (From days following: no airplanes. Children drawing planes and buildings.)
Consequences:
1.The attack brought Americans together in grief for the lost, sense of community.
The Bush-Cheney administration told us to go shopping, and then to war. Didn’t ever call on Americas’ better angels.
2. The Homeland Security behemoth follows.
3. And I agree, bin Laden brought GWBush a second term, which did help destroy the US from within.
Bush was a failing president by September 10, 2001. The tut-tutting and buyer’s remorse had begun.
Sly
The big consequences of 9/11 are probably well beyond the K-12 curriculum, especially given that 9/11 is only discussed on one day out of the year and it tends to focus on the visceral, immediate experience of the event itself (which I think is counter-productive, but whatever). Keeping that in mind:
A) The death of the post-war bipartisan foreign policy consensus. It had been slowly dying over the 90s, but 9/11 was an immediate deathblow. For decades, during the Cold War, there was a general foreign policy agreement between the parties that bound the political elite of this country together and extensively impacted policy developments internationally and domnestically. That’s pretty much gone now. One might point to Vietnam as the initial breaking point, but even in that case there was pretty broad consensus on the war that didn’t start to really break down until the 1990s.
B) A massive reorganization of the national security apparatus. About as big as the reorganization that occurred during and immediately after WWII, and one that will probably last as long (if not longer).
C) Related to the first and second, the decline of NATO and other multilateral institutions as a means of defining international consensus. Those institutions rose out of the need to mediate conflicts between nations, and very few people in positions of influence after 9/11 were interested in seeing them adapt to conflicts involving non-state actors. Quite the opposite, actually, as many in power viewed these institutions as a liability no matter what shape they took.
raven
Mika, the “serious journalist” is talking about it this morning.
reflectionephemeral
@giltay:
Deliberate squandering, for partisan advantage, costs be damned.
As Krugman put it last year:
Mark B.
Before 9/11 Bush’s big policy initiative was prohibiting the use of fetal tissue for research. He had no stomach for the real work of governing the country, completely abandoning the work of keeping people safe and maintaining infrastructure, instead concentrating on tax cuts for the rich and making scientists subject to religious purity regulations. The terrorist attacks revealed how dangerous this policy really was, but standing on the smoking pile of corpses after the attacks Bush reinvented himself. Instead of just cutting taxes for the rich and wrecking America’s infrastructure and scientific community, he also wanted to invade a lot of countries. Countries which had nothing to do with the attacks.
scav
1.5) The explicit endorsement of torture.
1.5) The realization that one can’t trust fellow Americans to protect minorities’ right to free speech or having opinions / religious beliefs / behaviors different than a certain self-appointed majority.
2) The overt construction of a surveillance state within our borders.
DecidedFenceSitter
1. Change the Military-Industrial Complex to the Intelligence-Industrial Complex, and what that means to go for overt to covert means of interactions.
2. Degradation of civil protections and due process.
3. Global politics becoming far more based on local conditions than it has been in a long time, perhaps ever. (Multi-state political balance, then bipolar (US/USSR), then unipolar (US), now one Tier A, a few Tier B, and then folks who can’t project power across the globe but can in their own region.
mai naem
I was watching Morning Ho and me thinks George Pataki is being just a tad defensive. I guess Eichenwald struck kind of close to the truth??? Eichenwald wouldn’t answer the question whether it would have happened if Gore had won 2000.
For me its just the incredible opportunities lost cost. Just incredible. All this money that went into the wars that should have gone into health care and education for this country and making friends around the world. China’s making friends around the world building stadiums and dams and other infrastructure while we’re stuck waging war with people who live in the 19th century who will never move into the 21st century.
Jay in Oregon
I agree with mistermix’s answers, though I would probably replace #3 with “the increasing radicalization and extremism of the right wing in this country”, of which anti-Muslim discrimination is but a part.
But it also covers the War on Women, the push to enact bans on same-sex marriage that drove a lot of conservatives to the polls between 2002 ad 2008, and the crackdown and marginalization on dissent (“free speech zones”, the disappearing of anti-war protests/the Occupy movement, etc.)
mistermix
@Bobbyk: I live in a fairly liberal tolerant community. I’m not worried about giving those answers.
the Conster
My co-worker’s little niece, on the first anniversary of 9/11, was telling her aunt, my co-worker, that her school was doing a memorial that day. My co-worker asked her if she knew what it was for and she said “it’s Osama bin Laden’s birthday!”
Every year I remember 9/11 with that story, because it’s the only thing about this day that makes me laugh. See above.
ETA: Watched Pataki whining about the unfairness of blaming Bush. What a loser.
hep kitty
One other thing. Bin Laden may be dead, but he accomplished what he set out to do. We finally got pulled off our high horse in the world, the financial meltdown being the coup de grace.
Woodrowfan
it also boosted nut job Alex Jone’s career… But yeah, you got the big 3…
hep kitty
And hundreds of questions remain but don’t dare ask because it is heresy to question that which is inexplicable.
jayackroyd
1) Wars of choice (I agree with Mr Mix)
2) Militarization of law enforcement.
3) Creeping, ratcheting authoritarianism.
scav
@hep kitty: If it was that easy to do, then perhaps the it was better done. The festering mess of willfully proud ignorance, xenophobia, race- religio- gender and etc- based hatred needed to be exposed for what it is. As did the whisper-thin commitment of some to foundational concepts (freedom of speech, right of all to vote . . . ) of this nation.
Jane2
Agree completely. I’m going to avoid my Facebook page today lest all the pictures of twin towers with beams towards heaven make me reach for my (staple) gun.
Paula
The press was MIA on this one folks.
Feudalism Now!
What I tell my daughters:
There was/ is a lot of fear from the 9/11 attacks. People make bad decisions when they are scared. We gave up many rights and did not ask questions to feel safer. It did not help. We were still scared.
People wanted to help each other. Trucks of supplies and volunteers went to help the rescue and recovery workers at Ground Zero. There were even people making boots for the rescue dogs to protect their paws. This was repeated for Hurricane Katrina, the Haiti earthquake, and the Great Tsunami in South Asia.
People were angry. People make bad decisions when they are angry. We invaded Afghanistan to strike out at the people who backed the attackers. We are still there today.
Now my daughters are 5 and 2 1/2, but it holds up.
Iraq did not happen because of 9/11. If anything, it was delayed by the attacks.
Chris
@jayackroyd:
Militarization of law enforcement? I think that goes back to the sixties.
jheartney
I’d combine 2 and 3 into:
2. Creation of an atmosphere of xenophobia and paranoia that led to both the loss of civil liberties and the rise of a virulent anti-muslim prejudice.
Then I’d follow with:
3. The cementing into power of a faction of ruthless theocratic authoritarians eager to use the crisis as a tool for their own advancement, both politically and financially.
On the day itself my boss was shaking his head and saying that these events would lead to so many evil things to follow. Damn, but he was sure right about that.
YellowJournalism
@Jane2: Almost worse than that are all the Biblical “prophecies” and Nostradamus “predictions” that people pass around. I’m glad I am not around my BIL today, because he buys into that shit readily, even when the “predictions” contradict each other or make no sense.
RSA
National unity and international good will are gifts, but they can be easily squandered.
A tiny group of bad people can change the long-term policies of even the most powerful nation in the world.
Powerful people will use tragedies and disasters as justification for doing what they would have done in any case.
bemused
@raven:
That photo, jeez. Mika’s book, “Knowing Your Value: Women, Money and Getting What You’re Worth” should be reissued with that photo on the cover. She’s an airhead.
vonhonkington
i heard about 9/11 after returning from an 8 am organic chem lecture. one of my first feelings was, “this makes all things possible”. people were so hurt and angry, they could have been convinced to do just about anything.
SGEW
Another (often overlooked) long-term effect: the radicalization and popularization of the anti-theist movement. Harris’ “The End of Faith” was written in direct response to the 9/11 attacks, after all.
Patriotica
WE REMEMBER 9-11
By Chele Stanton
Smoke billows rolled
As planes shattered glass
Concrete and steel
The trees and the grass
An enemy attack
On the Land of the Free
How could this happen
How could this be
Our hearts gripped with fear
In sheer disbelief
Unbearable sorrow
One hardly could speak
As evil sought triumph
Through catastrophic strife
Towers fell and buildings crumbled
Tragically ending innocent lives
We cried out to God
Fell down on our knees
Hugged our families, friends, and strangers
Helping anyone in need
It was a day where we placed
All our differences aside
We were Americans facing tragedy
With courage, tears, and battle-cries
We remember 9-11
Those who paid the highest price
Those who bravely tackled evil
Those whose courage rescued lives
Unfathomable terror
Unfolded before our eyes
A day where heroes would die
And warriors… would rise.
We remember 9-11
Our lives forever changed
Those whose heartbeats too soon ended
Shall not have died in vain
Though evil fought for victory
The death of freedom was their prize
Americans will not bow to terrorists
And Our Freedom… Will… Survive
We remember 9-11
Yet our hearts, our hopes our dreams
Remain alive
Now hear our cry
AMERICA, LET FREEDOM RING
We remember you, the sons and daughters, the fathers and mothers, the sisters and brothers, the aunts and uncles, the cousins, nieces, and nephews, the neighbors and strangers… the rich and the poor, the young and the old, the weak and the strong…
We remember you, the firemen, the policemen, the paramedics, nurses and doctors… the pilots, and passengers, the flight attendants, and co-workers… the citizens of New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania… and all those whose lives were forever changed because of the atrocities thrust upon this nation by a group of terrorists hell-bent on destroying our freedom and democracy, and our American way of life…
We remember you, our men and women in uniform, in the United States Marine Corps, the Navy, the Army, the Air Force and the Coast Guard…
For those who gave their all and for those continuing the fight for freedom to keep our Country safe… May GOD BLESS YOU and may GOD BLESS AMERICA!
Davis X. Machina
In the long run. 12/12/2000 will turn out to have been far more deleterious to the Republic than 9/11/2001
Culture of Truth
“I haven’t read your book, thank God, and I don’t intend to,” Pataki said. “But just looking at the jacket and the quotes on the back, these are selectively taken for the purpose of making the Bush administration look bad.”
“I haven’t read your book, thank God, and I don’t intend to”
Isn’t this the attitude that caused the problem in the first place?
Punchy
I wonder if Rudi Guliani wakes up to an orgasm on this anniversary.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Erick, Son of Erick, has posted his toss off 9/11 post for this year. I say “toss off post” as he’s listed all of the names of the victims without any commas separating the names. Just one long wall of names that all run together. The few commas there are those in a name ending in Jr./Sr.
Redstate, a shitty conservative web site with cheap wallpaper.
Mark B.
@Davis X. Machina: I agree, the Supreme Court, by installing George Bush as president without counting votes, led up to the terrorist attacks on 9/11. I don’t know for sure that they wouldn’t have happened under a President Gore, but they would have been much less likely, and the response would not have been so inept.
tomvox1
Before you get to the consequences, read this NYT Op-Ed first:
The Deafness Before the Storm
This is the consequence of sitting out a close election or voting for a Nader-like candidate in a fit personal pique: an incompetent president on duty at the worst possible time. Don’t let it happen again.
The Red Pen
My wife has the most lurid memories. She was in seminary at the time; it was a non-specific seminary so you could study any religion. In Fall 2001, she started a course on Islam. The death threats against the professor and the class were instantaneous. Campus police came and escorted them to a secret location and it was announced publicly that the class was canceled (although they continued in private).
Later in the week, two of her friends were murdered on a street corner by some gang members who thought it would be patriotic to “kill some Muslims.” Ironically, the victims were both Christians, one was from Syria and I can’t recall where the other was from.
giltay
@reflectionephemeral: In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, the story in Canada was of people who knew someone who was lost, of Canadians going to New York to help, of Americans who were on planes home being diverted to billets in little towns in Newfoundland and being made honorary Newfies. We joined in a common cause to rid the world of Al Qaeda and those who would harbour them.
Less than two years later, the story was of those bellicose Americans, and our brave prime minister who refused to join them in their foolhardy adventure in Iraq. Of a fellow citizen, a child, who was held without trial and possibly tortured on a military base (and he’s still there, and he really was tortured).
(And now my country has suspended diplomatic relations with Iran, using the same weird vague justifications as for the US invasion of Iraq. There’s been a crackdown on dissent in the civil service. And it’s now my government who’s blocking the return of Omar Khadr from Guantánamo Bay.)
Culture of Truth
I learned about 9/11 in a rather strange way. I didn’t listen to the radio or watch television while getting ready that morning, which I most certainly would do now (or check the Internet, of course). So I walked out my front door in total and saw the second plane hit. Then I went back inside on turned on the tv.
The Red Pen
Went to Free Republic.
It echoes with the sounds of fapping and the groans of pleasure as they reiterate how 9/11 proves all of their racist fantasies.
wonkie
A furthering of the tendency for Americans to feel entitled ans special
A huge upsurge in jingoism and war fever
The beginnings of change inside the Democratic party as the appeasers ad Rethug-lite pols exposed themselves and began the process of discreditingthemselves
Culture of Truth
I see national guard troops everywhere now. I keep wondering how long that will last. My guess is that it’s permanent.
That change in national self-perception may yet be 9/11’s greatest legacy.
Robin G.
I tie 9/11 to the rise of the Tea Party. Bush encouraged and empowered anyone who chose to make policy by Id alone; they got used to having leaders who indulged all their childish fantasies.
bk
It allowed Guiliani to make a boatload of money.
mai naem
@Punchy:
Noun Verb 9/11!
Rudy FcukYeah 9/11!
I consider fcukyeah a verb for this purpose.
Sarah
Those answers are the best thing I’ll read all day. Thanks.
WaterGirl
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant): I assume that’s in response to Bush telling americans that they should go shopping.
Davis X. Machina
9/11 knocked 40 points off the national IQ for the best part of a decade.
It made it possible for people to say things ca. 2003 like: “I’m so glad it was George Bush that was president, because if Al Gore was president he would have surrendered to the terrorists, and it would be illegal to be a Christian and we’d all be wearing burqas” — I’m talking about a graduate of the flagship campus of the state university here — and not get laughed out of the room.
Culture of Truth
Bernie Kerick would probably had lived out his days as an esteemed low level crook.
Chris
@SGEW:
At the risk of starting a war, I credit growing up in the 9/11 era with the fact that I was never attracted to Sam Harris.
From middle school through high school through college, the TV and Interwebs were crammed with people telling me that These People’s Religion makes them all irrational and dangerous, that I need to be scared to death of them for it (even the ones I’ve known all my life), that the ones I REALLY need to be scared of are the moderates because their non-threatening appearance gives cover to terrorists (good Lord, next you’ll have people thinking that not all of These People are dangerous murderers! That’s just not acceptable!)… etc, etc, etc.
By the time I found out who Sam Harris was, everything he had to say sounded eerily familiar and not in a good way.
Cluttered Mind
It’s not in the top 3, but the TSA is definitely in the top 5. Since 9/11 I’ve made an effort to avoid flying as much as I can. Getting from place to place in this country is just horrible now.
Cacti
1. Legitimacy for the Bush presidency following his selection by the Supreme Court.
2. Everything bad that followed flows directly from #1.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@Anibundel:
Oh, it’s being filled alright.
Just not by governments. Or by any other body held answerable to the People.
Culture of Truth
@Davis X. Machina: Jeb, 2012
“Bush kept us safe”
1badbaba3
The thing that has always frosted my buns was the free fucking pass Bush and Cheney got in the aftermath, and still recieves to this very day. Meanwhile the kenyannaziislamomuslimfascist gets blamed for shit that has not and in all likelyhood will never happen (I’m lookin’ at you Bibi) but zero credit for the great things he’s done. Jeez, you’d think all the anti- Obama folks were overcompensating for their tiny todgers or sumthin’
@raven: Hate the show. And normally I’m not into blondes on the slender side, but I can’t seem to quit Mika. Sound down, on in the background as I get the kids ready for school is how I have to roll now. Otherwise, I would have to strangle morning Joke.
Needless to say, I heartily approve of the pic at the link. Jinkies Batman, if Murrow or Cronkite had legs like that, I would hope that they would likewise share. Yowza!
rb
@Culture of Truth: That must have been an incredible shock. The “strong language” video of that moment (was it shot from the 1st tower?) is terrifying.
ErikaF
1) Combining business and the military into a incestuous shotgun marriage in an unnecessary war (Halliburton/Blackwater)
2) Loss of reason in the political sphere both internal (if you don’t support Bush, you’re a traitor and Tea Party) and external (yay Murican exceptionalism – the other countries can’t tell us what to do)
3) Business uber alles (we never sacrificed for our troops – we were encouraged to go shopping. Business became a lovecraftian monstrosity that the Republicans (and some Dems) worshipped as they threw the country into the pit)
4) rise of conspiracy theory and religion as fact and science
And everyone else’s suggestions. The consequences from the attack were fleeting; the consequences from our response to the attack will be with us for decades to come.
Villago Delenda Est
The bipartisan foreign policy consensus was dealt a fatal blow in 1992, when THE ENEMY fucked over the MIC by going away.
In the wake of that tragedy that deeply traumatized board rooms at GE, Boeing, General Dynamics, and other MIC bastions, a new enemy had to be found.
Osama bin Laden was happy to oblige, provided that the MIC help him.
The MIC did. They gave him the greatest Al Qaeda recruitment team he could ever wish for…the deserting coward and the Dark Lord, backed by a team of bloodthirsty neocon shitheads.
Tractarian
What I remember most is the irrepressible scent of pulverized concrete. It lingered for a week or more. I couldn’t help but think that some of the particles I was breathing in used to be part of a human body.
Anya
@NorthLeft12: If mistermix’s kid is like any other kid with liberal parents, a slightly revised answers will be submitted. I used to do that when I was a kid.
Xecky Gilchrist
Yeesh, my one semi-wingnut coworker is RIGHT NOW getting his Anti-Muslim sneer on. Though he can never keep it going for long; this is a university and even the kneejerk Libertarians are fairly liberal.
On 9/11/01 a boxcutter flew out of the wreckage of an airplane and boomeranged all around the country, chopping the balls right off every conservative male and they’ve been trying ever since to stitch them back on by being hypermilitarist, bloviating assholes.
Scamp Dog
For me, it was the start of the process of realizing how incompetent the people running this country truly are. The “opinions differ on the shape of the Earth” media, the aggressively evil Republican party, the spineless Democrats, the list goes on…
I’m finally starting to see some signs of change: occasional acts of journalism in the media and competent elements of the Democratic party, but it’s not at all clear to me that it’s enough to turn things around.
Nonetheless, I’m canvassing to reelect Obama, and have some hope that things may work out after all.
Chuck Butcher
1)fear
2)Fear
3)FEAR
Chris
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God:
For now…
Not sure this is exactly what you were talking about, but I don’t buy the notion that the phenomenon of “governments weakening, globalization taking over” will last. The more instability neoliberalism brings, the more people will look to government to protect them from it. We’ve already seen plenty of instances of that in the 2000s following the globalization-binge of the 1990s. We’re only going to see more.
@Villago Delenda Est:
I’ve said this before, but it’s kind of funny to read the wingnut technothrillers (Tom Clancy, Stephen Coonts, Dale Brown) of that era. After 1991, all of them went completely fucking nuts desperately combing the world for a New Enemy. China was the most popular one, North Korea and Iran too, but there were also lots of more imaginative ones like Japan, India, a resurgent Russia, a United Islamic World, a United Fascist Europe, and a couple of shitty clones of SPECTRE.
The Ancient Randonneur
“Ask Osama bin Laden whether he is better off than he was four years ago.” — Senator John Kerry
SatanicPanic
1) Flying is no fun anymore
2) Sappy Facebook posts
3) Victoria Jackson and Dennis Miller continue to have careers long after they shouldn’t have.
The Red Pen
@Chris:
If Al Qaeda had a secret high-tech lair built into a volcano, I’d have to give them a little respect for it.
Of course, then they would have taken down the twin towers with fricken space lasers.
rb
1. 3000 killed that day.
2. 100s of thousands more dead in yet another disastrous war
3. Culture of fear tightens its grip, here and abroad.
Matt McIrvin
Actually, I was just thinking that I’ve seen far less commemorative stuff around the Internet today than on any previous anniversary. I think that now that we’re past the ten-year point, people are allowing themselves to treat September 11th as more of an ordinary day.
Chris
@The Red Pen:
Worst Bond movie EVER.
(No, I actually don’t mean Die Another Day…)
Villago Delenda Est
@Xecky Gilchrist:
That’s one hell of a boomerang, because if you look on this board, there are a bunch of people it missed, perhaps because they wore the uniform earlier. Not that wearing a uniform in and of itself provides immunity. It’s probably brain waves that provided the protection.
Tone In DC
@Xecky Gilchrist:
DAMN. I like it.
hitchhiker
1. Americans learned that they’re vulnerable, and that in fact just about anybody who really wanted to could think of ways to destroy things like bridges and stadiums and buildings.
2. The idea of trusting the government to do right enjoyed a brief resurgence, after a long decline that had begun with Vietnam and been cemented by Watergate.
3. Institutionalized ugliness became visible, in the form of all the xenophobia and brutality people above have mentioned.
Personal note . . . we had a catastrophic injury in our family 6 months before 9/11. By the time the attacks happened, my middle-school-aged daughters were old hands at absorbing shocking news. I saw them listening to the TV people talking about how everything was different with expressions of deep skepticism — “Dude, you don’t even know what it means for everything to be different.” Which is to say that from my perspective on the west coast, a lot of the public suffering and angst was weirdly vicarious.
Villago Delenda Est
@Matt McIrvin:
Could America be getting past The Wallow?
We can only hope.
I’ve posted this before, but it’s worth posting again. I asked my parents, who were both in their late teens/early 20’s when Pearl Harbor was bombed, if there was anything like The Wallow commemorating that day, and they were quick to answer no.
Of course, they were fighting fascist, militarist assholes then, not following them, so there’s that huge change.
ding dong
1. I did not have to endure a dinesh dsouza appearance on bill maher for
Chris
@Scamp Dog:
For me, it didn’t illustrate incompetence so much as the fact that their priorities were massively different from the good of the country.
From the point of view of the Bush administration, 9/11 allowed them to enshrine in law the things that the Church Committee and Iran-contra hearings had tried to rein in, it allowed massive handouts to their buddies in the oil and military contracting sector, and it allowed the electoral victories of 2002 and 2004 that brought the Republican Party back in full force after its declining popularity ever since 1994. None of those things are good for the country, but they were great our ruling elites. From that point of view, the Bush years don’t look as incompetent as all that.
LanceThruster
Creating a narrative of what transpired that day before a critical investigation actually took place and continuing to promote the official narrative as credible in the face on monumental stonewalling.
Violet
@Cluttered Mind:
Fucking TSA. They’re everywhere too. Bus passengers are subject to searches and inspections before boarding. Not sure about trains. They also overreach. They are supposed to be there to “keep us safe”, but talk about how many drugs they’ve discovered and confiscated as marks of their success. Last time I looked, marijuana in a baggie isn’t going to blow up a plane.
Teddy Salad
A ginned-up fear of imminent attack not seen since the height of the Cold War.
Hal
From s social media standpoint, Facebook is just obnoxious on 9/11. Posts asking where you were; um, at the grocery store. Sorry that doesn’t beat your “I was at work and rushed home to watch the event unfold on TV.” BTW, you live in Montana, not the upper east side.
And my favorite, posting pictures of the towers with the words never forget. Who are the people that think anyone is ever going to forget unless they remind people on fucking Facebook?
Matt McIrvin
@Villago Delenda Est: My grandmother remembered some emotional wallowing after Pearl Harbor and specifically recommended that people not do it for too long.
(And there’s ample evidence that the component of anti-Japanese racism in US popular culture and propaganda was huge; now the US in the 1940s was generally racist, but I’ve gotta believe the fact that Japan had managed a shocking direct attack on US territory had something to do with firing it up.)
Matt McIrvin
@Chris: I remember one wingnut warblog in the fall of 2001 that specifically insisted that there had to be a higher organizing power behind al Qaeda, which the author referred to as “Ernst Stavro Blofeld”.
Tractarian
@Hal:
This really gets me, and it has for 11 years now.
Is there really a risk that people will forget about 9/11? I’d say the memory of that day will last longer than the planet itself. Kids will be reading about 9/11 at school on their exoplanetary colonies.
Chris
@Matt McIrvin:
THAT is fanTASTIC.
I remember a couple low-quality books in Borders where they were trying to say that the “Blofeld” was China; 9/11 proves how vulnerable we are and therefore must be vigilant in China; how might China have been involved on 9/11? etc etc etc. Apparently they were part of the China-as-bogeyman lobby in the 1990s and never got the memo to switch to Iraq.
Villago Delenda Est
@Chris:
It’s very obvious who Blofeld was.
He shoots off the face of some guy at a controlled hunting preserve.
Chris
@Hal:
@Tractarian:
I’ve had a similar reaction to “Never Forget” with reference to the Holocaust for years.
1) nobody’s ever going to forget
2) it’s been used so often as a prelude for “and that’s why you should support uber-militarist foreign policies with lots of dead Arabs” for so long that when I see one of those stickers that’s generally what I assume the owner actually means, and
3) is it just me, or does the “never forget” crowd tend to pretty much “forget” or leave by the wayside everyone who died in the Holocaust without being Jewish? No one ever seems to think of it as something that also happened to Gypsies, or Slavs, or gay people, or disabled people, or (God forbid) people from the political left.
jackmac
I think mistermix has it pretty well covered.
Cervantes
@bjacques: “Go forward knowing that, sooner rather than later, the great avenues will open again and free men will walk through them to construct a better society.”
The Red Pen
@Chris:
Sometimes I ask people how many died in the Nazi death camps. Frequently, they answer, “6 million.”
I correct them and say, “That’s the estimate of Jews. The estimate of the total is 11 million.” Usually, they’ll respond positively with something like, “Yes, of course, the Nazis were so evil.”
Sometimes this correction clearly pisses them off. In that case, I know I can expect to be called an antisemite within the hour. It’s somewhat similar to the reaction you sometimes gets when you point out that a few of the victims of 9/11 were also Muslims the flash of anger and the “THAT DOESN’T MATTER” attitude.
Chris
@The Red Pen:
Yep, exactly. Similar experiences here. The fact that the number everyone associates with the Holocaust is 6 million rather than 11/12 is a pretty massive obscenity, but there I go being antisemetic again…
John M. Burt
1. An unnecessary war with Iraq.
That was in the cake as soon as Bush stole the election. If anything, 9/11 made them delay a bit.
2. Loss of civil liberties.
Again, always part of the plan, but 9/11 definitely made it easier.
3.Anti-Muslim prejudice.
Was growing steadily for decades (and has long been part of the plan), but definitely got a big boost.
Joel
1. The countless dead in Iraq and Afghanistan
2. 3,000+ dead in the US
3. The suspension of rule of law in the US
KS in MA
@Chris:
“Militarization of law enforcement? I think that goes back to the sixties.”
Meh. In the sixties there was still a difference between calling out the National Guard and calling out, say, the campus cops.
(I’m sure 100 commenters will have already said this; apologies)
Brachiator
1. The transformation of a portion of the American people into a frightened mob of xenophobic bigots eager to bomb anyone, anywhere so that their “way of life” might be preserved.
2. The continuing foolish insistence that there are simple answers to complex geopolitical problems
3. The enduring gift of Pandora’s Box, the possiblility of hope and compassion still exists and may allow great things.
From Joe Biden’s magnificent tribute to those who perished and tried to save those who perished on 911.
Liquid
Knock Knock
-Who’s there?
9/11
-9/11 who?
You said you’d never forget!!
Mike G
I like to go back and look at this site occasionally, expressions of grief and support from around the world after 9/11.
It’s a reminder of a rare moment when the world came together behind the US — and the arrogant, stupid bastards in the White House who pissed away all that goodwill.
When Words Fail Us
privilogic.com/wordsfail/
polyorchnid octopunch
Well, for me, from the outside looking in, I guess I’d say the three main consequences of 9/11 are that
1. America went completely bananas.
2. America is still bananas (though it’s showing at least some signs of sanity, though the 2010 mid-terms have not helped this perception).
3. America has more guns than the rest of the world combined.
I’m a bit concerned about the possibility of armed insurrection in the US. It looks to me (and this is in part based on stuff I see happening here) like the Calvinists among us (The ‘prosperity gospel’ and Christian Dominionist movements are pure Calvinism) are making a play for state control. I think they’re doomed in the US (certainly doomed on a time scale of decades)… which is part of why they’re making their play. It’s unfortunate for them that the best they could come up with was Romney; while Santorum is probably a better representative of their movement, they know he will never win. Neither can Huckabee. Fortunately for us, they’re finding it impossible to hide their true nature despite Romney’s biz credentials.
I used to kind of wonder about the complaints about Romney’s creepiness; we’re perhaps more used to fonctionnaires in Canada, but that conference where he was doing the condemnation of Obama based on misrepresentation at best really showed how very strange he actually is.