I remember having this feeling after 9/11 but I didn't have the words to articulate it properly because I was a 16 year old punker kid who had that punk anti-authority thing going but I hadn't read any real theory or anything like that to really help me put the right words to the page.
I've told this story before but 9/11 was extremely weird to me. I didn't understand why it was seen as such a disaster. Hell, in some ways it was seen as a boon. The weird contentious election of dubya had caused national disunity and suddenly everybody was behind the government. Sure, innocent lives were lost, I feel bad for the kids especially, but aside from the plane that hit the pentagon as an attack on a legit military target it's not like it really took out serious infrastructure. They didn't blow up a nuclear power plant. They didn't blow up a military base. They didn't blow up some critical bridges or factories that make missiles. They blew up some buildings full of finance dorks and bank nerds. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor they not only damaged the harbor but they sank a bunch of ships. Basically crippled the entire Pacific Fleet. They also invaded a few of the Aleutian islands but that never really went anywhere. The ability for the USA to project power into the largest ocean on the planet was hamstrung. And yet our politicians and media were acting like 9/11 was just as a bad. And it was time to blow up some "camel jockeys" and "sand n-words" over it. It was like, "hey time to bully the most bullied nation on Earth since Genghis fucking Khan because they killed Carl from Accounting." It was pure vibes, feelings over lives as you succinctly put it. The jingoism and blind patriotism and "if you don't like it you can leave it" bullshit was at a fever pitch. Goddamn the manufacturing of consent was strong then. Younger comrades, please understand, it was a really really wild time.
They also did a very weird thing where before the day was out every talking head and journalist was calling it "the september 11th attacks." Originally it was "The WTC attacks" but they switched it up. They memorialized it while the craters were still smoking and they were still trying to pull survivors out of the rubble. It didn't even have to hit a 1 year anniversary. Now I point this out because they did this exact thing with October 7th. It wasn't the Hamas attacks. It wasn't the "festival attack" it wasn't "the Kibbutz attack" or the "hostage crisis." It was October 7th. Manufacturing that Goddamned consent to turn it into a holiday of bloodshed to justify the IOF actions in reprisal. The funniest thing to me, and I mean that I laughed very very darkly, was when Biden called "October 7th multiple 9/11s" or some shit like that. It was just code words on code words. In a hundred years that sentence will mean nothing to people but in the context of propaganda. It would be like calling the Siege of Prague "July 25th" or the massacre at Wounded Knee "12/29." Just fucking meaningless bullshit unless your entire point is force it into becoming something people forever associate with that specific day. Which... there's a lot of history, and pretty much every day has had multiple very famous things that happened on these days over recorded history. Which makes it useless as a naming convention and something that I'd call historical malpractice.
Has Biden said a single word about anti-Arab or anti-Muslim hate?
Cracker feelings are more important than brown lives
I remember having this feeling after 9/11 but I didn't have the words to articulate it properly because I was a 16 year old punker kid who had that punk anti-authority thing going but I hadn't read any real theory or anything like that to really help me put the right words to the page.
I've told this story before but 9/11 was extremely weird to me. I didn't understand why it was seen as such a disaster. Hell, in some ways it was seen as a boon. The weird contentious election of dubya had caused national disunity and suddenly everybody was behind the government. Sure, innocent lives were lost, I feel bad for the kids especially, but aside from the plane that hit the pentagon as an attack on a legit military target it's not like it really took out serious infrastructure. They didn't blow up a nuclear power plant. They didn't blow up a military base. They didn't blow up some critical bridges or factories that make missiles. They blew up some buildings full of finance dorks and bank nerds. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor they not only damaged the harbor but they sank a bunch of ships. Basically crippled the entire Pacific Fleet. They also invaded a few of the Aleutian islands but that never really went anywhere. The ability for the USA to project power into the largest ocean on the planet was hamstrung. And yet our politicians and media were acting like 9/11 was just as a bad. And it was time to blow up some "camel jockeys" and "sand n-words" over it. It was like, "hey time to bully the most bullied nation on Earth since Genghis fucking Khan because they killed Carl from Accounting." It was pure vibes, feelings over lives as you succinctly put it. The jingoism and blind patriotism and "if you don't like it you can leave it" bullshit was at a fever pitch. Goddamn the manufacturing of consent was strong then. Younger comrades, please understand, it was a really really wild time.
They also did a very weird thing where before the day was out every talking head and journalist was calling it "the september 11th attacks." Originally it was "The WTC attacks" but they switched it up. They memorialized it while the craters were still smoking and they were still trying to pull survivors out of the rubble. It didn't even have to hit a 1 year anniversary. Now I point this out because they did this exact thing with October 7th. It wasn't the Hamas attacks. It wasn't the "festival attack" it wasn't "the Kibbutz attack" or the "hostage crisis." It was October 7th. Manufacturing that Goddamned consent to turn it into a holiday of bloodshed to justify the IOF actions in reprisal. The funniest thing to me, and I mean that I laughed very very darkly, was when Biden called "October 7th multiple 9/11s" or some shit like that. It was just code words on code words. In a hundred years that sentence will mean nothing to people but in the context of propaganda. It would be like calling the Siege of Prague "July 25th" or the massacre at Wounded Knee "12/29." Just fucking meaningless bullshit unless your entire point is force it into becoming something people forever associate with that specific day. Which... there's a lot of history, and pretty much every day has had multiple very famous things that happened on these days over recorded history. Which makes it useless as a naming convention and something that I'd call historical malpractice.