Tuesday, September 11, 2018

Whither Now the Withered Nation

A personal note: I am running into high school students born after 9/11. An entire generation that has grown up in the shadow of the War on Terror. They're writing term papers on what happened this day 17 years ago. (Poorly researched term papers... /headdesk)

A War on Terror that has devolved into an ongoing and seemingly unending siege in Afghanistan.

A War on Terror that has failed to resolve even half of the conflicts that bedevil the Middle East and does nothing for the painful refugee crisis surrounding Syria, Yemen, North Africa. A crisis now spilling into Europe fueling a harsh rise of Far Right anti-immigrant sentiment that may have been a key factor in Brexit (a separate nightmarish issue of its own right now).

A War on Terror that put the United States on its own path of Far Right paranoia against immigrants - not just illegals but also legal immigrants suddenly getting punished - to the point where the United States is separating kids from families and shoving babies into jails.

An argument can be made that the attacks on the World Trade Center and on the Pentagon using passenger aircraft is a direct link between Osama Bin Laden and donald j. trump. That Bin Laden's attacks were so traumatizing that a large portion of the citizenry is willing to lash out in anger at everything they fear, eagerly accepting the leadership of any conman offering salvation through brutal repression of the dread Other.

If only one could hop into a time machine and go back to 1999, to find Bin Laden, and let him know that the results of his planned attacks would lead to a donald trump presidency.

Would Bin Laden recoil at the horror of even THAT level of madness?

...nah, probably not. Bin Laden was a dick just like trump.

We are so royally screwed.

Remember your loved ones, America.

Also, for the peeps I know in the Carolinas and Coastal Virginia. Stay dry and get out of the flood zones, Hurricane Florence is going to be a drencher.




1 comment:

dinthebeast said...

As Driftglass points out, 9-11 was the magical get-out-of-accountability-for-the-nineties reset button that, as you said, lead to the rise of Fergus.
Now, to the ballot boxes to contain the damage...

-Doug in Oakland