So, where were you when it happened? Doubtless the towers falling imbued whatever mundane activity was occupying your time with a resonance otherwise absent. We all explain it the same way, don’t we? “I was just washing the dishes, you know?” Yes, I do know. I was in high school in 2001, fumbling toward graduation and examining the curvature of Tiffany Slattern’s (fake name) breast from the rear of a geometry classroom. “I was just making lunch.” Of course you were. Maybe you weren’t even hungry, and only fixing a meal out of adherence to narrative. We all need to eat, right? “I was just crossing the street.” And I’ll wager you didn’t get where you were going. Why do we always predicate the statement? It’s that ‘just,’ perhaps meant not only to contrast two events, small and large, but to humble ourselves before something monstrous in the hope that we will be undetected in its shadow.
It’s September 10, 2011 in New York City, and we’re honoring heroes by placing the city under martial law for the weekend. Our subways are flushed with police carrying automatic rifles. Security checkpoints are established around the city. Cars are being stopped and searched. Regardless of the fact that anything inconveniencing drivers should generally be met with approval, the weekend lockdown does remind us that the city is essentially a police state and your freedom is a joke without a punchline. But at least we’re safe, right? Because apparently, Al Qaeda have been biding their time for the past ten years, waiting patiently for the chance to hit New York on exactly the day when everyone expects them to. As if, during the time when they’re not blowing themselves up, these mujahideen are sitting around, watching the ‘The Siege,’ and plotting the perfect sequel. I’ve never been less frightened of anything in my life.
If the events since 9/11 have proven anything, it’s that our enforcers, both local and abroad, are completely useless when it comes to addressing any problem beyond our cultural scope. Police are very good at dealing with white people troubles. If there’s a fifteen year old texting dick pics to his girlfriend, or an unarmed black man who needs to be shot a few times, they’re your guys. On the other hand, the military only exists to suppress civil unrest. This is how and why governments maintain control of a domestic population. But due to the indigence and general moo-cow complacence of most Americans, this job is now easily done by the police, and since you can’t have a group of hired killers just standing around (Rome found that out, right?), we might as well send them overseas to blow up some schools. Good, sturdy American work for good, sturdy Americans.
No, I don’t support the troops, and neither should you. I didn’t go to pep rallies for the football team in high school for the same reason. I do not agree with the work. The standard, mushy liberal ethic seems to be something like, ‘It’s not their fault, it’s the leaders. They’re doing a brave thing.’ Sure, they have to get their orders from somewhere. Absolutely, fuck the leaders. You have to hand it to the empty suits we have elected in this country for the past hundred years. Even though you won't catch these war criminals in camouflage unless it's pheasant season, they still have the audacity to order thousands of young people into battle. How does that work? But bravery? No, it’s not bravery. It’s cultivated stupidity. It’s the sort of absence of critical reasoning that has our troops handcuffing Iraqi families and executing them. Is this ‘collateral damage?’ The term captures perfectly the ethic of modern warfare, that is, the distance we place between ourselves and the horrific acts we commit. It says, ‘We’re racist and made a mistake, but it’s fine because the people we killed were brown and, by our estimate, poor.’ Perhaps raping women and killing children is good for the esprit de corps, but remember, troops, that your only legacy from all this madness will be found in a faded yellow ribbon affixed to the ass end of an Aerostar up on blocks outside a single-wide with a similarly taxed Old Glory (Those colors do, in fact, run) withering from a clapboard porch. An American legacy.
Still, it is almost 9/11, and I’ve just finished sweeping out the chimney in my apartment, should Osama Bin Laden decide to visit me in the night, and consume the BK Big Fish and Coors Lite left for him in the living room. At certain point, glory can be derived from weakness provided it has grown large enough. I think we have reached this point. The weakness of the New Yorker, normally seen in the rapid tenting of an umbrella at the first drop of rain, remains in a effect for the holiday weekend, as we all do one of two things. Either we consciously proceed about our business in the belief that the only way to defeat the terrorists is in refusing to alter our turgid routine, as if Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is sitting in Guantanamo Bay thinking ‘Damn! The Starbucks line is still quite long! Foiled again!’ Or we join in the festivities, holding hands in lower Manhattan before wandering amid the zen garden as business park on planet Le Corbusier aesthetic of the memorial, finally retiring to some municipal building to sing carols. Is a commemorative t-shirt part of the dress code at these things?
I think our greatest weakness may be in the complete eclipse of our global perspective. In the age of the Internet, this is a remarkable feat. We are citizens of a rich and powerful rogue nation, yet we’ve been coerced into assuming the mentality of victims. While our government established the despotic Department of Homeland Security and committed war crimes beneath our flag, we licked our supposed wounds and cowered. We allowed the useless pundits and ignorant politicians on both sides to equate Islam with race and as a result, we have become fearful bigots (Not that we needed the help, Arizona). Even those of us apparently opposed to capital punishment turned a blind yet conceding eye to the executions of Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden. Our military is washed daily in the blood of civilians, but we continue to muster support because it’s ‘just what you do.’ Weakness is the great unifier, and because of it, we as a people have become worse than what we fear.
So happy 9/11 everyone! Way to soldier on! You especially, New York! 9/11 comes but once a year, so let’s be a solemn and sentimental community! Tomorrow, we can go back to not giving a fuck about each other, but today, we stand, unbroken! Because when those towers came down, we all became innocent victims. Even though our nation is founded on the extermination of people we cannot control and the enslavement of those we can, the slaughter of populations in Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America, the subsidized support of violent men at home and abroad in exchange for monopolized resources, the imprisonment, torture, and execution of innocent people; and despite the fact that we are the only nation to have ever dropped an atomic bomb in wartime, now it’s our turn to be victims because how can we, as a people, be responsible? After all, ‘we were just on our way to the store.’
It’s September 10, 2011 in New York City, and we’re honoring heroes by placing the city under martial law for the weekend. Our subways are flushed with police carrying automatic rifles. Security checkpoints are established around the city. Cars are being stopped and searched. Regardless of the fact that anything inconveniencing drivers should generally be met with approval, the weekend lockdown does remind us that the city is essentially a police state and your freedom is a joke without a punchline. But at least we’re safe, right? Because apparently, Al Qaeda have been biding their time for the past ten years, waiting patiently for the chance to hit New York on exactly the day when everyone expects them to. As if, during the time when they’re not blowing themselves up, these mujahideen are sitting around, watching the ‘The Siege,’ and plotting the perfect sequel. I’ve never been less frightened of anything in my life.
If the events since 9/11 have proven anything, it’s that our enforcers, both local and abroad, are completely useless when it comes to addressing any problem beyond our cultural scope. Police are very good at dealing with white people troubles. If there’s a fifteen year old texting dick pics to his girlfriend, or an unarmed black man who needs to be shot a few times, they’re your guys. On the other hand, the military only exists to suppress civil unrest. This is how and why governments maintain control of a domestic population. But due to the indigence and general moo-cow complacence of most Americans, this job is now easily done by the police, and since you can’t have a group of hired killers just standing around (Rome found that out, right?), we might as well send them overseas to blow up some schools. Good, sturdy American work for good, sturdy Americans.
No, I don’t support the troops, and neither should you. I didn’t go to pep rallies for the football team in high school for the same reason. I do not agree with the work. The standard, mushy liberal ethic seems to be something like, ‘It’s not their fault, it’s the leaders. They’re doing a brave thing.’ Sure, they have to get their orders from somewhere. Absolutely, fuck the leaders. You have to hand it to the empty suits we have elected in this country for the past hundred years. Even though you won't catch these war criminals in camouflage unless it's pheasant season, they still have the audacity to order thousands of young people into battle. How does that work? But bravery? No, it’s not bravery. It’s cultivated stupidity. It’s the sort of absence of critical reasoning that has our troops handcuffing Iraqi families and executing them. Is this ‘collateral damage?’ The term captures perfectly the ethic of modern warfare, that is, the distance we place between ourselves and the horrific acts we commit. It says, ‘We’re racist and made a mistake, but it’s fine because the people we killed were brown and, by our estimate, poor.’ Perhaps raping women and killing children is good for the esprit de corps, but remember, troops, that your only legacy from all this madness will be found in a faded yellow ribbon affixed to the ass end of an Aerostar up on blocks outside a single-wide with a similarly taxed Old Glory (Those colors do, in fact, run) withering from a clapboard porch. An American legacy.
Still, it is almost 9/11, and I’ve just finished sweeping out the chimney in my apartment, should Osama Bin Laden decide to visit me in the night, and consume the BK Big Fish and Coors Lite left for him in the living room. At certain point, glory can be derived from weakness provided it has grown large enough. I think we have reached this point. The weakness of the New Yorker, normally seen in the rapid tenting of an umbrella at the first drop of rain, remains in a effect for the holiday weekend, as we all do one of two things. Either we consciously proceed about our business in the belief that the only way to defeat the terrorists is in refusing to alter our turgid routine, as if Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is sitting in Guantanamo Bay thinking ‘Damn! The Starbucks line is still quite long! Foiled again!’ Or we join in the festivities, holding hands in lower Manhattan before wandering amid the zen garden as business park on planet Le Corbusier aesthetic of the memorial, finally retiring to some municipal building to sing carols. Is a commemorative t-shirt part of the dress code at these things?
I think our greatest weakness may be in the complete eclipse of our global perspective. In the age of the Internet, this is a remarkable feat. We are citizens of a rich and powerful rogue nation, yet we’ve been coerced into assuming the mentality of victims. While our government established the despotic Department of Homeland Security and committed war crimes beneath our flag, we licked our supposed wounds and cowered. We allowed the useless pundits and ignorant politicians on both sides to equate Islam with race and as a result, we have become fearful bigots (Not that we needed the help, Arizona). Even those of us apparently opposed to capital punishment turned a blind yet conceding eye to the executions of Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden. Our military is washed daily in the blood of civilians, but we continue to muster support because it’s ‘just what you do.’ Weakness is the great unifier, and because of it, we as a people have become worse than what we fear.
So happy 9/11 everyone! Way to soldier on! You especially, New York! 9/11 comes but once a year, so let’s be a solemn and sentimental community! Tomorrow, we can go back to not giving a fuck about each other, but today, we stand, unbroken! Because when those towers came down, we all became innocent victims. Even though our nation is founded on the extermination of people we cannot control and the enslavement of those we can, the slaughter of populations in Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America, the subsidized support of violent men at home and abroad in exchange for monopolized resources, the imprisonment, torture, and execution of innocent people; and despite the fact that we are the only nation to have ever dropped an atomic bomb in wartime, now it’s our turn to be victims because how can we, as a people, be responsible? After all, ‘we were just on our way to the store.’
He's the voice of a generation!
ReplyDeleteOn 9/11 I was remarkably hungover. On the 10th anniversary, less so. Progress is rarely this evident. I feel freer. I feel safer. The terrorists have not won.
ReplyDeleteBut maybe they're winning elsewhere. I can't be sure, I ran to sissy little France to live fat off the breast of socialism. I am still white here. No one checks my papers. No one offends me by assuming I speak their driveled tongue, expecting me to respond in kind or respond kindly.
Mais oui, mais oui--c'est comme ça.
I share your sentiments on this false sense of bravery but am even more offended with people who believe cutting, pasting and respewing someone's patriotic flag fucking will indicate that they are grateful, and mindful of the sheep's chosen slather. It's all such an embarrassing circus. But we 'soldier on' on pretending there's any skill in bear baiting.