It's the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Let's make some sweeping generalizations.*
*Apologies in advance for poor sourcing in this version. I am in the midst of parenting a newborn and my head isn't where it needs to be for that. But I promise that if this diary gets well-read and/or rec'd up, I will return for proper hyperlinks etc. For now you'll have to take my word on everything. ;)
Shall we go on?
Important disclaimer: Like most everyone else reading this, I was shocked and saddened by the national tragedy we experienced on 9/11/01. Initially, I wanted us to exact full revenge on whomever had attacked us. I felt the national unity in those weeks following the event. And I deeply appreciate and honor the first responders who gave their lives trying to save as many people as they could. Truly. But despite the fact that I was out for blood on 9/12, 9/13, and maybe even into 2002 for a while, I didn't suddenly start to buy into the farce that developed over the next few years.
I just want to rant a little bit this evening. I understand the significance of this day and I certainly get why my tv screen and the internets were filled with 9/11 documentation and tributes. It is a date that we will never forget -- and never live down. The way I see it, the terrorists won. This isn't a new or particularly novel argument that I am going to make; I just want to hit some of the key points.
I believe the terrorists won in three ways. Their overarching goal was to destroy America, and I think we have indeed been destroyed in three arenas.
First, I believe firmly that as a nation we have been destroyed morally. The torture regime of Bush, Cheney, Yoo, and their associates is corrupt and sociopathic in the absolute. Seeing Cheney in recent days defending "enhanced interrogation" is like a kick in the teeth. The entire world outside of this country knows that war crimes were perpetrated, ordered from our highest office. The fact that no internal investigations and no prosecutions have been brought is disgusting and offensive. On a related point, the Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive war is one of the most ridiculous and morally indefensible new military strategies ever to be enacted in modern times.
Let me add to this that I am a social scientist and as such I adhere strongly to two theoretical models that meaningfully inform this issue. One is Urie Bronfenbrenner's model of nested social ecosystems. This model posits that events at higher levels of the social ecology -- e.g., large-scale political events manifesting large-scale ideologies -- affect events and ultimately human development at lower levels of the social ecology. This means, for example, that human behavior in capitalist societies is constrained by the ideological economic and political machinations that support capitalism. Like, dying because you can't afford health care.
Bronfenbrenner's ideas square with a model advanced by Archer and Gartner termed the legitimization-habituation hypothesis. The basic idea here is that when political actors act, they legitimize those actions at the broader level of society in such a way that similar actions between persons also become legitimate. The classic application of this model is trying to understand links between wartime events and interpersonal crime and violence. Two Israeli researchers, testing the hypothesis, found a robust relation over time between military actions by the Israeli army and subsequent increases in violent crime rates.
To make the long story short, I think that some of the moral destruction that has been wrought also has happened interpersonally in our society. I think the massive and inappropriate tolerance of the Teabag Party by the news media is the result of this. I think the burgeoning of humiliating reality television shows containing deplorable acts of interpersonal aggressive behavior also is the result of this. And I think the staggering displays of obvious racism towards our president by members of the GOP, largely unanswered by the Democrats, also is evidence of this.
Second, I believe that our country was destroyed financially by the attacks. Not right away of course - but as even the most cursory perusal of economic data will reveal, massive "defense" spending through direct funds to the military and ridiculous boondoggles in the private sector have played a major role in turning our economic progress from the late nineties completely around.
Finally, I think we have been destroyed socially. This of course relates a bit to my points above regarding moral destruction, but it is broader. Today it seems like our society is more divided than ever in modern times, with more vitriol and a return to overt racist and ethnocentric rhetoric. We are making strides in some sectors -- LGBT rights, for example -- but growing economic inequality and decaying services and supports for the working class are fueling the fires expanding in massive social divides.
Like I said, some ranting. But on this major milestone in our recent development as a nation, I felt some reality checking was in order. We've got a long, long way to go to get out from under the specter of the 9/11 attacks - tributes are an important part of this process - but the healing won't start until we recognize how and where the real insidious damage has been done.