The Cult of 9/11

[Joanne98]

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/14/3157/
The Cult of 9/11
by Paul Campos

When Stu Bykofsky, a columnist for The Philadelphia Daily News, wrote a column last week in which he openly hoped that America suffers “another 9/11,” he merely had the poor judgment to say what many a right-wing politician and pundit is thinking.

Evidence for this is everywhere: in the fact that Bykofsky was invited to appear on the GOP’s unofficial network, Fox News, to “explain” his comments; in the keen disappointment that ripples throughout the right-wing blogosphere every time the collapse of a bridge or a steam pipe explosion turns out not to have been the work of Scary Brown People Who Hate Our Freedoms; and in predictions such as that made by former Sen. Rick Santorum, that the GOP’s electoral fortunes will improve as soon as there’s another terrorist attack.

Indeed, at this point one can practically see these people wringing their hands in frustration at the apparent inability of “the terrorists” to kill a few Americans somewhere (preferably in a solidly red state, although New York or California would do in a pinch), so as to once again give war a chance.

Bykofsky’s column is a nostalgic look back at the days immediately following 9/11, when the nation was unified by fear and anger, and a desire to find and destroy “the enemy.” (Typically, Bykofsky doesn’t bother to define who “the enemy” is. This spares him the effort of having to consider whether invading a country that had nothing to do 9/11 made any sense.)

Six years later, it’s worth looking back on that terrible day with something other than a wistful longing for a repeat performance, in order to recognize a couple of obvious if unpleasant truths.

First, in the weeks immediately following 9/11, a lot of people said and did a great many ridiculous things. This was somewhat understandable under the circumstances. Still, it’s important to recognize the cultural forces that made it mandatory to attack the likes of Susan Sontag and Bill Maher (Maher was actually fired for merely pointing out that, whatever else they were, the 9/11 terrorists weren’t cowards) helped create a collective atmosphere of national hysteria.

Second, in the years since, we have been encouraged to develop a kind of narcissistic obsession with the events of Sept. 11, 2001 (indeed, the very term “9/11″ reflects this.) “9/11″ is invoked over and over again, as the day that “changed everything,” and that therefore justifies everything from banning toothpaste on airplanes to wholesale spying on Americans without a warrant to torturing people who have been imprisoned for years without trial.

The narcissism at the heart of the Cult of 9/11 is captured by an episode of Larry David’s mordant comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm. David meets with a rabbi whose brother-in-law was killed in uptown New York in a bicycle accident on the day of the terror attacks. When at the meeting’s end David innocently exclaims “Let’s roll,” the rabbi is outraged: “You knew my brother-in-law died on Sept. 11! How dare you say something like that!”

A nonplussed David replies, “I didn’t realize that if you died uptown it was still part of the tragedy.”

The fact is that if you, like me, are one of the 99.9 percent of Americans who doesn’t know anyone who was killed or injured in the 9/11 terror attacks, or in the subsequent rescue efforts, then 9/11 was at bottom a very disturbing thing that you saw (over and over again) on TV.

It didn’t “change everything,” and it didn’t (and doesn’t) justify the Iraq war, indiscriminate spying on Americans, extrajudicial renditions, torture, or any of the other immoral actions that continue to be done in its name.

It’s high time to stop wallowing in our obsession with what is becoming the most overblown and shamelessly exploited event in American history.

Paul Campos is a professor of law at the University of Colorado. He can be reached at [e-mail].
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/14/3157/

[Richard Steele]

1. K&R

[yella_dawg]

2. .

[mhatrw]

3. Great Post!

[angstlessk]

4. so now it is republics who want to join hands and sing kumbyah? n/t

[farmbo]

5. The GOP again aims for the Bedwetter vote

Be afraid...be very VERY afraid!!

:scared:

[petgoat]

6. The images of 9/11 were traumatic.

The peek into the inferno in the Pentagon, which led us
to imagine a similar inferno in the WTC (that wasn't there).

The "let's roll" crew with the serving cart on flight 93.

The assault on the twin towers, the pale thighs of America.

Does anyone else see a similarity in these images?

[glitch]

8. shock and awe is very effective. nt

[0007]

13. Especially after watching Dr. Hegarty on the mental stability of Jose Padilla

on Link tv yesterday.

No wonder we have a media that is afraid to speak or write the truth.

[rudy23]

7. Why give the terrorists that much power by making sure the day lives in infamy?

Why give them any power at all by altering our behavior? That makes no sense.

The powerful thing to do would be to remain unchanged in the face of those types of threats.

I never understood how the Republicans got so many people to believe that cowering to the terrorists was somehow a position of strength.

[Prophet 451]

9. 9/11 changed nothing

Fact is, the only thing unusual about 9/11 was scale. I'm a Brit. The IRA bombed the piss out of us on pretty much a monthly basis for most of the seventies and eighties. That's not to devalue the tragedy that occured on 9/11 but it's worth noting that the rest of the world managed to deal with terrorist threats without losing their minds. The 7/7 tube bombings were met with a slight revising of the anti-terrorism laws but for the most part, life goes on.

[Banned_Wagon]

10. 9/11 changed nothing?

Are you a Brit that lives in UK or in the USA? 9/11 has changed everything about the USA. On a large Orwellian scale. How can you look at what has happened to our Privacy and Rights since 9/11 and say Nothing has changed? Bush and Company have re-written our Constitution, all in the name of Terra Terra to try and scare us into submission.
Our fear now is not being attacked by terrorists, our fear now is that by saying what I just said we could be swept up in the middle of the night, or day, and never see our families again.
That is what 9/11 changed.

"There is something very wrong with this Country"

[Prophet 451]

11. You misunderstand

or perhaps I phrased it badly. My point was that the US reacted to 9/11 as if it was the first terrorist act ever, it completely lost it's head. My point is that 9/11 was nothing hugely unusual in the grand scheme of things. It was just one more terrorist act, bigger than most but otherwise unremarkable.

I'm very aware of the wildly disproportionate changes that W has rammed through on the back of 9/11. My point was that such changes ARE disproportionate.

And I'm resident in the UK.

[petgoat]

12. That the whole unfolding tragedy took place live on nat'l TV

had a great deal to do with the 9/11 events' status
as a "Quasi-religious myth" the theologian Dr. David
Ray Griffin so shrewdly recognizes.

It wasn't just an attack, it was torture.

You must visit the Great Plains to understand the
great hunger in Middle America for vision. For
a thousand miles, nothing but sky. 9/11 gave them
something to believe in, some role for themselves
greater than being muffler mechanics and video
clerks in decaying small towns.