Was life really that different prior to 9/11?

[Paradoxical]

I ask because I've recently been discussing this topic with my friends. We are all between 19 and 21. So we were little kids at the beginning of the last decade. Most of us only barely remember what it was like during the 90s.

[Duer 157099]

1. Yes. It never felt like we were on the verge of fascism

at least to me it didn't.

Now it always does.

[Warren DeMontague]

28. Wha??? To me, the entire 80s felt like the verge of fascism.

No, things really weren't that different.

[Quantess]

101. Agreed, fully.

Such as, the increasing paranoia and suspicion of others who appear to step out of line. That is merely one aspect.

[Liberty Belle]

2. Air travel sure was easier back then.

No electronic strip searches, long lines, or having your toiletries seized because some idiot tried to blow up a plane with liquids in a little bottle.

Here in San Diego, 911 has been used as an excuse to push forward with the border wall and militarization of our border; it's cut immigration sharply and villified Mexican people who have paid a heavy price for terrorist attacks that they had nothing to do with.

Nationally we did not live in a climate of fear, at least we hadn't in many years. Going back to the Cold War, before the breakup of the Soviet union durning the Reagan years there were fears about nuclear war.

911 also got us into two wars, and we're still there.

[aquart]

3. No Patriot Act. No wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

No Homeland Security. Oh, and there were still jobs here and there. The housing bubble made people think they were rich and the computer bubble spent money like water.

But jobs had been eroding since Tricky Dick Nixon opened relations with China and showed the greedy how much cheap labor was out there.

The 90s had an air of prosperity overlaying real desperation. No western nation stresses its citizens like America does. People stayed in awful jobs, blackmailed with healthcare. The underlying terror of getting sick, getting old, getting old and sick haunted everything. And the price of healthcare kept going up. There was vast wealth, but a sense of everything slipping away. Now we don't have the air of prosperity anymore.

And people who didn't have executive positions were referred to as losers. There was a huge and growing contempt for anyone who did real work, real labor. Look at movies from the different decades if you want a sense of the difference.

[Solly Mack]

4. No Patriot Act but there were erosions of civil rights

brought by the "war on drugs".

No never ending war or "the long war" ("war on terror")

Terror acts were treated as criminal acts. (as they should be)

Torture was treated and prosecuted as torture and not dismissed as enhanced interrogation or said to be done in "good faith"....

Nixon was run out of office for doing some of the same things as Bush (claims of unitary executive, if the president does it then it's legal mentality, crimes, cover-ups) and Congress sought to get rid of him....Bush was praised (by some) and Congress was too chicken shit to do anything about it - for various reasons.

Just a few differences...

[Golden Raisin]

5. Yes.

Sharp turn right concerning Constitutional and individual rights; major increase in fear-mongering by both government and media; and as others have pointed out, air travel (especially the on-ground, at-the-airport experience) became onerous, nightmarish and literally invasive. To say nothing of the wars and dainty tidbits like Abu Ghraib.

[WinkyDink]

6. Yes. Hello, Iraq??? Clinton's SURPLUS?

[Paradoxical]

7. But there were wars prior to 2001.

That's why I asked.

[WinkyDink]

8. Gulf War I, as corrupt as the current illegal invasions, was 20 years ago.

You now see what has not been seen before by most living Americans:
~~A once-thriving Middle Class FEARFUL OF THEIR FINANCIAL FUTURE. OF THEIR OFFSPRINGS' FINANCIAL FUTURE.

~~POLITICIANS ACTIVELY SEEKING TO DESTROY PUBLIC EDUCATION, THE LONG-ACKNOWLEDGED PATH TO THE MIDDLE-CLASS FOR THOSE NOT THERE.

~~POLITICIANS ACTIVELY SEEKING TO DESTROY PUBLIC AND OTHER UNIONS, EVEN PASSING ILLEGAL "EMERGENCY LAWS" TO ACQUIRE DICTATORIAL POWERS TO ABROGATE LEGAL CONTRACTS.

~~THE UNCONSTITUTIONAL DESTRUCTION BY BUSH OF HABEAS CORPUS, DATING BACK TO MAGNA CARTA (1215).

~~AMERICA THE TORTURER.

[Rhiannon12866]

17. In 1980, President Carter boycotted the Moscow Olympics

Why? To protest the continuing Soviet war in Afghanistan. :(

As for Gulf War I, Poppy Bush actually had a coalition, including several Arab countries. And in 1996, on the fifth anniversary of that war, he said that the reason he didn't go into Baghdad after Saddam Hussein was because the "entire Arab world would turn against us" and the U.S. would alienate its allies in the international community. :(

[reggie the dog]

65. before the patriot act judged needed to grant warrants

to look into things like library book checkout records etc. you were able to protest and the entire country was a "free speech zone"

the war on terror is really going now, it replaced the cold war that was dead after the ussr fell

cops, already heady with power in the war on drugs, have gone fucking mad now.

the usa was ok enough to live in before 911, then the president started with "you are either with us or against us" so my dissent made me an enemy, i left the usa in 2003 at age 24 for good and will never live in it again.

[MedicalAdmin]

50. The fall of the berlin wall and soviet union and the "peace dividend."

WTF happened to that? Oh yah - I forgot. It was given to wall street to hand out as bonuses and stockholder treats.

[JVS]

9. It was a time when God Bless America was just a show tune, and a shitty one at that.

[Name removed]

13. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

10. Before 9/11 cowering imbeciles were a small and ridiculed minority

Now the national agenda is tuned to placating those who would unload their AR-15 into their own shadow and are quite possibly the majority. 9/11 unlocked a great authoritarian undercurrent in American society that has turned up in all aspects of life. Before 9/11 the entire world was tearing down national barriers of all kinds, travel, trade, labor and investment, the world had not enjoyed the same level of freedom of movement since the years before World War One and now the barriers to movement have never been greater and are ever increasing. I fully expect citizens of the EU, Japan and Canada will require US visas inside of the next five years and the perverts in trenchcoats won't be the only creeps administering "pat-downs" on most forms of public transportation.

[Vattel]

24. well-said

[reggie the dog]

71. visas are already required

my daughter and estranged wife are french, to come to the usa this summer they had to fill out on online form for the govt. and pay a 14 dollar processing fee at least 72 hours before coming to the usa. they have to PAY and fill in questions ONLY IN ENGLISH and they are from a visa waiver country. france is talking about making americans get visas to come to france out of spite but will not because they know american tourists are so important for france. my wife today, as i was helping her fill out the form, told me "why would they do this? this makes it harder for people to visit the usa?" my anwser. "the usa is fascist, they are smashing unions, destroying education, putting in appointed leaders in fiefdoms, groping people who want to get on planes, limiting free speech, rigging elections, and want to make it harder for foreigners to come visit." her response "kind of like the nazis did in the 30's. This summer may well be the last time i ever come to the usa and i am a natural born american. perhaps in 2 years when dad retires and makes the drive up to alaska i will come with, but the more that time goes on i see no interest in visiting the usa even to show my little girl "daddy's country". i havent asked for american nationality for her and do not plan to do so.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

82. ESTA is ridiculous and annoying but nothing like getting a visa

Although I really do relate to your position, I have been working in Canada for coming up on five years and return home atleast twice a month and sometimes for extended periods for work (I was transferred to Canada and still work for the same company) and every time I return I keep wondering why? Now I just find it depressing. The drive from my house in California to my parents house will make you not only believe in the rapture, but that is already happened.

But it is strange because even though I arrived here at the height of the Bush years at that time I couldn't even comprehend wanting to stay up here, now if I were to be asked to return to my position in California full-time I would probably first try to find another job here since I have become a permanent resident.

[reggie the dog]

83. I feel you

have become so used to living in a country in which having a roof and health care are rights, in which losing your job does not mean risking homelessness and hungar, in which there is less violent crime, and is, in general, less stressed out and less materialistic that i really dont know if i could even again live in a country where losing my job means losing health coverage and in which the kind of car i drive is an important aspect of my personality.

[BobbyBoring]

81. +10000000000000000

[Bonobo]

98. +1 nt

[JVS]

11. When I traveled back in the 90s, my family would come with me to check in and then we'd...

go eat at a restaurant in the airport, followed by saying goodbye at the gate. Arrivals were similar.

[JVS]

12. Oh, and when the airport was built they encouraged people to show up and consider the stores a mall.

One night, me and some college buddies were bored and drove out there to hang out. Nobody asked us a goddamned thing.

[Paradoxical]

14. I vaguely remember flying prior to 9/11.

And I do remember when people could follow you up to the gate.

[Raine]

100. Yes they did, I loved going to the airport. One time

when I was a little girl my mother, brother and I were bored one summer day. We didn't have much money so went to the Los Angeles airport (LAX) just for the heck of it (like you and your friends). We looked in the stores and bought sour dough bread that had been flown in from San Francisco. My brother and I are way grown up now, my mother is gone but it's a wonderful memory I'll always have. :-)

[ReggieVeggie]

15. no

[hfojvt]

no, it was pretty much the same

except gas was a whole lot cheaper, like $1.40 or so. Heck two years before that, in Iowa, gas was 89.9 cents a gallon. It had fallen from about $1.35 in 1996 to .899 in 1999 and stayed that low for about six months.

Well, that, and the Dodgers played in Brooklyn, the Lakers in Minneapolis, the Braves in Milwaukee, the Cardinals in St. Louis, the Colts in Baltimore, the Titans in Houston, only they were called the Oilers, the Seattle Seahawks were in the AFC west, and the Bears sucked.

Okay, that last one is still true today. The Bears still suck. Some things will never change.

[reggie the dog]

72. dem is brawlin words where i am from

da bears were in the top 4 in the nation last year!

i remember spring break 1999 driving to florida, leaving chicago on a sunday at noon, and arriving back on friday at 6pm so i could make it to work at the night club parking cars. 48 hours round trip 3000 miles to spend basically 2 days at the beach dropping acid. but gas was only .99 a gallon in chicago and was as low as .66 a gallon in alabama.

kids these days got it rough to go on road trips. we paid not even 100 dollars round trip in gas from chicago to florida

[JVS]

16. Before 9/11 people didn't fly flags from their cars. In the first few weeks...

a lot of flags got ratty quickly because they hadn't been designed for prolonged winds in excess of 45 mph.

[JVS]

18. The price of gasoline would only move by slight amounts and was generally around $1 or $1.25

[hfojvt]

27. it does seem much more stable in the 1990s

this site has weekly prices from 8-20-1990 http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/wrgp/mogas_history.html

It looks something like this

1.19 - 8-20-90
1.24 - 8-27-90
1.33 - 10-29-90
1.34 - 12-3-90
1.19 - 1-21-91
1.02 - 3-4-91
1.12 - 5-27-91
1.09 - 9-23-91
1.01 - 1-20-92
1.11 - 5-18-92
1.05 - 5-29-93
1.05 - 12-4-95
1.26 - 5-13-96 (I remembered a noticeable jump there at the time I bought my 2nd car)
1.20 - 9-23-96
1.22 - 2-17-97
1.2 - 6-2-97
then below $1 from 11-2-98 until 3-22-99
by Jun 19,2000 it had risen to 1.66 just in time for Bush to make hay with it during the campaign
1.50 - 11-6-2000 (around election day)
1.31 - 7-30-2001
1.51 - 9-10-2001 (the day before)
1.08 - 2-11-2002
1.45 - 12-29-2003 (6 months after the start of the Iraq war and it is still cheaper than it was 3 years before)
as low as 1.59 as recent as 12-29-2008

For some real fun, try using the inflation calculator http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=1.34&year1=1991&year2=2003
1.34 in 1991 is the same as 1.81 in 2003. If gasoline had kept up with inflation since 1990, it should have been $1.81, but it was only $1.45, and $1.34 in 1991 is the same as $2.20 today.

[Spider Jerusalem]

102. That has nothing to do with post-9/11 and the "war on terror"...

and everything to do with the rise of China and India as major economic players undergoing rapid industrialisation and with a middle class increasing in numbers. (Fun fact: last year, for the first time ever, more new cars were sold in China than in the US.)

[JVS]

19. There were not as many JROTC and military recruiters in the schools.

[Dennis Donovan]

20. Air travel is unbearable now...

Before 9/11, the only security screen was a metal detector. No harassment, you just simply got on the plane.

[JVS]

21. They xrayed carryons.

[Rhiannon12866]

25. When I made an "emergency" trip because my grandmother was ill,

They were very nice to me, met me at the gate and just let me get on the plane ahead of everybody else. This was in 1998. :(

[jberryhill]

75. That's not true

The xray conveyer belts were there for years prior to 9/11

[JVS]

80. Yeah, but you only put your bag and coat on it. None of this silly shoe bullshit.

[jberryhill]

89. The shoe stuff wasn't a consequence of 9/11

We have Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, to thank for that.

[the other one]

22. I am 45. Nothing has ever changed in my lifetime.

We might be meaner as a nation, and certainly stupider.

But America has felt as if it were sliding into fascism since the day JFK was shot.

And I think it was a pretty nasty place before that, if you throw in the Indian genocide and the slavery that stole and buillt this great land.

Don't let the New Deal and the Great Society and the Clinton Surplus (which Bush gave to the rich; it would have been better spent on us. Thanx Bill) fool you. Many never shared the fruits of those eras.

The Middle Class is a myth.

Go YouTube as much old George Carlin as you can find. He will set you right.

[kickysnana]

23. But we did make things better for a time and I thought...

we would continue to make things better. Until 2000.

My Dad referred to some neighbors as "desert makers" and that is how I see the GOP. Taking everything good and if they can't steal it destroy it.

[ixion]

35. Clinton didn't make things better.

He escalated the so-called 'war' on (some) drugs.

He introduced NAFATA.

Like Obama, he continued the Bush-era policies before him.

It's been getting steadily worse, not better.

[jus_the_facts]

77. Lest we forget Clinton also repealed the Glass-Steagall Act...

....he most definitely is NOT a hero...which I was too ignorant to see at the time....hindsight is always crystal clear. :banghead:

[Thor_MN]

26. If you are 45, you were not alive when JFK was shot

I'm a bit older than you and I have seen things change. Things got generally worse when the conservatives held power and a bit better when liberals were in charge. After 9/11, fascists have used corporate wealth to instill fear in the weak and to grab power. What had been a slow slide towards the bulk of wealth being held by just a few turned into a free fall.

[Rhiannon12866]

29. I think things changed after Reagan was elected

"The Culture of Fear," and all that. I think they've gone steadily downhill since then. :(

[anneboleyn]

68. Yes, I was born in the seventies, and it seems like in the last decade the middle class

has been rapidly declining. For decades wages increased and the middle class was relatively healthy, then the slow slide started in the early 80s (ish) as companies began to move overseas, plants closed, and manufacturing jobs were not replaced by new ones. But since 2001 there has been a breathtaking collapse -- the middle class is on the verge of disappearing entirely, and the wealthy are making astronomical amounts of money, in percentages that the greediest CEOs in the 80s would find stunning. "Greed is good," indeed.

[hfojvt]

31. that's pretty funny

since 1966 when there was no such thing as the internet, or DVDs, or cell phones, or Ipods and back then it was rare for people to have tatoos. There was also smoking in most workplaces.

Otherwise lots of things have changed. We have much fewer small farms and are more urbanized. US population has almost doubled and world population more than doubled, from 3 billion to 7 billion.

Is any of that substantial? Meaner? Stupider? I would invite you to read about the Freedom Riders. Or watch the PBS series "Eyes on the Prize" about the Civil Rights movement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_riders

Okay, that's a little bit before you were born, but that level of meanness and stupidity seems to have changed.

[Warren DeMontague]

30. No. Really, not. The stupid political fights are the exact same, the dumb fucking culture war bs.

Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann are just Spiro Agnew and Dan Quayle with boobs. The right wing will be whining about abortion and birth control and creationism and flag burning until the end of time. Things aren't that different, not politically. 9-11 was used as an excuse for a lot of bullshit that was happening or in the works, already. Civil Liberties and the bill of rights- particularly the 4th amendment- were long gone, already, due to the drug war. Don't let anyone tell you different.

What IS different now? Technology. The internet existed in 2001, but not like now. There have been MASSIVE changes to the way most of the world interacts with each other -and I consider these to be, on the whole, beneficial, particularly where it involves the unfettered exchange of information-- and those of us who were already adults when Clinton won his first term may think we've adapted and changed, but even we are starting to look like dinosaurs.

Things were different, but not in the ways that they claim. I really think the political landscape in the US would be pretty much the same as it is now, except maybe we wouldn't have quite as many wars to pay for. That's one thing that hasn't changed, but it should have- we've hugely increased military spending since 9-11... well, shit, lots of us were of the opinion that we were spending way too much on the military BEFORE 9-11.

[ejpoeta]

47. were the fringe nuts championed as they are now? i don't remember that

myself. i think if there is a difference it is that the crazy nutjobs once pushed to the edges of the party are now front and center and writing laws. that is scary. i have no idea if that happened before. the first election i paid any attention to was the one with bush 1 and clinton and perot. It was my first to vote in. I watched all the debates, clinton playing the sax on late night.... they seemed like two sides of the same coin to me. said one thing to one crowd and another to another crowd. that isn't different than anyone else, it is just the first time i actually paid attention and listened. In the 90s I was in college and didn't really pay much attention to anything. I had my daughter in 96 and my boyfriend and I lived very poor for a while. So we were busy trying to get through the week for a few years. There were more regular shows on tv. Not all this reality tv. I remember watching the first season of survivor. Don't remember when that was. I watched the first season of big brother and liked it. but it didn't do well because the next season they changed it.... I don't like it anymore. All that back stabbing and meanness. People might have been as mean before, but they weren't so blatant about it. I worry about a lack of empathy in kids today.

[Warren DeMontague]

74. To put things in perspective, lynchings used to be consided good Sunday entertainment.

So, a lack of empathy? I don't know if you could call it so much 'worse'. There's a lot of crap on tv, but then there's also a lot more choice as to what to watch. If you're a science or nature fan, you can pretty much watch things like NOVA or the Science Channel all day.

I haven't watched "Survivor" or "Big Brother" or any of those shows ever, in my entire life, and I plan to keep it that way.

Yes, the nutjobs have taken over the GOP, the nutjobs were always part of the GOP, I do think that somewhere between Bush I and Bush II they decided they wouldn't be placated anymore by happy talk while still supporting mildly social conservative but still-not-quite-totally-insane candidates like, say, Bob Dole. I think Souter pissed them off endlessly.

Certainly, the crazies seem to have gotten crazier and they seem to get crazier still, part of this is egged on by the whole fox/hate radio gestalt of trying to out-shock the last guy for the sake of ratings... "Ann Coulter says liberals should be put in camps? Well I, Michael Savage, say we should just shoot 'em like dogs!" That sort of thing.

I was in my early 20s when Clinton was elected the first time, I went and saw Him and Hillary and Al and Tipper at the State of Illinois bldg. in Chicago, it was all very inspirational to me. I thought his election was a huge deal, and it caused a giant freak-out temper tantrum among the right wing which is still reverberating today.

[TomClash]

32. To clarify . . .

Are you asking whether the 9/11 event caused changes related to the event or is it just a convenient before/after date for any changes?

[quaker bill]

33. Life, no, some details, yes

Day to day stuff was nearly the same in every way. The only bits I can see different, are that getting on an aircraft has become a bit of an ordeal and the wackaloon fringe of the republican party that Nixon, Reagan, and Bush I kept hidden in the attic are now more or less running the show over there.

Of course there are the wars, but unless you are serving or close to someone who is, little about life in general has changed. The wars are not different from the Vietnam period, except for the lack of a surtax to fund it, and no draft. The economy is in bad shape, but that happened occasionally before 9/11, so the change there does not seem related.

[ixion]

34. Yes, it was different

We were further away from the police state, albeit still on the path. 911 was their 'Pearl Harbor Moment' they used to clear out the final obstacles. Now, the police state is actualized and will continue to make our lives miserable as long as we tolerate it.

[CJCRANE]

36. Anti-globalization protests/riots were big in the couple of summers before 9/11.

That's what I remember. There was a burgeoning anti-globalization movement at the tail end of Clinton's second term and beginning of Bush's first.

The protests happened in several countries usually before G8 summits. Ironically the anti-globalization groups were some of the first to start using the internet to organize.

But then 9/11 happened and the movement disappeared overnight.

[grillo7]

37. That's a really good and overlooked observation n/t

[reggie the dog]

73. coverage of the movement disappeared, the movement carries on

the G 20 are comming to CANNES in november!!! i am going to be there protesting, it is only 45 minutes from where i live. lots of anarchists from all over the world will be there. i honeslty hope to see the city in flames as it really is a "rich peoples paradise" and the poor all live well outside of town or up in the hills. i may have to challenge france's new 'no masks in public' law that day. i have to do something, my girl is 3 and she is inheriting a shit world.

[PufPuf23]

84. Perceptive. Thank you. nt

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

87. juvenile dirtbags smashing shit wasn't much of a movement

and their still smashing shit at world gatherings quite reliably.

[CJCRANE]

104. True, but the framing was different then.

Francis Fukuyama's "End of History" concept gained ground at the end of the 90s, the idea that liberal democracy (or more accurately liberal capitalism) had won and that there was no other ideology that could confront it.

There was now a Macdonalds in Red Square and it seemed like there was nothing to stop there from being one in every town square from Abu Dhabi to Zanzibar. Satellite dishes were springing up all over the place, streaming MTV and Hollywood blockbusters into the world's living rooms (including the Middle East).

Conservatives everywhere were terrified of a global youth culture dominated by explicit rap music and socialists dreaded seeing a Starbucks on every street corner wherever they went.

So for activists the ideological battle lines were very clear, it was corporate vs anti-corporate, mass globalization vs anti-globalization.

[no_hypocrisy]

38. Your government only spied on you after justifying its reason with a judge.

[alphafemale]

39. It is sometimes hard to believe it was almost 10 years ago.

That kids graduating HS now have only vague childhood memories of the event, and within a few short years young adults will have no memory of that day whatsoever.

That morning and in the immediate aftermath we had just shared a collective moment of shock as a nation. Many of us were believing we were witnessing a tragedy, when suddenly when that second plane hit we were witnessing something completely different.


Completely different in that our perception of safety as being nearly untouchable, and safe from foreign attack, was forever removed as two of our most remarkable icons, on one of our most famous skylines, were reduced to a smoldering pile of concrete and twisted re-bar in a space of hours. On live TV. We all realized almost at the same moment with unimaginable horror that...that was not debris falling from the upper floors of Tower 1. That was somebodies Mom. That was somebodies husband.

And maybe it could have been different. Maybe. With a smarter President we may not have gotten involved in two wars without any perceivable end?

gb2 went from a 42% approval rating to 91% literally overnight. It was a scary time to be among those 9%ers. It was like suddenly being around pod people circa Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

But we have always been paranoid as a nation. An example is the collective hysteria over strangers tainting Halloween candy. Razor blades in apples, Cyanide in the Skittles, and all that. All a lie. Every bit.

Do you know that the ONLY recorded case of anyone messing with Halloween Candy was a freak that poisoned his own kid?

That's it. There never has been a stranger danger related to Halloween. Yet the myth of the danger is accepted as fact.

Yes. We are paranoid. We always have been. 9/11 didn't start that. It just gave the paranoids a rock to throw their anchor on.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

93. Ronald Clark O'Bryan poisoned his own son.

That was about five miles from where I grew up. Deer Park, Texas. The daughter also got the pixystix with cyanide but didn't open them. Wikipedia says that O'Bryan "may have distributed poisoned candy to other children in an attempt to cover up his crime".

That killed Halloween for a long time.


And in the town where I grew up, Pasadena, two miles in the other direction, the largest mass murder in the United States up to that time, in 1973, occurred, at the house of Dean Corll. He was murdered by his accomplice, Elmer Wayne Henley. They killed about thirty boys. The neighborhood was identical to the blue collar hood I grew up in. The cops looked the other way instead of investigating the missing boys.



There's my friend here in East Texas who used to live in Milwaukee. He was in a bar and some guy came up to him and said "Hey do you wanna go to Chicago? I can give you a ride." My friend thought, "Why in the hell would I want to get in a car with a stranger and go to Chicago? He could do anything to me".

The stranger's name? Jeffrey Dahmer.



People are paranoid. But there are also criminals out there doing horrible things. I just happened to live a few miles between two notorious instances of murder.

[elias49]

40. I think so - absolutely.

9/11 gave the PTB a boogeyman that will never go away.
Terra!
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
It isn't just about airports and getting on a plane. It's distrusting people with names that are hard to pronounce. It's distrusting your neighbor, or the guy who does your landscaping.
Both of my kids - now in their early thirties - changed after 9/11. They became distrustful, wary of strangers.
In the 90's people weren't so anxious about when the other shoe would drop.
I don't recall people being so worried that dark-skinned folks were coming to take away my 'freedom'.
Now people are worried about the light-skinned folks in DC coming for our freedom...all in the name of 'Terra'.
Oh, yeah, I absolutely think things were different.

[Dawson Leery]

92. Things were indeed different.

[rosesaylavee]

41. yes. it was very different.

Govt was crazy but there was always hope and logic somewhere within any crazy story that came out of washington. There was always a sense that someone somewhere would provide a good solution to any given setback and that it would eventually be fine with a little tweaking.

[HereSince1628]

42. With respect to civil liberties, very much different.

With respect to perpetual fear very much different.

With respect to Jingoism? Pre-911 America jingled only during Christmas sleigh rides.

[philly_bob]

43. Police surveillance and arrest powers were more limited. n/t

[leveymg]

44. For Left-wing political activists, this has always seemed like a police state

After 9/11, everyone was suspect, and everyone profiled.

[BlueMTexpat]

45. I believe that it was better in many ways.

Unfortunately, we got a foretaste of what would become full-blown Repug insanity with the Clinton impeachment proceedings - and there was still too much centrism on the part of most elected Dems from 1992 on. This centrism tendency has worsened exponentially, IMO.

But there was a lot of good faith towards the US around the globe - whether that was deserved is arguable - but it did exist - and there was an exceptional surge of global empathy for us right after 9-11. We lost all of that (except perhaps in the UK where loyal Blair-ites supported *) under *, especially after his lying justifications for invading Iraq, which had absolutely zero to do with 9-11. Some of that global good will was reclaimed by the mere fact of electing President Obama.

New Orleans still existed as a major US city and we had more belief and trust that our Governmental institutions were generally looking out for us - again whether that was justified is arguable - but I do not believe that an SEC under President Gore, had the 2000 election not been stolen, would ever have allowed the underpinnings of the 2008 financial crisis. I also do not believe that Enron would have been allowed to manufacture the CA energy crisis that led to the recall of Gray Davis and the ascension of Ahhnold.

I'm also pretty darn sure that the USD would not now be worth approximately 90% of the Swiss franc compared to its value prior to 9-11. There are now actually predictions that the USD may cease to become a global currency as early as 2016 and the current GOP budgetary idiocies are not helping to dispell them.

[Dawson Leery]

90. Clinton's security team prevented the "millienial attacks".

Bush's security team did s**t.

[BlueMTexpat]

103. True -

*'s so-called "security team" was a horrible joke. Clueless, incompetent and with one clear focus: to "get" Saddam Hussein by whatever means possible - even if he wasn't a threat to US security at all.

[deutsey]

46. IMO, the early '90s ('90-'92) had great potential

The '80s (and all the Reaganesque bullshit that came with it) had finally limped to a close and there was a moment when it seemed like a new '60s style rebellion was forming. It fizzled after Clinton's election and was gone or marginalized by the late '90s as mainstream culture became obsessed with the Survivor/Who Wants to be a Millionaire ethos. The "Battle in Seattle" revived the possibility of a new movement and I believe the anti-Bush demonstration in DC planned for the end of September 2001 would have been massive (there was a lot of buzz around it), but 9/11 effectively snuffed it out.

Even in the mid- to late-'90s, though, I remember the overall vibe being better than it's been since 9/11. And don't forget: a majority of Americans voted for Gore (as lame as his campaign was), which indicates what's happening now has been foisted onto us for 10 years without popular consent. As Naomi Klein points out in Shock Doctrine, that's the only way these rightwing dipshits can push through their unpopular agenda, and that's what they've been doing since 9/11 in particular, but also since stealing the 2000 election.

[Shagbark Hickory]

48. Well I took being not being mired in two (possibly 3) endless wars for granted. nt

I don't feel any safer now from terrorists either.

[woo me with science]

49. Yes, it was better.

I look back at pictures from that time and get emotional at the naivete and innocence of many aspects of life.

There was a general trust that our system of government and Constitution would protect us in the most important ways.

For the middle class, at least, there was a sense that economic problems tended to be caused by circumstances and would improve with time. I don't know anyone who truly believed then that the system would be permitted to be fundamentally and purposely altered the way it has been, as quickly as it has been, to impoverish the many and benefit the few.

Some were perspicacious and attentive to national and world events and and saw this coming. For many of us, these past ten years have been like a nightmare unfolding, and we look back and wonder how we could have missed the signs as badly as we did.

[grillo7]

51. I think it ushered in a kind of new perma-conservatism

Centrism ruled the dem establishment, liberal protests were vilified, and right-wing extremism became mainstream. I don't think we'd have as much tea party nonsense now without having underwent 9-11 and Bush craziness and the whole weird era that entailed.

[IcyPeas]

52. FOX NEWS.... propaganda

Even though it's been around since 1996.......I look back and think it is responsible for a lot of the hate in politics we have now.

The channel was created by Australian-American media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who hired former NBC executive Roger Ailes as the founding CEO.The channel was launched on October 7, 1996 to 17 million cable subscribers. The channel grew in the late 1990s and 2000s to become the dominant cable news network in the United States.Fox News finished the first quarter of 2009 as the second-most-watched cable network in primetime, behind USA Network.

Some critics have asserted that Fox News Channel promotes conservative political positions. Fox News Channel says that its political commentary and news reporting operate independently of each other and denies any bias in its news reporting.

and yeah, all the security we have now - at airports, bus stations, train stations, office buildings, etc.

and all the racism, especially toward Muslims and anyone who looks like they could be Middle Eastern, headscarves, other ethnic clothing.

Good post!! Interesting to hear of someone in your age group questioning this. It must seem all "normal" to you.

[customerserviceguy]

53. You could keep your shoes on in an airport

And your kid didn't get felt up.

[undeterred]

54. Handing the presidency to Bush in 12/00 was the end of the rule of law.

9/11 just gave him an opportunity to start acting on it.

[MindPilot]

55. Yes, very, very different

the Fourth & Fifth Amendments actually meant something; the Constitution was more than "just a goddamn piece of paper". Habeas Corpus, Due Process, and Posse Comitatus were not "legal fictions" and no government official would dream of saying something like "people need to watch what they say".

We were so free in the before time that that it was completely unnecessary to write songs about it.

We have become I think a much meaner, warlike, national security state whose citizens think nothing of being searched before attending a concert or sporting event. Aweful lot of "Good Germans" in the old USofA.

[mmonk]

56. Yes.

Sanity has almost no chance now.

[The Straight Story]

57. One thing off hand - we used to trust fellow citizens more, now we are all potential terrorists

We are now so afraid of each other rights were thrown out the window.

6 yr old kids being groped at an airport? When I was kid we did not even have metal detectors and we could wait with dad for his plan at the gate.

Hell, before 9/11 I could wait with my X at the gate.

Now....well, you and I are potential enemies of the state. And I am not just talking about airports either.

I used to be just a citizen, now I am a suspect.

[Dawson Leery]

91. +1

Add to that, police consider themselves to be "warriors" now.
Reagan began to militarize civilian society. This phenom had been creeping upwards for the 20 years when Reagan took office until 9/11.
After 9/11 the "security state" took full effect.

[treestar]

58. No.

That is just media meme they like to use to make it all more dramatic. That's the only real change, the tendency to dramatize everything to the maximum. Things did change, but it's started to mellow out and go back to normal. For a while there people were willing to give up their freedom for the illusion of safety.

[Name removed]

85. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[The Backlash Cometh]

59. Oh, God yes.

We have become completely fractured as a country.

[leeroysphitz]

60. I could afford to smoke three packs a day and I WOULD. Anywhere I felt like.

and the GAS prices. So low. Some days when I had nothing else to do I would just hop in my pick up and spend the whole day just driving around smoking.

[reggie the dog]

78. you may be saying that as a joke, but i would do the same thing

but the weed price hasnt really gone up at all since the 90's. fucking gasoline has.

[pipi_k]

61. I think it was...

The idea of a terrorist strike in the US just wasn't first and foremost on our minds. Well, most of us, anyway.

Now it seems like the least little odd occurrence is grounds for panic. Backpacks left outside a building. A stray package on the ground. It wasn't until after 9/11 that people were told (courtesy of Dubya The Stupid) that we should be vigilant but calm.

People taking photos of water supplies...like Quabbin Reservoir...a lovely place and deserving of being photographed http://www.foquabbin.org/ were tourists...not terrorists.

Duct tape and plastic sheeting didn't have ominous meanings...

the very word "terrorist" didn't conjure up images (in the minds of many people) of dark skinned men from the Middle East.

And before 9/11 it probably wouldn't have been possible to put an idiot in the White House for a second term. Yeah, Reagan mostly sucked, but W was worse (IMO, anyway). The Bush gang really capitalized on people's fear after 9/11.

Lots of things changed after 9/11

[reggie the dog]

62. all the fascist shit they try in the war on terror

used to be done in the war on drugs. i would get stopped and frisked to the point that the cops touched my private areas many times just for riding a bike and "looking like a druggie" years before i even started to smoke reefer. the war on drugs was the excuse used to do wire taps etc. now it is the war on terror and the tsa shit in the airports.

back in the 90s though you could get on any us domestic flight with weed in your pocket no problem. no xrays, no drug or bomb dogs etc. after 911 you cant do that anymore.

[reggie the dog]

63. you were allowed to bring a bottle of water from home

to the airport instead of paying 3 dollars for one, you could get into planes with shampoo, wine, etc. and you could leave your shoes on in airport security.

[Gregorian]

64. No. Nothing changes. Almost nothing.

Prohibition. Communist blacklisting. Drug war. Hell, the Civil War had to be fought over bullshit. Almost all corporate related.

I always thought the joke was the notion of everything changed after 9/11 being meaningless.

Someone is always having to hide from the authorities. The only difference is technology.

[truedelphi]

66. In 2001, George W's "Reign of Weird" was just beginning.

For eight years, Clinton was in office. Things were not great. Jobs were being off shored.

But young people especially had seen a decent time in late nineties. If they were computer savvy, they could move to The SF Bay area, or Boston's Silicon Gulch or any of a number of places and get great jobs. With fabulous benefits and strange celebrations paid for by the newly minted millionaires of the dot com bubble.

But a lot of the shit had not hit the fan. Not even after the dot com bubble burst.

The Banking "Reform" bill that Clinton had signed off on during his last months in office - all the ramifications of combining gambling, financial "investing" and what not with regular banking - none of those ramifications had affected our daily lives.

And certainly we didn't get groped or near-molested just for getting on an airplane.

The housing market bubble saw to it that people who knew how to lay a foundation, do masonry or sell housing, create mortgage packages etc could make a killing.

I also think that perhaps since we didn't have the internet blogosphere in the nineties, we could believe more firmly in the fact that the nation had two separate political parties which were opposed to one another. The collusion that some of us now see between Obama and the Republicans was probably the same collusion that the Clintons were guilty of.

But since blogging and the internet were in their infancy during the Clinton administration, even those of us paying attention couldn't back up the suspicion that something was not right about our political processes.

[SoCalDem]

67. "Life" was not different , but the aggravation-happiness ratio is off kilter now

Before 911 people (generally) felt that we were "untouchable" and perpetually safe. 911 taught us that "someone" from "somewhere" could do something massively destructive, and could kill a whole bunch of random people.. We have always had scapegoats, but 911 gave us a real live bogeyman.

The sad thing is that most of the US is so woefully uninformed that they truly did not know the answer to the oft asked question "Why do "they" hate us?"

Because so many of us were totally not paying attention to the rest of the world, we ALL have to potentially pay the consequences

[Ikonoklast]

69. Yes, The Fascists held meetings in secret, and kept their agenda hidden.

They now go on TV every day to tell you how they're going to screw you over, and that there's not one damn thing you can do about it.

We are ten senators away from being a banana republic run by oligarchs for their amusement and profit.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

88. In the 70's the fascists killed any progressive who was getting public support (JFK, MLK, RLK)

Now, when someone inspires the masses they either try to take them down via witch hunt (Clinton impeachment) or just buy them off. Taking single payer medical care off the table before negotiations began, refusing to prosecute Bush, etc., and others who have clearly broken the law, including those who nearly destroyed the world economy, and appointing the Cat Food Commission as cover for destroying Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are not the actions of a progressive president.

In the 70's what we learned in civics was true: (1) the government of the United States is comprised of three co-equal branches, any two which serve as a check against the third; (2) church and state were separate (JFK declaring that his actions as president would not be run by the Vatican comes to mind); and (3) even those who had committed a crime had rights (Miranda, free counsel, jury of peers, appeals up to the Supreme Court). Now we have a "unitary executive", ongoing takeover of political bodies and agencies as well as the military by fundamentalists. And we have evil that is represented by Guantanamo.

In the 70's we would recoil as a nation at the word "torture."

In the 70's if you wanted a college education you could get one and not go $200,000 debt to do so. If you were hired by a company you could reasonably expect that if you did good work you'd be there until you retired. Teachers, firemen and policemen were your friends and neighbors and not your enemies. It was possible to have a political discussion with a friend or family member and still be friends afterward.

It was different because we looked at ourselves as working toward a common cause -- to make our country as good as it could be for everyone. We might have different approaches, and it might have taken years or even decades for change to occur, but when it did it was generally for the common good. Now, the attitude is "I've got mine, fuck you!"

My sister-in-law was bitching yesterday about "having to pay to send" her son to college when she had "worked to hard" to earn her degree. Her Dad was a doctor, so my questions were (1) did you ever personally pay your tuition at Northwestern? (2) did you ever have to pay for room or board? (3) did you ever worry about whether you'd have the money to get through college in four years? Of course not. But this is different...

In the 70's you didn't wake up each morning with anxiety over whether your job would be outsourced, how would you pay for medical care if your child became ill, and what are you going to do to take care of yourself financially in your old age.

I think the biggest change is that we have become a nation of victims. "I shouldn't have to..." has replaced "We, the people..."

In the 70's we saw ourselves as a benevolent presence in the world; now we see ourselves as its master.

I'm 61. I remember watching Sputnik going overhead and feeling good that it was there, no matter who did it.

From my perspective the world -- and our country -- has changed dramatically since the 70's. It feels like we took a wrong turn when Reagan became president, and that we have been running headlong down the wrong track ever since. To me, 9/11 represents the point at which a large portion of our population shut off its rational brain and returned to the stimulus-response of the lizard brain. It's the point where our headlong rush toward self-destruction accelerated to warp speed.

And yet, for those born now these will be the "good old days."

[jimlup]

70. Not really...

I saw Robert Redford's "The Conspiracy" last night about the Lincoln assassination. It was a reminder to me how much nothing has changed. That event at the end of the Civil War was very much a 9-11 type event. Shocking to people of the time certainly. It caused a similar reaction to the then enemy - the Southern States of the former Confederacy. Trial by military tribunal. Illegal actions by the executive branch, mass hysteria and fear as well as assumptions of guilt.

No, 9/11 didn't really change anything. If you followed politics before 9/11 you surely knew that many expected a 9/11 type event and when it happened then people became predictably paranoid. In a way it was the start of a new era but this era of hating the terrorists and musllims simply replaces the former era of hating the Soviets and the communists. The country was badly in need of a new enemy and 9/11 served it up on a platter.

[lumberjack_jeff]

76. This is the saddest post I've read all week. n/t

[woo me with science]

94. Incredibly sad, and also scary.

It is easy to forget how short lives and memories are. That is how fascist states are able to develop so quickly. If there is going to be a pushback or even a revolution, it has to occur soon, because it will ONLY occur at the hands of those who remember...

[Odin2005]

79. I am almost 25 and so I remember the 90s.

To me it was almost a Golden Age compared to the last 10 years.

[Jack Sprat]

86. Oh yes.

Well it was different until the 2000 election when the people elected Al Gore, who had been VP under Clinton and presided over 3 consecutive budget surpluses. There was tremendous consumer confidence because of that alone. People had not felt that good about the economy in a long time. But the SCOTUS said a recount of the Florida vote was not allowed (???????? nobody knows why until this day) Suddenly democracy was dead.

Then some 9 months later under the appointed president Boy George Bush, 19 mideastern terrorists successfully hijacked 3 commercial airplanes. Boy George couldn't handle the embarrasment. Although a brief attack against the plotters in Afghanistan was understandable, the Boy King with the urging of a demented psychopath VP launched an invasion of Iraq that was completely unfounded or understood by anyone of sound mind. At the same time, Boy George Bush cut taxes at the same time of his long-term invasion and occupation which has cost well over a trillion dollars and counting, even though his top aides said the war would pay for itself. The world economy went into chotic spasms of debt, governments became secretive and corrupt, and Osama Bin Laden made fools of the whole lot of them while still rolling around in some luxury cave in the mountains laughing at how he took bankrupted another superpower making their currency almost worthless. This is what happens when a democracy is undermined with an incompetent idiot being placed in a place of power. Actions have consequences on a big world stage. Elections do matter.

[yngdip]

95. I'm a wee bit older and I remember

that the NEWS was really NEWS. There were less 1/2 hour specials on the pop stars of the moment. After 9/11, it seemed like asking real questions became dangerous. There was also less reality TV, which left more reality for the living and not for the watching :)

[Dawson Leery]

106. "Reality" TV is a reflection of the blind decadence

of this past decade, which is to say the 1980's on steroids and then some.
The importance of material goods was heavily emphasized by the neo-cons. More so it was a means to keep the masses
in line.

[Rex]

96. Actually everything was different prior to the election in 2000.

9/11 just snowballed the affect. We were much freer to travel around the country and draconian measures (like suspending habeas corpus) would have been unthinkable. So would assassination and torture...didn't have those kind of 'govt tools' so open and obvious. It was easier to get information from the govt; you didn't get arrested for taking pictures of a farm or a cop car. There were no quagmire wars, inflation was going down and the govt DID NOT allow corporations to run for office or give money directly to politicians.

Just a few things off the top of my head.

[upi402]

97. that explains a lot

you are young

keep coming back

[Raine]

99. Pre-911 you weren't searched before going into an amusement park

or county fair. In those days you could go into the airport to see off departing friends or welcome them back. I remember being in the airport and watching the plane taxi on the runway, those days are gone forever.

[CJCRANE]

105. Forget the birther thread, join this thread!

It's much more interesting.

(Just giving this one a kick as some DUers seem to be distracted by the birther thread).

[Dawson Leery]

107. kick for additional responses