Before this day is dead, will George Bush and Dick Cheney appear on national television dressed as tall buildings while Tom Ridge dances around them with his arms out going 'Brrrrrrr zoom wheeeeeeee brrrbrr brrr brrr kaboom'?
I don't buy the 'September 11 changed everything' idea. Clearly it didn't. Americans are still ignorant provincials sucking desperately at the bloated and inflamed teats of an unrelentingly consumerist way of life. The only real difference is that now your Nike SUV McJolly Meal comes with extra paranoia and no silverware. The message from our (s)elected leaders of the last few years has been not to change at all, in any meaningful way: no sacrifices, no mobilisation, no communities coming together, no meaningful projects at all in fact for the American people to undertake. Just max out your credit cards, or the terrorists have already won. And while you're here, get a big mouthful of this here gasolene and then go 'Blghlghglghglblblblghgbblgh I'm a fountain!'
Then shut up.
This whole War on Terror business has been from the get-go a made-for-TV project. Americans are meant to watch it, to cheer it, to vote for it; but never to actually participate--to join the army, learn Arabic, drive a hybrid, convince your children of the fundamental value and rightness of Enlightenment rationalism, find Afghanistan on a map. Tune in again next week, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel: who knows where those wacky WMDs will wind up next? The hilarity!
Terrorism cannot topple western civilisation (though it might encourage us to topple ourselves). It is not a threat to our way of life. Which is in any case already marked for death in a hundred years or so, when the climate changes and fossil fuels are exhausted. Unless we decide to, y'know, actually start doing something about it.
September 11 was a tragic day, and if someone you know was killed I'm very sorry for your loss. Humanity has seen tragic days before, and it will see others in the future. The gods of war and death will demand sacrifice so long as we worship at their rude altars. What changes?
And some day we'll die, and the Earth will die, and the stars will die, and all matter will die, and the past will die for there will be nothing to remember it, and the future will die for there will be nothing to build it, and the present will die for there will be nothing to mark it. And it will be then as if nothing ever was.
Merry Christmas!
Posted by aloysius at September 11, 2004 12:35 PM | TrackBack |