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Sep. 11th, 2009 11:59 pmMany of my long-time LJ friends have been perusing their journals from 8 years past, to relive the events of 9/11. I found this in my own a couple days later:
http://petermarcus.livejournal.com/79884.html
One quote especially: "I wonder that the rest of the world is in for a long, grueling haul. Not in violence or terror, but in a sharp increase in gagging American rhetoric, self centered American moralism, and force-fed American patriotism."
I remember writing that, and thinking that if the rest of the world thought American opinion too prevalent in the world so far, they had seen nothing compared to what we were going to be like after 9/11, the tiger having her tail pulled. I guess that was a prediction that came true, but (of course) in different ways that I had imagined at the time, when every other car had a flying stars and stripes attached to the radio antenna.
I can't think that prior world powers during the height of their reigns (Britain, France, Spain, Rome...) wouldn't have responded more brutally and decisively to such an attack, with subjugation and annexation as the least of the punishments. And yet, as brutal as we have inevitably have been, our public face to that brutality (with exceptions, of course) has not been the flexing of power, but honest disgust and distancing of ourselves from brutality -- that torture or humiliation was an aberration or a misapplied definition instead of a proud goal to teach the world not to fuck with us. Britain and Rome would not have been discussing exit plans or regime turnovers and free elections of a self-governing people, no matter how friendly or propped up the new governments. If anything, history has shown that Japan, Italy and Germany are far from puppet governments of the former Allies.
What a strange world we're in these days, and what a strange country we are.
http://petermarcus.livejournal.com/79884.html
One quote especially: "I wonder that the rest of the world is in for a long, grueling haul. Not in violence or terror, but in a sharp increase in gagging American rhetoric, self centered American moralism, and force-fed American patriotism."
I remember writing that, and thinking that if the rest of the world thought American opinion too prevalent in the world so far, they had seen nothing compared to what we were going to be like after 9/11, the tiger having her tail pulled. I guess that was a prediction that came true, but (of course) in different ways that I had imagined at the time, when every other car had a flying stars and stripes attached to the radio antenna.
I can't think that prior world powers during the height of their reigns (Britain, France, Spain, Rome...) wouldn't have responded more brutally and decisively to such an attack, with subjugation and annexation as the least of the punishments. And yet, as brutal as we have inevitably have been, our public face to that brutality (with exceptions, of course) has not been the flexing of power, but honest disgust and distancing of ourselves from brutality -- that torture or humiliation was an aberration or a misapplied definition instead of a proud goal to teach the world not to fuck with us. Britain and Rome would not have been discussing exit plans or regime turnovers and free elections of a self-governing people, no matter how friendly or propped up the new governments. If anything, history has shown that Japan, Italy and Germany are far from puppet governments of the former Allies.
What a strange world we're in these days, and what a strange country we are.
