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I grew up right outside DC (a few blocks from NIH) and while I didn't lose anyone on 9/11, I came pretty close and know plenty of people who did. The freedom w

by tedks 11y ago

I grew up right outside DC (a few blocks from NIH) and while I didn't lose anyone on 9/11, I came pretty close and know plenty of people who did. The freedom we lost on 9/11 make the lives we lost pale in comparison. People grieve but get over the loss of their loved ones. Death is a normal part of life, however horrific, and people can cope with it. The things I've seen since 9/11, some of them I find harder to cope with. Police carrying submachine guns on street corners; every government building sprouting snipers and anti-tank barricades and razor wire; oblique-angled antennae-sprouting APCs and god knows what else carrying legions of power-armored riot police at every protest. America looks scarier now. It's hard to feel safe in an environment like this, where you feel besieged by an invisible enemy. Of course, this is exactly the intention of the people carrying out these policies, and ironically, also the intention of the terrorists. Politics make strange bedfellows indeed -- it's not hard to see how the Pentagon has seized on terrorism as a way to increase its own power, and conversely, as the Pentagon acts against "global terror," "global terror" is able to ratchet up the propaganda and recruit even more jihadists to the cause. Terrorism has had an impact because people in the United States wanted it to.

logfromblammo 11y ago
Invisible enemy? I probably wouldn't be able to spot a genuine terrorist if it leaped out from behind a bush and shouted "boo!" But I have noticed how cops and bureaucrats and securibots have become more paranoid and fearful over the last 15 years. It has even created some kind of bizarre psychological feedback loop, wherein some cops use widespread belief in a mythical "war on cops" to cover up anything from honest mistakes to outright corruption, and the stories they make up reinforce the myth. Then formerly normal and expected behavior, such as protesters hurling verbal abuse or criminal suspects committing violence to evade capture, is recruited into the myth, becoming part of a coordinated conspiracy instead of just normal behavior. At some point, when the cops have thoroughly convinced themselves that someone is out to get them, and armed and trained themselves for war, another hand rises up to meet the one that was clapping, and the mythical war begins recruiting soldiers into the de facto opposing army. Treat people like your enemy for long enough, and they may oblige you by becoming one in fact. This is exactly the same phenomenon I have seen in foil-hatted crackpots. Once you get it in your head that lizard people are ruling the Earth, confirmation bias takes over, and you start seeing evidence of lizard people everywhere. If you stand up in the local city council meeting and accuse one of the members of being a lizard in disguise, you get thrown out of the meeting for being a disruptive lunatic, but in your mind it is because they don't want you blowing their cover. If you get a speeding ticket, it's because the lizard people have targeted you for retributive harassment. If your milk spoils before the sell-by date, it's because they're sneaking into your house and tampering with your food when you're away. You just cannot combat that kind of contagious insanity with facts and logic. The tiresome, paranoiac behavior of government officials just makes us all less tolerant of their ordinary, everyday bullshit. And that makes the marginal individuals, like the Ammon Bundy "Y'allQaeda" sit-in group at Malheur NWR, act out. And that winds the government officials up tighter. And that encourages the next group to blow their lids. And that winds the government officials up tighter.... Someone will eventually have to realize that government is manufacturing its own dissent, by acting like a bunch of dangerous lunatics. If it would just take a deep breath and do a little bit of introspection, it will become obvious just who needs to be fired in order to halt the spreading madness, and who needs to be promoted in their stead to reverse it.

by tedks 11y ago

logfromblammo 11y ago

Invisible enemy? I probably wouldn't be able to spot a genuine terrorist if it leaped out from behind a bush and shouted "boo!" But I have noticed how cops and bureaucrats and securibots have become more paranoid and fearful over the last 15 years. It has even created some kind of bizarre psychological feedback loop, wherein some cops use widespread belief in a mythical "war on cops" to cover up anything from honest mistakes to outright corruption, and the stories they make up reinforce the myth. Then formerly normal and expected behavior, such as protesters hurling verbal abuse or criminal suspects committing violence to evade capture, is recruited into the myth, becoming part of a coordinated conspiracy instead of just normal behavior. At some point, when the cops have thoroughly convinced themselves that someone is out to get them, and armed and trained themselves for war, another hand rises up to meet the one that was clapping, and the mythical war begins recruiting soldiers into the de facto opposing army. Treat people like your enemy for long enough, and they may oblige you by becoming one in fact. This is exactly the same phenomenon I have seen in foil-hatted crackpots. Once you get it in your head that lizard people are ruling the Earth, confirmation bias takes over, and you start seeing evidence of lizard people everywhere. If you stand up in the local city council meeting and accuse one of the members of being a lizard in disguise, you get thrown out of the meeting for being a disruptive lunatic, but in your mind it is because they don't want you blowing their cover. If you get a speeding ticket, it's because the lizard people have targeted you for retributive harassment. If your milk spoils before the sell-by date, it's because they're sneaking into your house and tampering with your food when you're away. You just cannot combat that kind of contagious insanity with facts and logic. The tiresome, paranoiac behavior of government officials just makes us all less tolerant of their ordinary, everyday bullshit. And that makes the marginal individuals, like the Ammon Bundy "Y'allQaeda" sit-in group at Malheur NWR, act out. And that winds the government officials up tighter. And that encourages the next group to blow their lids. And that winds the government officials up tighter.... Someone will eventually have to realize that government is manufacturing its own dissent, by acting like a bunch of dangerous lunatics. If it would just take a deep breath and do a little bit of introspection, it will become obvious just who needs to be fired in order to halt the spreading madness, and who needs to be promoted in their stead to reverse it.