4 ms·

Thanks for writing this. It is good to hear the experience of someone that was close by. I live clear on the other side of the country (and did on 9/11 too). I

Thanks for writing this. It is good to hear the experience of someone that was close by. I live clear on the other side of the country (and did on 9/11 too). I didn’t know anyone that died that day, and to the best of my knowledge I’ve never met anyone who lost someone that day either. So it is good for those of you who did experience it to write about it since it is so easy for people like me to be no more affected by it than any other historic event that is far removed.

noduerme 5y ago
It's weird. I lived in LA at the time and I was in my early 20s. I remember my gf waking me up at 6:30am to go look at the TV. It doesn't feel like an historical or far-away event to me. It seems like the most pivotal moment of my life, when this country changed and everything changed. We were worried about LA being attacked, worried about bio/chem attacks. Suddenly there were no-fly lists, and things called TSA and Homeland Security. Domestic mass surveillance really started then ... it's when all the methods from the drug wars were brought onto American soil. Suddenly there were truther conspiracy theories on a fairly new site called YouTube. Suddenly psychopaths on local Texas radio made their way into the national conversation. And a year or so later I found myself kettled by cops at a protest against our invasion of Iraq. I posted a novel on my website that got a lot of hits from military IP addresses in Virginia and Iraq. A neighbor told me the police were going through my trash while I was at work. My apartment got broken into and only a laptop and my papers stolen. I left the US and lived abroad for 10 years. When I think of Americans who were alive then and younger, or who weren't born, looking at it as a historical event, it boggles my mind. Everything about this country has been deformed and twisted, every aspect of the society you live in from security theater at the airport to the militarization of local police, all that hardware, to the way the giant internet sites function now (or don't), to all the conspiracy-fueled madness that led to 1/6/21, which is the only other day that began to feel like 9/11. All of it started that day, it's the moment when we entered the wrong alternate universe.
- joemazerino 5y ago
  > to all the conspiracy-fueled madness that led to 1/6/21, which is the only other day that began to feel like 9/11. THAT is an interesting, and wildly speculative, take.
  - noduerme 5y ago
    I don't know what the other trajectory would have been, i.e. had 9/11 been foiled. But I do think it served as the ultimate excuse to curtail rights and freedoms. The long wars it led to both warped our society at home and led to two generations of militarization of kids. For instance, I remember how disgusted and shocked I was at the explosion of military displays at baseball and football games. This was all basically fascism using the attack on our free society to embed xenophobic militarism into every aspect of daily life. It's speculative, yea. But without 9/11 I don't think we'd have a culture of giant military style pickup trucks rolling coal and waving flags (American or Confederate). I think the militia movement of the 90s would have stayed much more contained and minor without something to justify their claims of conspiracy and NWO takeover. And I think we wouldn't have developed the sense that we were all living in a disaster movie, and become so callous and inured to what we see on the news. I don't think I can or should summarize all this in a post, but maybe the best way to put it would be that it ended the American Century, and bent the arc of our civilization towards decay and self destruction. It exposed a crack in the foundation of the country that has grown, and keeps growing. I suppose that could have happened any number of ways.
  - giansegato 5y ago
    The Daily from the NYT had an episode a few days ago precisely on this idea. Very interesting. So not totally far fetched I'd say. [1] https://pca.st/episode/6deccd04-ca45-404b-8537-c4bbe73fedb9 https://pca.st/episode/6deccd04-ca45-404b-8537-c4bbe73fedb9
    - noduerme 5y ago
      Interesting. I have to check this out. The description clocks to me as making perfect sense. I usually find that podcast insultingly reductive, hypersensitive and whiny, but put me in a room with anyone who remembers the Bush administration and I guess I'm still a liberal yet. The premise at least is solidly grounded in the effect I've witnessed. Thanks.

noduerme 5y ago

It's weird. I lived in LA at the time and I was in my early 20s. I remember my gf waking me up at 6:30am to go look at the TV. It doesn't feel like an historical or far-away event to me. It seems like the most pivotal moment of my life, when this country changed and everything changed. We were worried about LA being attacked, worried about bio/chem attacks. Suddenly there were no-fly lists, and things called TSA and Homeland Security. Domestic mass surveillance really started then ... it's when all the methods from the drug wars were brought onto American soil. Suddenly there were truther conspiracy theories on a fairly new site called YouTube. Suddenly psychopaths on local Texas radio made their way into the national conversation. And a year or so later I found myself kettled by cops at a protest against our invasion of Iraq. I posted a novel on my website that got a lot of hits from military IP addresses in Virginia and Iraq. A neighbor told me the police were going through my trash while I was at work. My apartment got broken into and only a laptop and my papers stolen. I left the US and lived abroad for 10 years. When I think of Americans who were alive then and younger, or who weren't born, looking at it as a historical event, it boggles my mind. Everything about this country has been deformed and twisted, every aspect of the society you live in from security theater at the airport to the militarization of local police, all that hardware, to the way the giant internet sites function now (or don't), to all the conspiracy-fueled madness that led to 1/6/21, which is the only other day that began to feel like 9/11. All of it started that day, it's the moment when we entered the wrong alternate universe.

joemazerino 5y ago
> to all the conspiracy-fueled madness that led to 1/6/21, which is the only other day that began to feel like 9/11. THAT is an interesting, and wildly speculative, take.
- noduerme 5y ago
  I don't know what the other trajectory would have been, i.e. had 9/11 been foiled. But I do think it served as the ultimate excuse to curtail rights and freedoms. The long wars it led to both warped our society at home and led to two generations of militarization of kids. For instance, I remember how disgusted and shocked I was at the explosion of military displays at baseball and football games. This was all basically fascism using the attack on our free society to embed xenophobic militarism into every aspect of daily life. It's speculative, yea. But without 9/11 I don't think we'd have a culture of giant military style pickup trucks rolling coal and waving flags (American or Confederate). I think the militia movement of the 90s would have stayed much more contained and minor without something to justify their claims of conspiracy and NWO takeover. And I think we wouldn't have developed the sense that we were all living in a disaster movie, and become so callous and inured to what we see on the news. I don't think I can or should summarize all this in a post, but maybe the best way to put it would be that it ended the American Century, and bent the arc of our civilization towards decay and self destruction. It exposed a crack in the foundation of the country that has grown, and keeps growing. I suppose that could have happened any number of ways.
- giansegato 5y ago
  The Daily from the NYT had an episode a few days ago precisely on this idea. Very interesting. So not totally far fetched I'd say. [1] https://pca.st/episode/6deccd04-ca45-404b-8537-c4bbe73fedb9 https://pca.st/episode/6deccd04-ca45-404b-8537-c4bbe73fedb9
  - noduerme 5y ago
    Interesting. I have to check this out. The description clocks to me as making perfect sense. I usually find that podcast insultingly reductive, hypersensitive and whiny, but put me in a room with anyone who remembers the Bush administration and I guess I'm still a liberal yet. The premise at least is solidly grounded in the effect I've witnessed. Thanks.