Our President asks us to remember those dear dead days after 9/11:
We were united, and the outpouring of generosity and compassion reminded us that in times of challenge, we Americans move forward together, as one people.This is dangerous nonsense. I lived in NYC before, during and after 9/11, and I can definitively state that "we" were not united. I rode the 9 train downtown a week after the attacks; there was palpable fear and suspicion of any remotely "Islamic"-looking person who boarded, from Sikhs to Peruvians. I ate in normally crowded Middle Eastern restaurants on Atlantic Avenue, which were empty despite the windows full of American flags. I heard elaborate conspiracies about the Jews (they all called in sick that day! they were dancing and cheering as the towers fell!), and I heard racial epithets hurled at Pakistani families in Jersey City.
Soon after the attacks, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson blamed feminists, fags and the ACLU. Orrin Hatch and Dana Rohrabacher blamed Clinton. So did Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich. John Leo called the NYC firefighters' response to 9/11 "a display of heroism by multiculturalism's villain class, white males," without pausing to wonder why most of the firefighters in a hugely diverse city were white.
When Bill Maher pointed out that "lobbing cruise missiles from two thousand miles away" was not necessarily brave, Ari Fleischer famously responded that "Americans...need to watch what they say, watch what they do." In some towns, people who didn't look like "us" paid for their effrontery with beatings, or with their lives.
Things were typical, in other words: A bunch of scared, angry people spouting ignorant opinions, stifling dissent, bellowing threats and beating up on darkies. America: Open for Business!
The small grain of truth in Obama's claim is that many people who had intelligent things to say about the reasons for the attack, or legitimate concerns about our response, felt compelled to keep their mouths shut. This was a matter of decorum and patriotism, to an extent, but some people also felt intimidated by an officially recognized outburst of "national unity," the main purpose of which was to steel people for the hard work of stamping out difference and dissent.
As usual, "we" were united only inasmuch as we hated "them." And an awful lot of Americans were "them" after 9/11. To the extent that we're less united now than we were then, it's largely because the post-9/11 media and blogosphere worked overtime to mainstream racism, xenophobia and violent political rhetoric, and did so precisely in the name of "unity."
The President himself is the natural heir to a lot of this abuse, so it's not exactly edifying to see him paying pious lip service to the abstractions and lies that inform the current attacks on him. The fact is, much of the national unity after 9/11 was national unity against people like Obama: people who look different, and have funny names, dubious worldviews and questionable allegiances. That's why the right views it as a Golden Age.
I'm not sure what's worse: the idea that he doesn't realize this, or the idea that he does.
17 comments:
I hope Obama knows it's a sugar-coated horsesh*t, because the alternative would be that he's completely lost touch with reality.
There's no way to be certain, but my money would be on the proposition that he's perfectly aware that if he wanted to commit political suicide, the quickest way to do it would be to say these things in public. The shrieking from the usual suspects would shatter every bit of glassware from DC to Orange County.
The shrieking from the usual suspects would shatter every bit of glassware from DC to Orange County.
True. But the thing is, if they don't shriek at this speech, they'll just shriek at the next thing he does. It's not like he can win them over.
Beyond that, he's a smart guy and a good orator. He should be able to avoid this sort of infantile talk. Of course I don't expect him to commemorate the event by bashing Falwell and Gingrich, but there are ways of accentuating the positive without invoking this imaginary goddamn "unity."
I mean, the people who seriously buy into this myth are also very likely to see him as an example of how far the country's devolved from those glory days. I don't see how it benefits him or us.
I know I overreact to this stuff, but it's hard not to. Part of the problem is that I know how many times I bit my own tongue, in those first few weeks, when acquaintances said horrific things. I'm not likely to look back on that as a shining hour, for them or me.
Meanwhile, of course, the country is amazingly united on the question of protecting social programs. You wouldn't know it from listening to the news, though. Or, by and large, the President.
But the thing is, if they don't shriek at this speech, they'll just shriek at the next thing he does. It's not like he can win them over.
I've made that same argument about liberal rhetoric on multiple occasions. But I long ago gave up believing Obama would do anything but seek the path of least resistance. That's the definition of a centrist technocrat.
Part of the problem is that I know how many times I bit my own tongue, in those first few weeks, when acquaintances said horrific things.
I know what you mean. One of the few things I'm proud of doing at that time happened while I was taking a smoke break that awful morning, when one of my co-workers expressed the lovely sentiment that we should just exterminate the Palestinians. (The identity of the hijackers was unknown at that point. He was just guessing.)
Being so agnostic I might as well be an atheist, and a leftist who's spent most of his life in the South, I generally keep my mouth shut (a fact of which I'm not particularly proud). This time, though, I lost it, and rather forcefully pointed out to him that this was exactly the same attitude that just flew two jets into a skyscraper.
Really shocked him, too, since I'm rarely so outspoken. I doubt if I changed his mind, but at least it shut him up.
It was an ugly time, and it's had ugly consequences.
Isn't this just the usual evolution of a myth through which nationalistic jingoism, fervour and political tub thumping is propogated?
They passed some laws swiftly, voiced the unifying anger and demands for vengeance and invaded countries by way of retribution.
Sure, it's exploitation and exaggerative palaver, but it's a gift for anyone in power. If it's not the "ordinary American" or the "spirit of the constitution" or the "American exceptionalism" tropes of ridiculosity, it's gonna be the "unity after 9-11" wankery.
Sorry, to me this stuff is propaganda 101. At times it can actually be useful and inspirational rhetoric, but most of us find it to be cynical, misplaced perversions of the truth.
I think the best way to understand the reaction to 9/11 is that it gave many boomers their chance to play "Greatest Generation" dressup. The depth of denial is directly proportional to the absurdity of the metaphor, compounded by the fact that in the succeeding decade we've systematically betrayed every last one of those ideals which supposedly made us so "exceptional".
well said phila. thank you.
Peacay:
Sure, it's exploitation and exaggerative palaver, but it's a gift for anyone in power.
Well, my argument is that it's not a gift for Obama, though he may believe otherwise. It's more like he's grabbing his worst enemy's stick, and whacking himself in the head with it.
Yeah, it's just a propaganda speech, and I'm not gonna pretend that our fate hangs in the balance here. But I reserve the right to find his statements weird, stupid and depressing. The months between 9/11 and the launching of the Iraq war comprised the worst political era I've ever seen in this country. If that's what being "one people" entails, include me out now and forever.
GM:
I think the best way to understand the reaction to 9/11 is that it gave many boomers their chance to play "Greatest Generation" dressup. The depth of denial is directly proportional to the absurdity of the metaphor, compounded by the fact that in the succeeding decade we've systematically betrayed every last one of those ideals which supposedly made us so "exceptional".
Sounds about right to me. Though I have to add that I don't think our "exceptionalism" was ever based on any loftier ideal than "fuck you, we do what we want." Exceptionalism has always been at odds with this country's ideals; the political pretense that it arises logically from them is a sick joke along the lines of saving Medicare by turning it into a voucher program, or gutting the EPA in the name of clean air.
oh dare not to wake me from my dreams lest i die
surely it was some other us who made those sins
a rose by some other nameless name with a smell i refuse to remember
held by hands that know not what the other might do
Cheney is a boomer? Really?
No, he was born in '41. I guess W is a Boomer, but at that point, the designation stops making any sense.
Not that it really should anyway.
"Boomers," properly defined (not just by birthdate), had their "Greatest Generation" moment in Vietnam, and wanted no further part of it. This was a bunch of old men and their superannuated children (Cheney and W, in other words, and such like them, Boomers by age or not) seeking their military glory, the same they funked during 'Nam.
Although actually Tacitus said what I'm working on saying in a more didactic and certainly more prosaic post.
Obama's speech? Meh, he's become an expert at the anodyne. I expect nothing more of him anymore.
And since I gave up hope, I've been feeling much better, thank you for asking.
Sorry, I meant to add:
Alinsky!
rmj:
Maybe I should have said "a lot of people" instead of simply "Boomers". That was kind of sloppy of me: "Greatest Generation" dressup obviously was a cross-generational phenomenon. Hell, for most of the Keyboard Kommandos, Viet Nam was ancient history, a handy dolchstosslegende to rile up the troops.
It could be that Cheney was motivated by shame at having ducked his chance for military glory in Viet Nam, but frankly, I doubt it. This is the guy after all who (IIRC) when asked about his five deferments replied "I had better things to do."
For Dick and his chums in the Conservative Brain Caste, actually risking their tender, pasty-white butts in a war was never in their job description -- that was for the lesser folk (particularly the brown ones). The fact that Iraq was sitting on all that lovely oil was probably all the justification he or they ever needed.
Besides, "Dick Cheney" and "shame" are total strangers.
phila:
No argument there. The whole exceptionalism thing was almost always a crock. But (to me, at least) it seems like over the last decade our elite discourse has finally dropped all pretense that ethics, morality or the rule of law should restrain their behavior.
Obviously Obama is all about the "let's live up to our ideals and rhetoric" approach. Getting people to vote for you is not easy and cannot involve too much honesty. He's trying to hypnotize the independents with traditional American self-flattery. People love that shit. At least generosity and compassion are good things to aspire to, as opposed to the xenophobia and war mongering that you observed and that Republicans continue to recommend. But your post is spot on correct as usual.
Sorry for the slow comment posting. I usually get emails when comments come in, but missed these ones.
grouchomarxist:
No harm, no foul. A mere quibble on my part. And I agree: Cheney has no shame. I think even Lawrence Wilkerson gives Cheney too much credit when he says the latter fears prosecution as a war criminal.
Cheney doesn't fear anything he didn't touch with his own two hands, and he's been careful never to touch anything for which he could be held individually responsible. He didn't torture anybody, so there was no torture, so he's not guilty of war crimes.
QED, in his mind. I discard him.
Sorry for the slow comment posting. I usually get emails when comments come in, but missed these ones.
I would comment on this, but my comment would have to be approved.
Alinsky!
Oh, thanks for explaining. I was like, "Oh noes, Phila thinks I'm a troll!"
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