06-05-2018, 12:57 AM
(This post was last modified: 06-05-2018, 01:16 AM by Eric the Green.)
Maybe it's our different ages, but I thought the phony war against Afghanistan (phony I think largely because the USA did not really fight a war there, at least until 10 years later) and the phony war against Iraq (phony because it was totally unnecessary and based entirely on lies), were NOTHING MORE than just a return to the same old military industrial complex activity that we had been stuck in since Pearl Harbor. It was simply more fall out from Pearl Harbor, rather than from 9-11 itself. It was just an excuse for more limited and phony wars that USA had been dragged into since WWII ended, with America having become the world's policeman.
It is somewhat subjective on our part, at least in your case, but only because 9-11 is an event that happened when you were about 22, and the years between then and the end of the Cold War when you were 10 or so seemed shorter to us than to you. But it had been only 10 years since the previous mis-adventure against Iraq, and that's really nothing. We boomers were mostly against all this; we were the ones who continued to march and protest against these phony wars ever since Vietnam. If we were a subjective generation, that didn't stop us from being the ones who could see through all the lies.
I certainly don't see any "massive changes in society" as a result of 9-11. Whatever changes there were, have been or will be rolled back. Not many are really affected by NSA spying or airport screening, as disturbing as these might be. And just because Trump has succeeded in stirring up prejudice against Muslims, does not mean it was a necessary change that will linger much beyond his mis-administration. Even Bush originally spoke up against it. Now there is an alternative current AGAINST prejudice that is stirring in this country now to push back against Trumpism. Even if there were big "changes" in society after 9-11 (which I deny), they were entirely reactionary and regressive; so if this is what you call a massive change, it's a departure from any previous 4T, because "change" in previous 4Ts has always been progressive.
And the Bush preventive war foreign policy that began in Iraq in 2003 has been repudiated by everyone. Protests and polemics were loud and unceasing in every intelligent sector of society after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. There was anything but a national unity of consensus behind these phony wars. On the contrary, the culture wars, the name of our 3T, continued and heated up anyway, and decided the 2004 election. Low level, ongoing war has been the constant trait of this saeculum, and so it continues. These are among the reasons I have always been strongly against the idea that 9-11 started or was part of a crisis mood or fourth turning.
None of that takes away from the traumatic and catastrophic tragedy of 9-11 itself. I agree with you about that, Sir Nomad. It was a major event in USA history, and I knew it was coming too. But, the response to it was not of a 4T nature. And the response merely made the tragedy much worse.
It is somewhat subjective on our part, at least in your case, but only because 9-11 is an event that happened when you were about 22, and the years between then and the end of the Cold War when you were 10 or so seemed shorter to us than to you. But it had been only 10 years since the previous mis-adventure against Iraq, and that's really nothing. We boomers were mostly against all this; we were the ones who continued to march and protest against these phony wars ever since Vietnam. If we were a subjective generation, that didn't stop us from being the ones who could see through all the lies.
I certainly don't see any "massive changes in society" as a result of 9-11. Whatever changes there were, have been or will be rolled back. Not many are really affected by NSA spying or airport screening, as disturbing as these might be. And just because Trump has succeeded in stirring up prejudice against Muslims, does not mean it was a necessary change that will linger much beyond his mis-administration. Even Bush originally spoke up against it. Now there is an alternative current AGAINST prejudice that is stirring in this country now to push back against Trumpism. Even if there were big "changes" in society after 9-11 (which I deny), they were entirely reactionary and regressive; so if this is what you call a massive change, it's a departure from any previous 4T, because "change" in previous 4Ts has always been progressive.
And the Bush preventive war foreign policy that began in Iraq in 2003 has been repudiated by everyone. Protests and polemics were loud and unceasing in every intelligent sector of society after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. There was anything but a national unity of consensus behind these phony wars. On the contrary, the culture wars, the name of our 3T, continued and heated up anyway, and decided the 2004 election. Low level, ongoing war has been the constant trait of this saeculum, and so it continues. These are among the reasons I have always been strongly against the idea that 9-11 started or was part of a crisis mood or fourth turning.
None of that takes away from the traumatic and catastrophic tragedy of 9-11 itself. I agree with you about that, Sir Nomad. It was a major event in USA history, and I knew it was coming too. But, the response to it was not of a 4T nature. And the response merely made the tragedy much worse.