9/11 In Perspective

[Dzerzhinsky's Ghost]

Given that it's nearing it's 10th anniversary I thought I would start a thread regarding the 9/11 incident. How do you view 9/11? What are your thoughts regarding the whole incident? I have always agreed with Ward Churchill and have viewed it as simply chickens coming home to roost. I don't see how it could be viewed any differently given the historical atrocities of American-Western imperialism and other such things. If you throw rocks eventually people will throw rocks right back at you.

[#FF0000]

Yeah but the thing is that the people who, er, sent the chickens out in the first place were nowhere near the buildings. Talking about janitors, window-washers, receptionists, desk jockeys etc. etc. etc.

I mean, I'd definitely call it "blowback" but in the end it was a lot of working people getting caught up in a lover's spat between two factions of the working class.

And even if it wasn't, it's not like it, you know, did anything. Capitalism and Western imperialism's still chuggin' along.

[Dzerzhinsky's Ghost]

Yeah but the thing is that the people who, er, sent the chickens out in the first place were nowhere near the buildings. Talking about janitors, window-washers, receptionists, desk jockeys etc. etc. etc.

I mean, I'd definitely call it "blowback" but in the end it was a lot of working people getting caught up in a lover's spat between two factions of the working class.

I agree with this and that's the only thing I find genuinely sad about the entire thing is that the main victims have been both working class people and Muslims (you know, the people said groups are trying to seek 'justice' for). I just mainly see it as a 'blowback' or chickens coming home to roost.


And even if it wasn't, it's not like it, you know, did anything. Capitalism and Western imperialism's still chuggin' along.

Agreed. I just kind of see it as an act of war commited by those whom don't have the luxury of one of the most sophisticated military forces in the world.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

A tragedy. Have we done some seriously fucked up things abroad? Hell yeah, but it doesn't really help out that situation by killing 3,000 civilians does it, all in all it just made it much much worse. I wasn't on the political stage at that time, but some people I've talked to have said that before 9/11 everything seemed different. That after 9/11 happened there was a decline in the left, as small as it was then, because of the authoritarian turn the government took, the image that you were unpatriotic if you questioned the government, etc. And after 9/11 churches became flooded with new members, most of whom were probably Christian in the sense that they believed in Jesus but really didn't give it much thought, and this of course has strengthened these crazy fundie Christians trying to take everything over.

Really 9/11 just fucked the people over who had anything to do with it, Muslims, the secular community, various nations, the left, and others while the only people it's helped are the capitalists profiting from the War on Terror, Christian fundamentalists who now believe they're waging a holy war, the right, various oppressive regimes who now get more of our support because they're "fighting terrorism", etc. It hasn't been good for the oppressed of the world anywhere I don't think.

[La Comédie Noire]

I think it ended a ten year period of euphoria where America felt triumphant and invincible after the fall of the soviet union. Anyone growing up during the 90s in America will tell you that despite personal tragedy or bombings in far away lands there was this overwhelming feeling that everything was right with the world. 9/11 was a slap in the face from the real world, saying "I'm still here and I still suck."

I should also point out I was born in 1989 so I didn't know a time before the U.S. was the dominant super power and the waning of it's power coincided with my growth into adolescents. So growing up and becoming aware of the world may also have been a factor in my radical shift in views.

[jake williams]

Yeah but the thing is that the people who, er, sent the chickens out in the first place were nowhere near the buildings. Talking about janitors, window-washers, receptionists, desk jockeys etc. etc. etc.
Well, as far as hitting less-than-innocent people goes you could do worse than the WTC or the Pentagon, but in general you're right. Most of the people who died can't seriously be held personally responsible for the major atrocities of which certainly some of them are personally responsible.

And at any rate, killing a few of the latter isn't exactly fixing the problem. Frankly I wish all it took to end wars and imperialism was to fly a couple planes into buildings, but of course it doesn't.


I mean, I'd definitely call it "blowback" but in the end it was a lot of working people getting caught up in a lover's spat between two factions of the working class.
To a significant extent, yeah. Obviously Osama bin Laden and those like him, who are funding a lot of islamist terrorism, are not working class. Their class interests really are not those of the working class of their respective countries, and their anti-imperialism, politically and tactically, is not really progressive. Certainly there is a lot of legitimate anti-imperialist (and anti-american) feeling throughout the Muslim world (and elsewhere), and a lot of these grievances do get placed with bin Laden, I really don't think there's anything to be gained from us or them in supporting him. This isn't necessarily to say that we need to cheerlead for the creation, by force or otherwise, of NATO-friendly governments, and I might be arguing against bin Laden supporters who really don't exist on the left (even to the extent that Gaddafi supporters exist, which itself is vastly exaggerated). But, for what it's worth.

[Jimmie Higgins]

A tragedy. Have we done some seriously fucked up things abroad? Hell yeah, but it doesn't really help out that situation by killing 3,000 civilians does it, all in all it just made it much much worse. I wasn't on the political stage at that time, but some people I've talked to have said that before 9/11 everything seemed different. That after 9/11 happened there was a decline in the left, as small as it was then, because of the authoritarian turn the government took, the image that you were unpatriotic if you questioned the government, etc.

After a couple of years of independent activism and learning about radical politics, I became an organized socialist activist about one month before 9/11.

In retrospect the anti-globalization movement was already running into problems before 9/11 but the attack, the following wave of jingoism, and a sense of an unstoppable US imperialist regime going on the offensive really disoriented and paralyzed the movement.

One thing that really stands out for me on that day was that I drove to work on deserted freeways in L.A. and only hours after the event, someone had attached a glossy canvas banner probably 20 feet wide across a freeway overpass that said: "Palestinians did this: kill them all". A mosque in my neighborhood at the time was unsuccessfully targeted by a pro-Israel terrorist group (of course it wasn't considered terrorism because it wasn't attempted by Arabs).

Before then there was more of a sense that the Left had momentum and was growing not only in activism with the various movements at the time but also making in-roads into regular working class consciousness as people were more willing to criticize the Democrats, Bowling for Columbine had become popular, making it hard for the mainstream to act like there was no hearing for left or progressive ideas.

I was part of a farm-worker coalition at the time and we had a big meeting planned for 9/11 - the coalition literally met, cancelled our planned protests and that was it for years. The reasoning was that we didn't know what the hell was about to happen - a series of smaller bombing across the country, a total crackdown on free-speech, etc. Anarchist message boards that I was on at the time became pits of paranoid (maybe justly) rumors about crack-downs and many independent activists and anarchists I knew seemed to just drop off the political map in despair.

Progressives definitely lost any independent notions that they may have developed after 8 years of Bill Clinton's neoliberalism. They went from saying "Same Fucking Difference" about the two parties to "Bush is evil, we just have to get him out no matter who replaces him".

The wave of jingoism after 9/11 made many on the left and progressives adopt the "common sense" idea that "middle-America" is hopelessly conservative. The anti-Afganistan war actions were tiny (though had more support than you might think it would have among a lot of people - many people just didn't think it was possible or wise to protest) and very defensive with the whole "Peace is Patriotic" thing and lots of liberals trying to appeal to patriotism and nationalism somehow - "this is not America, we don't do this, we should take the moral high-ground" they said... read some US history was my response... peace is unpatriotic and we DO do this all the fucking time.

Anyway, this atmosphere is why I disagree with people who said that the anti-Iraq war movement was meaningless. Yeah, it wasn't very effective, dominated by liberals, but those first big protests really cracked open the post-9/11 fear and self-censorship among a lot of people and allowed people in the US to begin to rebuild some struggles.

Anyway, it was a pretty disorienting experience for someone new to politics and frankly if I hadn't joined a radical group prior to that, I doubt I'd be an activist today. Having people to talk to and develop an analysis and understanding of the event (and US reaction) with really helped.