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I was a teenager during 9/11, and watching nearly every adult in my life go absolutely stark raving mad from both fear and blood lust was a real wake up call for me, I can tell you that much. If you aren’t old enough to remember it there’s nothing recent I can really compare it to. 9/11 and the Iraq War are what really got Fox News off the ground, so just imagine living in Fox News land, because it was absolutely tapping into some primal response a lot of people had.
I had more or less the same experience. "Terrorists" were the villains in spy movies and they were NEVER in the USA. I thought we were invincible? Get a little older: oh look at the social services and infrastructure that other countries have for free.
... and how the us likes to bomb the shit of said infrastructure when it makes them money somehow.
I was in my early 20s and it definitely was a moment when I realized things weren’t what they seemed. I also fell for the narrative for a bit. Then a couple years later when it was revealed that the WMDs in Iraq were made up it started to all make sense. This country operates the highest, most advanced form of propaganda and corruption. It’s how it stays in power.
I also believe this is what Israel is going through now. Leveraging primal blood lust to justify what being committed. No wonder the US is supportive.
With each passing week, there are more and more parallels to the aftermath of 9-11. Israel has now even had its own equivalent to the leaked photos of prisoners (held without trial) being degraded, tortured, and sexually assaulted at Abu Grahib.
It's depressing watching history repeat itself within your own lifetime, even despite the far greater visibility of Israel's war crimes thanks to the internet.
I was a sophomore in high school, from a military (though pretty progressive) family. Both my grandfathers were sailors and my father went to West Point. I was in NJROTC and had every intention of going to Annapolis. I wanted to be an astronaut, so navy pilot seemed the path, and I would be making my family proud. I happened to be the one to put up the flag at school that morning. All of this is to say that I was very proud to be an American, and was looking forward to serving my country. The terror and confusion of that day hit me as hard as anyone else, but in the following weeks I was appalled to see how my fellow countrymen reacted. The way we reacted, with fear and hatred and overwhelming violence, both within and without, fundamentally changed how I saw my nation. I eventually dropped out of ROTC and started studying history and politics. I found punk music and took theater classes. I identified as social Democrat until the BLM riots of 2020, when I was radicalized. I now consider myself an anarchist.