September 11
Two days after the terrorist attack, I wrote a short essay about how it was a tragedy, but that the real shock was how long it took for anyone to do it. I said then that America was a bully on the world playground, that we would lose freedoms in pursuit of a false sense of security, and that a majority of people would eagerly accept the heavier yoke if it meant feeling safer.
I wasn't nice back then.
I wasn't wrong, either.
September 11
America has a three-hundred-year history of religiously motivated colonialism and racial violence with which it has never truly reconciled and for which it has never really apologized. The idea of America is rife with assumed privilege on the world stage. It still tries to act like the only superpower, and like the only country deserving of the title. Pax Americana is a threat to global stability; it refuses to lead and can't accept that anyone else do better.
September 11
In the last decade and a half, America has continued its descent into illiberalism. Under the last "liberal" president, Barack Obama, the government expanded the use of drone warfare, failed to act against extraordinary renditions, had American citizen Anwar al-Alwaki assassinated without due process, permitted eight prosecutions of whistle-blowers under the Espionage Act, decreased government transparency, and expanded the mass surveillance apparatus built by his predecessor.
September 11
@literorrery *nodnodnod* 45 is not some shocking deviation or break in our triumphant democracy, but a logical, predictable consequence of the autocratic tendencies we've been allowing increasing control over our society.
