But you wouldn’t know it by listening to the politicians and pundits. They go on and on about how the single event has changed everything, but it really hasn’t. One day — 2,974 fatalities — has been the center of political debate for six years, and it’s because of fear. The biggest effect of 9/11 was in our minds. We are afraid; not of heart disease or car crashes, not of lightning strikes, but of terrorist attacks. It’s an irrational fear but it’s nonetheless real, and politicians have latched onto it. Fear mongering is common practice in modern political campaigns (the other candidate is weak on defense, and if you vote for him America will be attacked) because it’s in their interest to keep us afraid. Politicians have been using fear to win elections and gain power for decades, only now instead of communists it’s terrorists. Quite simply, the neocons wanted a war, and thanks to 9/11 they got one.
And this increase in money spent on defense… are we safer because of it? Possibly, I don’t really know, but I do know this: on the day of September 11, 2001, 2,974 Americans died in a terrorist attack. That same day, around 16,000 children worldwide died from hunger-related causes. Every day since then almost 16,000 children have died from hunger-related causes (that’s one child every five seconds). This is shocking to most people, and rightly so. As we’ve been arguing over a terrorist attack that killed a few thousand people, millions of children have died of starvation. Hell, by the time you finish reading this post a few children will have died. Are you doing anything about it? How about the people you voted for?
Maybe if that money spent on killing people in the middle east had been spent fighting world hunger we wouldn’t be safe from terrorists, but, honestly, I don’t care. I’d rather the money go to help starving children, even if it meant allowing another terrorist attack.
bravo, very well said
great article
I disagree.
It costs way more to run airports now. Our privacy is not what it was.
Just for starters
But isn’t fear our only motivator to great things? Think of our past and how fear of hunger, pain, weakness, powerlessness and death have driven our greatest efforts. Fear of hunger has made it possible to feed as many as 12 billion people and have a 55 trillion dollar world economy, even if our means of distribution is imperfect. Fear of tyranny has created democracy, and the vast empowerment of the bourgeoisie down to total adult suffrage. Fear of weakness has brought us vast improvements in nutrition, genetics and health.
9/11 changed America for the sole reason that it made us afraid. We suddenly lacked security in a country that is marked by EXCESS. Excess in food, entertainment, power, influence, comfort, everything. It moved a country, if even for four years we suddenly had something to achieve and our might was moved with certainty.
Isolation and comfort will only mean that we will die when the unsatisfied who see that we will not achieve, that we will not defend what we have, that we will not go any further, grow any more will kill us. Rome burned for sins such as these, as has Paris, Nanjing, Persepolis, Constantinople and Jerusalem.
9/11 was indeed a wakeup call. We cannot be content with what we have for fear that the masses of the world will rise up to devour us as hedonistic overlords. Fear will bring achievement and in the case of the fear of losing everything we have, superhuman effort.