Monday, September 12, 2011

Two Hundred Years of the War on Terror

As it happens, there's another universe in the back of the closet next to the bookshelf in the spare room. It's nearly identical to ours, except that in this universe, 9/11 never happened.* Everything else is the same: George Bush, Barack Obama, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Guantanamo, Bagram, the torture networks, the secret prisons, and on and on - but there were no planes crashed into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, no yearly donning of sackcloth and ashes by politicians at ground zero, no annual pageants of official grief.

In describing our own universe to the natives, I attempted to explain the significance of 9/11, how it changed everything forever, but they were frustratingly unable to comprehend. The United States, they said, had spent its time killing and torturing and enslaving the world before 2001, and spent its time killing and torturing and enslaving the world afterward as well; the only difference was the loss of some three thousand souls, an evidently paltry cost given the American government's valuation of human life.

I attempted to explain the situation to them again, and felt that I was close to succeeding, but our conversation was cut off by a NATO air strike.

*Inhabitants of this universe insist that, in fact, 9/11 did happen, and does happen, once a year, every year, right after 9/10 and right before 9/12.

14 comments:

  1. Americolatry will never change.

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  2. i've seen an alternate universe in which Bill Murray and everyone else are forced to relive 9/11 every day lest they foul it up. this universe is identical to ours in every way.

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  3. Nice essay. Makes its point without an ounce of genetically enhanced fat. Dare we hope for more as well from the rabbits-in-charge?

    For the rest: the American military-industrial complex was looking for a reason to forecast continued growth and develop death. 9/11 was a godsend, though if it hadn't happened, another opportunity would have served eventually. Where there's a sociopathic will, there's always a way.

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  4. The blog proprietors should be returning shortly, Barry.

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  5. I bet they don't have this video though, and are poorer for it

    www.youtube.com/watch?v=De1wNLEGQ30

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  6. Everything's better with Yakety Sax.

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  7. it's like american history is a car going down the road. 9/11 isn't turning the steering wheel - 9/11 is stepping on the gas. i've thought this for at least a week.

    funny you should mention bill murray, montag. last night missus charley and i (at my suggestion) tuned our teleceptor to the memorial concert being broadcast from the kennedy center. i was under the impression it would be mostly music. obama came on; after a minute i turned off the sound. after ten minutes i turned the teleceptor to a movie on dvd - in this case "what about bob", in which bill murray is the title character. lol.

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  8. Murry played a nice small role in Zombieland. and one i think folks 'round here might relate to.

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  9. Are they rabbits? I guess the banner implies Fafnir and Giblets are rabbits, but does that make the big fish the Medium Lobster? It doesn't look lobstery. It doesn't look too mediumy either.

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  10. i loved that bill murray scene but it totally took me out of the movie. i could no longer believe in a world where everybody went crazy and started eating everybody except the people who were already crazy for some reason.

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  11. Mr Can't Think of a Funny NameSeptember 23, 2011 8:26 PM

    You don't know terror until one day, going about your business, somebody starts shooting at you or dropping bombs on you. In America, except for the occasional random loony attack at the school or mall or office, we have been spared this terror. Well then was 9/11.

    While tens of millions of non combatants were killed in the last century in war and revolutions Americans are absolutely certain this will cannot happen to them, should not happen to them and won't happen to them by golly. No matter how many people we have to terrorize to prevent it.

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  12. America is above History, but only alphabetically.

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  13. My comments can be a bit different but i think that if the war against terrorism does not stop then it will have really age more than 200 years.
    Franchises

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