Today it feels like the 21st century finally started.
It’s hard to know what to make of the last 8 years or so in comparison; I guess we were still getting our shit together after the Cold War ended, leaving us with little but consumerism, swagger and irony to define our roles as Americans in the world and at home.
I think many people looked to the events on 9.11.2001 as a signal for our country to move in a different direction – but a powerful few saw it as a way to turn back the clock: to renew our country’s role as the primary leader in the fight against a Powerful Enemy that Threatens the Free World. Only this time, it’s not a particular type of government or country (Communism, Soviet Union and China), but against an overall concept and ideology (Terrorism, via religious extremists).
It’s all rather brilliant – while the USSR had the audacity to fall, thus removing our Powerful Enemy (whom we could direct all our collective fears and military budget upon), this new enemy will never die, and thus can always be counted on by the Powers That Be to serve as the means of convincing the American people that we need them. Terrorism will never vanish, any more than Greed or Deception will. This is another War in a long history of “Wars on…” that can never actually be won (on Poverty, on Drugs, on Hunger, on Disease), and thus must be fought and funded forever.
This one is possibly the most ambiguous and open to interpretation of them all (the “War on Terrorism” might as well be called the “War on War”, or the “War on the Enemies of Countries We Like”), and we need not look too far to see the uncomfortable historical difficulties with such a lofty goal (for instance, the British Empire and their decades-long war against a group of terrorists who threatened their citizenry and property overseas – thankfully, in the end “We the Terrorists” won).
I’m not saying we’re out of these particular woods yet as a result of a single man or election; rather, we’ve finally recognized that said woods is aflame, and that this clever Obama fellow has suggested we reconsider our current policy of hosing it with gasoline.
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