Most Interesting Quote I've Read So Far Today
Published by BG on Friday, September 14, 2007 at 9:26 AM.Firedoglake - Firedoglake weblog » “The Terror Dream”
In The Terror Dream, [Susan] Faludi has written what I think is an important work for the moment as we try desperately to extricate ourselves from an imperialistic foreign policy and politicians who are locked into a narrative where bellicosity is equated with strength. In the wake of 9/11, the country suffered a collective trauma that Faludi argues exposed deep sexual anxieties and caused us to fall back violently and reflexively into native myths of gunslinging cowboys and fainting virgins in need of rescue as we struggled to compensate for a threatened sense of national virility
I'd maybe argue that the illusion of safety that was shattered on that day didn't assault our "national virility" as much as it regressed our self-reliance to a child-like state and allowed pre-9/11 security theater to be augmented in a number of fashions both absurd and insidious. For example, referencing the Naomi Klein video a post or two below, I think this current administration feels like they hit the lottery in the wake of 9/11 - and I mean that exactly how I said it. It allowed them to push through their ideas of the radical Friedman-esque ideas of privatization and police-state control I think the party has always desired. Maybe there is a faux-cowboy sort of aesthetic at play in those ideas - specifically in how they were sold to America - but ultimately I feel that it's more akin to the farmer letting the fox loose in the hen house purposefully, simply because he fears there maybe might be a raccoon in there or something.
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