I was raised in rural in a deeply conservative environment. But I can pinpoint the exact moments everything started to crumble.
I was right there waving flags at troops and was completely caught up in the “OOH-RAH” feeling of righteous anger. I had people connected to me who died in the attacks. My last memories of American warfare was the Gulf War where the USA basically went on a murder-vacation across Kuwait and all the way to Bagdad. It was surreal and removed from reality, it was winning. I wished I was going, I deeply wanted to go over there and be a part of this winning-machine, but I had just started my adult life and joining the service wasn’t in my cards.
Then fast forward to me watching FOX news in my first apartment, eating dinner and watching coverage of the invasion of Iraq. There was a clip they played from the perspective of a hummer entering a city, and a box truck was passing on the opposite side of the road, obviously fleeing the city. The hummer opens up with its automatic grenade launcher, and I distinctly remember the simultaneous mixture of awe seeing the box truck get chewed to molten shards of sparkling metal instantly, and a sick punch to my gut understanding that was probably just a family trying to leave with their possessions. The segment cut to the host, festooned with American flags, smiling at US might.
That image haunted me for weeks, and then they found no WMD’s, the war raged and raged. Atrocities caused by our troops kept coming out, the question of why we were there was getting asked louder and louder.
The disillusionment was pretty much complete at this point and I had already sworn off FOX news for the rest of my life, and then a few years pass and people I cared about started coming home maimed, or were not coming home, or came home unable to go on and took their own lives. More people than I thought I would know. There was no satisfying ending, no victory, nothing to be proud of.
Realizing I live in the homeland of the villains of the story radicalized me.
Post 9/11 Public School. Watching people just slide right into authoritarianism felt like I was seeing them replaced with pod people.
Post 9/11 turned me leftist/progressive.
I was raised in rural in a deeply conservative environment. But I can pinpoint the exact moments everything started to crumble.
I was right there waving flags at troops and was completely caught up in the “OOH-RAH” feeling of righteous anger. I had people connected to me who died in the attacks. My last memories of American warfare was the Gulf War where the USA basically went on a murder-vacation across Kuwait and all the way to Bagdad. It was surreal and removed from reality, it was winning. I wished I was going, I deeply wanted to go over there and be a part of this winning-machine, but I had just started my adult life and joining the service wasn’t in my cards.
Then fast forward to me watching FOX news in my first apartment, eating dinner and watching coverage of the invasion of Iraq. There was a clip they played from the perspective of a hummer entering a city, and a box truck was passing on the opposite side of the road, obviously fleeing the city. The hummer opens up with its automatic grenade launcher, and I distinctly remember the simultaneous mixture of awe seeing the box truck get chewed to molten shards of sparkling metal instantly, and a sick punch to my gut understanding that was probably just a family trying to leave with their possessions. The segment cut to the host, festooned with American flags, smiling at US might.
That image haunted me for weeks, and then they found no WMD’s, the war raged and raged. Atrocities caused by our troops kept coming out, the question of why we were there was getting asked louder and louder.
The disillusionment was pretty much complete at this point and I had already sworn off FOX news for the rest of my life, and then a few years pass and people I cared about started coming home maimed, or were not coming home, or came home unable to go on and took their own lives. More people than I thought I would know. There was no satisfying ending, no victory, nothing to be proud of.
Realizing I live in the homeland of the villains of the story radicalized me.