Arthur has written an essay describing the cognitive dissonance and other symptoms that set in after the 9/11 attacks were the excuse for creating the surveillance state that made Americans the bad guys that our government was trying to control.
https://www.arthurincali.com/p/american-miasma
Arthur was in the service when the attacks occurred so he saw firsthand the change when he returned afterward. I guess he was more perceptive than I was. It took until halfway through the Iraq War before I finally realized that protecting Americans was very low down on the priority list for the Bush administration.
A very nostalgic reading experience. In retrospective, I wonder now how I could have been so naive about the clearly anti-American nature of the policies of the Republicans and Democrats alike. But those were innocent times. I still believed some politicians were there to help us. Silly me.
Good read.
Thank you for sharing my essay. I think the biggest reason that the narratives were so jarring and caused such a sense of cognitive dissonance comes down to the fact that I had spent so much time overseas. Outside of America, the media landscape stops being a constant funnel of US-centric news. This sounds obvious, but one must personally see the difference to truly understand the constant bombardment of information and narratives versus how others receive news on world events. I still chuckle to this day when an Op-Ed or headline declares how “the world is watching” what the US… Read more »