Post 9/11? Not To Me

Ghosts of 1968

The political mood feels like 9/11 again

It doesn’t feel post 9/11 to me at all.

For the most part, the months following 9/11 were months of unity — that’s an overused word, but it’s true in this case — with sorrow and grief underneath. But mostly unity and resolve. Guys like Pat Tillman rushed to sign up.¹

Silver focuses on Bush’s mild crackdown on a media person. Yeah, and who else? Maher didn’t survive. He thrived.

I personally think that Trump blundered with Kimmel. Late night TV is a non-factor in the lives of young people.

From the time I could remember anything, people would talk about who was on “Carson” last night. Then it was “Cavett.” They had genuine cultural weight. You know who else had a talk show that “everyone” watched? Merv Griffin! Yep. His show was on at 8:30 PM on a local channel in the NYC area, so it was easier for a kid to watch — and my God, that Hollywood lightweight was really a secret subversive.

He’d have Allen Ginsberg on. Abbie Hoffman. I remember when Hoffman came on the show wearing an American flag t-shirt — the show was censored as it went on. You could hear them but the screen went blank. It caused a ruckus. He had all kinds of counterculture loonies on. Viva, the Warhol “superstar,” was a guest, if memory serves, more than once². Talk about corrupting the youth.

I don’t remember George Bush whipping up emotions at all. He told us to go shopping. The British military historian John Keegan was critical of the establishment response. No links, you’ll have to trust my memory on this, but I remember distinctly he was critical of the Bush “go shopping” response.

Jimmy Kimmel? Whatever… Does anyone really care? He reeks of trivia. This should have been done, but later, months from now, when the stench of his failshow became too overpowering to ignore.

I wish Silver were right.

The political mood seems to me more like 1968.

That year was febrile and full of rage. Indeed, they were “Days of Rage.”

To the point: that phrase was coined by the Weatherman faction of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)³ to brand their October 1969 actions in Chicago. At that time they were still operating openly under the “Weatherman” name. Following the violent clashes in Chicago, the internal collapse of SDS, and the 1970 Greenwich Village townhouse explosion the faction went underground as the Weather Underground Organization (WUO).

If this all sounds horrific, it’s because it was. You cannot write a history of the 1960s-1970s and omit the SDS/WUO. It doesn’t matter that the WUO was widely detested even on the left—especially on the left. They had a massive cultural influence. ⁴

There were numerous assassinations in the 1960s—I need not recount them here—I won’t. They are so upsetting to think about.

What assassinations happened after 9/11? I remember the anthrax attacks, which turned out to be the work of a lone crazy man.

They were jarring, but apart from that, I remember unity and a political establishment that united to tamp down violence.

Right now I’m getting distinct 1968 vibes. I hope I’m wrong.

1. That his courageous sacrifice was betrayed and our shared collective grief was eventually weaponized and turned into an endless “War On Terror,” is a related but separate story.

2. ChatGPT confirms this. I’m not copypasta-ing it here.

3. “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows,” by you know who. They ditched the “man” when they went underground because radical feminism, which was in full flower then.

4. Link. The book is well worth a read.