Response: Changes since 9/11.

Recently, my friend J recently posted a paragraph and a link on the subject of the great hype of 9/11. We've been inundated with news stories, movies, TV specials and other media influences since that day, all of which have proclaimed that we are living in a "post-9/11 world". J's article makes the case that not much has really changed since then, and that 9/11's impact has, on the whole, been pretty minimal within the context of the American lifestyle.

Has the impact of September 11 been as dramatic as its hype? Well, yes and no. Certainly much remains the same here in America. Our technology curve has remained constant. Our economic standing, while heavily affected for a couple of years, has reclaimed much of its former momentum. Still, we have changed. Some changes have been small but obvious; Others have been large, but not as easily noticed. The following list constitutes a sample of the changes that I have seen taking place in the fabric of our society since September 11, 2001.

1. War: Just in case you hadn't noticed, I should probably mention that we're in a large-scale, multi-front ground war in the Middle East. This is not to be placed in the same category as Operation: Desert Storm.



2. Political climate: The argument could be made that politics in America move along an eight, or conceivably twelve year cycle, a shift from left to right and back again. Still, both left and right are more vocal now in their opinions than they have been in decades, and as the recent elections show, the public is more politically active. Here in Oregon we had the largest voter turnout in almost two decades. I haven't seen statistics on voter turnout elsewhere, but surely this is not an isolated instance. The Dems have retaken the House, and at the time of this writing, control of the Senate is dependent upon the exceedingly close race in Virginia. A shift has taken place, and that is almost directly due to the influence of the events of September 11.



3. Media climate: This is where the most dramatically visible change has taken place, in my opinion. Operating for the right, Fox News went on the air in 1996 but one could argue that it became a ubiquitous presence in the American consciousness only after September 11. Operating for the left, two phenomena have become prevalent since 2001: The liberal documentary film, based on the Michael Moore model, and the public satire, based on the model of Jon Stewart. This year alone, documentaries released to public theatres have included "An Inconvenient Truth", "This Film is Not Yet Rated", and "Who Killed the Electric Car?", among others. "The Jon Stewart Show" remains tremendously popular, along with it's spinoff, "The Colbert Report", and this model of satirical and at times scathing reportage on the pulse of American liberal sentiment has made its way into theatres as well in the form of the recent film, "Borat".



4. Civil Liberties: In the last decade, The Republican party has gained majority control over the three branches of the United States government, and has used this leverage to initiate a steady campaign of Constitutional erosion. Now, this process of erosion has been in effect off and on since the Constitution was written, and various civil liberties were under attack during the Clinton administration as well. These incidents are not isolated to the workings of this administration. Still, that process has been accelerated dramatically since September 11, with the passing of the USAPatriot Acts I and II, Federally mandated public wiretapping policies, and most recently the removal of a host of barriers to the declaration of martial law at the Federal level. The passage of these various pieces of legislation would not have been possible without the rightward swing that has taken place in the voting booths since the Lewinsky scandal, and this trend was helped along quite nicely by September 11.



5. Polarization of Opinion: Public opinion has been polarized in a way that hasn't taken place since Reagan, or possibly even since Nixon. This is something that J. and I have discussed before within this blog. (see this post and comments).



6. Debt: The federal deficit, which made minor gains during the Clinton years, has, quite simply, gone straight to hell. If a business were run in the same manner that the U.S. Government is being run now, there is no doubt that it would have completely collapsed. The moment that 100% of our taxes go toward the interest on the national deficit, we will be wholly and truly screwed. Some have made the claim that this point is on the horizon. If we continue to borrow at the rate of $800 Billion dollars a year, we may just follow in the footsteps of the now defunct Soviet Union. We are sucking our supporters dry, and this will surely create more and more problems for us as time progresses. This of course, would not be happening without the mismanagement which has resulted from the seeming carte blanc of the current administration, thanks in part to the events of September 11.

These and other, far less obvious changes have been the hallmark of the last five years, and to dismiss them as trivial would be folly indeed. Of course, J. is right. Most of these changes are not of the nature that the press predicted five years ago. But I'm not convinced that there is no call to say that this world is not quite different, in many ways, from the world of September 10, 2001.