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I think today marks the anniversary of a coup led by Augusto Pinochet to overthrow the democratically elected Chilean government led by Salvador Allende, who was the first Marxist to be elected president in a Latin American democracy. The CIA investigated itself using declassified documents and determined no wrongdoing. Just that it "appeared to condone" the coup, but found "no evidence" of any participation, which means the United States definitely participated to some extent in the rise to power of a ruthless autocrat who disappeared or executed thousands of people and interred and tortured tens of thousands more over nearly two decades.

Or something like that.

My favorite knock knock joke for something like 15 years now:

"Knock knock."

"Who's there?"

"9/11"

"9/11 who?"

"YOU SAID YOU'D NEVER FORGET!"

It's funny because the conservatives clearly wanted 9/11 to be something that would rile up Americans for generations, but they blew all the international charitable attitude towards it by destabilizing the middle east (which Europe actually had to deal with the consequences of, unlike the US) and then following up with Trump of all people as the next Republican after Bush.

Like, they couldn't have made the rest of the world and US citizens care any less about it.

Especially post Occupy Wall Street when most of the country realizes how fucked up Wall Street is and that 9/11 was an attack on... Wall Street. Not as much sympathy for traders these days.

I'd like to see the 9/11 attacks become something like Pearl Harbor day (December 7th, 1941) in something we acknowledge happened but don't actually have department store sales over, and speeches by elected officials are optional, usually if victims / veterans are getting together for a pageant.

From a statecraft standpoint, I remain impressed with just how low the 9/11 attacks smote the US, and I'm sure even Bin Laden regarded it as a lucky hit, intending it to be a sting like the Doolittle raid, but with such perfect timing that it accelerated the US dissolution towards one-party autocracy. Now, many of the failings of the United States as a free democracy are laid plain, and it's our mess to clean up or to leave to fester.

If Harris wins in 2024, we'll get that chance, but Obama also promised hope and change and didn't deliver, and it cost us dearly. Again. So we'll see.

A lot of shit happened in the past on 9/11, especially in German history. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_9

nine eleven~