Some observations on a September 11

 Today is September 11, but the September 11 attacks were 22 years go, which means that almost none of my students were even alive when the attacks happened, and none remember them anymore.  Terrorism is no longer really on our collective minds, and while one might expect a hectoring political science professor to bemoan the younger generation and their lack of historical memory or perspective-- this is certainly a thing that I do-- I have a different observation for today.  We cannot spend our days and our nights thinking about everything in history.  I would like my students to have studied 9/11, our response in Afghanistan, the Iraq War, and how all of these events contributed to the world we see today.  I would like my students to have read about these events, with sufficient attention that when I reference say, Colin Powell's WMD speech, they know what I mean.  Of course, I am realistic about what students know and their imperfect historical knowledge, but my real point for today is that we are not now living in a world in which this is current.

Last weekend, I attended the American Political Science Association Annual Conference in Los Angeles, and we had to remove our shoes, and take our laptops out of our bags at the airport.  Oh, and on my return flight, I still had a water bottle in my carry-on, so I guzzled that only to refill it on the other side of the security checkpoint.  All of these measures are silly.  They are nothing more than security theater, and we know from empirical tests that TSA catches almost none of the items that they are supposed to catch, when their procedures are examined.  These extra measures are really all that remain, though, of the post-9/11 world.  Instead of worrying about terrorists hijacking a plane, or even COVID, the big thing at the APSA was that some hotel workers went on strike, so the APSA moved the panels to the LA Convention Center.  That way, leftist academics wouldn't have to cross a picket line.  OK, fine, sure, whatever.  Problem:  then, some jackass came up with "boycott LA."  And, leftist academics being what they are, a bunch of them took it seriously.  Including those who lived in the greater Los Angeles Metropolitan Area.  Some of whom wouldn't trek across the sprawl to the conference.  Nor even log onto zoom.  Because this is a thing.

Consider that 22 years ago, the United States of America faced the worst attack since Pearl Harbor, hurling us into the era of terrorism.  The fact that this is not what we are discussing-- the fact, in fact, that my students barely think about terrorism-- is a demonstration that we basically won.

Instead, the APSA gets itself in a twist about "boycott LA."

I do not generally use phrases like "first world problems," but it is the only phrase I can use right now.  The strikers did not even know how to do a strike properly.  If you want people on your side, don't annoy the fuck out of them.  As I walked by them on my way from my hotel to the LACC to get to my panels, I had to cover my hears because they were just loud and annoying.  They made me dislike them.  That is not a way to get people on your side.  When you expand the scope of conflict, as EE Schattscheider put it in A Semisovereign People, don't put those brought into the conflict on the opposing side.  I found myself on management's side just because the strikers annoyed me.  Bring in some real musicians to play some groovy music, and I'm on your side.  Scream and shout and make loud, white noise, and I'm on management's side because urban din is already unpleasant.  Make it more pleasant, and I'm on your side.  I always drop money into the cases/hats/boxes/whatever of street musicians because they brighten life.  Do that, and I'm on your side.  But this?  No.

And this was my trip, last week.  Not 9/11, but this.

So on 9/11/23, consider what we are not considering, because it has been shoved to the side by matters far more trivial.

And recognize that this is good.  I'd rather be annoyed by loud people on the street making a racket about I-don't-know-what, because this is what seems important to them right now, than be concerned about global terrorism.

We won.