I remember when the towers fell, and people all over the word showed sympathy and solidarity, even from "enemy" countries like Iran. Then there was hate crimes, and the ubiquitous calls for us to "glass the middle east", but those were outliars, right? Bush observed the rubble and vowed revenge and told us to not be afraid to go shopping, and then shamelessly exploited the tragedy to further US geopolitical goals and killed millions of people across the world who had nothing to do with it. No "serious" politician or pundit or average American gave a shit.

Little did I realize that the "killing millions" part was just standard operating procedure for the US, and the most important thing we can do, no matter what happens, is to uphold our duty as consumers and keep buying shit.

Crazy to think we used to not have to take off our shoes and empty our pockets and be body-scanned to get on a plane.