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everything about this is so funny
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this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2024
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chapotraphouse
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I always thought the "they hate us for our freedoms" thing was a bit/joke from a comedian or SNL, similar to Sarah Palin's "I can see Russia from my house" stuff, I never realised that Bush Jr actually said that...
That man was deeply unserious but also incredibly evil.
At the time, everyone I knew thought him every bit the dangerous buffoon Trump is considered now. But the feeling that he was emblematic of imperial decline felt much more abstract, the overreach had just begun in earnest under him. I remember the competent libs howling "you can't DO that!" to the Patriot Act and violations of treaties and international law and watching that whole admin ride tidily into the sunset laden with dollar sign bags, secure in the knowledge that the consequences weren't even a little bit their problem.
(Most of those same libs didn't say shit when it was Clinton, Obama, or Brandon doing the same things)
Check out season 1 of Blowback for more wacky/terrifying Bush admin hijinks
I had immigrant parents, who didn't talk much English at home or US politics much. In elementary school I'd pass as white until you realize I have heavy accident 1/5 the vocab as everyone else. Bush was the the middle school and high school era for me. What I personally witnessed felt like Bush seemed to do bad things 24 like a cartoon villain but every fucking adult loved him because he was a Christian man and was going to end satanism and abortion or something. I moved way up north before Obama, and when he won the election everyone rejoiced like it was going to change everything.
Yeah I wasn't exactly politically engaged at the time (was small child) but reading works from the time, especially Alison Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For, was illuminating for me about how little has changed. The frustrated liberals seeing how bad the situation in the world is but utterly failing to make the connections needed to actually fight back, the derangement that set in after Bush's stolen first election, etc.
I also read a book of essays written under clinton about (basically) the coming dominance of computer technology and its many downsides and deprivations if implemented under US capitalism. Seeing clinton's "technology=progress=moral good" BS condemned and many of the more predictable outcomes of the rise of the PC/web pointed out was nice.
I remember people online (Americans mostly, but other Islamophobes and racists too) unironically saying that the terrorists hate the Western world for our freedum.
On 9/11, less than an hour after the attack in 2nd period math class, this is the exact reasoning my teacher gave to the class.
Also I remember lots of people saying the terrorists won because we lost a lot of freedoms (TSA, NSA, Patriot Act, etc.)