9/11
I've been watching this HBO (I say "haytch-bo") show The Newsroom. It's a fantastic show, written by Aaron Sorkin, and he is the news anchor in the show. I believe the first season was filmed in 2012, and it is set from 2010-2011.
You may have seen a clip of this show online, where a college student asks "Why is America the best country in the world?" and he goes off on a rant about how it's not. It's the opening scene. It's a pretty good rant, though it gets cheesy by the end.
He's run a news show for many years, but he does a pretty typical mainstream evening news segment where he focuses on stories that are popular, rather than stories that actually help voters make informed choices in the ballot boxes. After this opening scene, there is some hullabaloo and he gets a new executive producer and they decide they're going to do "real" news now.
No more focus on ratings, no more "both sides"-ing where the "other side" is literally just lies, no more asking soft questions or allowing guests to just lie to the public.
The primary thread of the show is Sorkin going after "Tea Party Republicans" like real life Mitch McConnel for, basically, lying to people constantly. He dispels things like the "birther" conspiracy of Obama's presidency; he calls out Republicans for lying about Obama's stance on gun rights (apparently Obama was weak on gun reform? Certainly wasn't trying to take everybody's guns); he does a segment on voter ID, and how nearly non-existent actual voter fraud is, and how voter ID laws disenfranchise black people; he attacks bigots for being anti-gay.
Watching this show, he does not feel like a Republican to me most of the time, but a conservative liberal democrat. That's the same criticism he gets from the far-right republicans who lie constantly.
I really love this show, and it actually sparks a great interest in me to consume more news, to be more informed, and I think the general message of the show is excellent. The show doesn't take a strong stance on things like abortion or what exact gun laws we should have or on a whole lot of things. It takes a very strong stance on: Let's have the truth, let's call out lies, and let's report what people actually need to know. It also takes a strong stance against white supremacy (though they haven't used that term).
So. 9/11.
They did an episode surrounding the killing of Osama Bin-Laden.
This was a weird one for me. The episode and the people in it were very celebratory. It was a victory for America to kill the guy who orchestrated 9/11 and killed nearly 3,000 people on American soil. People were emotional, and it made me emotional too.
I think 9/11 was a tragic day, and it is a trauma for our nation's people, and especially for anyone who lost a loved one or lived anywhere nearby any of the attacks.
But it left me thinking ... U.S. Presidents have orchestrated many bombings in the Middle East. Have killed up to 20,000 people from 2004-2020, up to 2,200 of them being civilians victims. This doesn't count deaths caused by arms we provide to countries like Israel. This only counts deaths in 4 countries, reported by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. (TBH, I thought it would be far more deaths)
And it left me wondering, what if they killed a U.S. president? Would it not be on similar moral grounds?
But personally, I don't feel any death is a victory. I definitely will celebrate certain outcomes, like it's a positive thing when a fascist is no longer in power - that I will celebrate. But the death itself is not something I will celebrate. I don't want violence.
And I am extremely critical of U.S. military actions. We've subjugated the middle east to our power for decades. We've overthrown governments. We've killed "combatants" and "terrorists" and civilians. We're actively supporting a genocide in Gaza (Obviously the current events weren't known in 2012, but Palestinian apartheid, instigated by Israel & supported by the U.S., pre-dated the Hamas attack by decades).
The celebration of Bin Laden's death neglects the context that led to it, neglects the context that led to 9/11. I feel my country paints itself as a victim for 9/11, like terrorists just attacked us out of the blue and we had to retaliate. I feel like we're propagandized to believe there was no context for the attack. I have no intention of justifying the attacks on 9/11. But the context is important, it did not happen in a vacuum, and so ... the 9/11 episode, which made me emotional, was, just ... weird for me.