One 9/11 Per Day

by wjw on December 24, 2020

Hey, does anybody remember that when 9/11 happened, people got really shocked and upset and angry?  The towers were smoking ruins, nearly 3000 people died, “United We Stand” banners appeared everywhere, and we invaded a couple of countries at the cost of hundreds of billions of dollars.

Well, guess what?  A 9/11 death toll happens every day now.  Nearly 3000 people die in the U.S. of Covid-19 every single day.

What happened to “United We Stand?”  Where’s the united action against the killer?  Why aren’t people more upset and angry?

Imagine what would have happened back in 2001 if President Bush said, “Oh, that’s not really a problem.”

Or, “Those towers will be back in the spring.”

Or, “I think the death toll is a complete exaggeration.”

Or, “We didn’t need those towers anyway.”

Or, “It’s all Fake News trying to inflame the situation.”

Or, “I think those towers came from China.”

Or, “It’s all one guy from Saudi.”

Or, “The CDC just made up those numbers because they hate America.”

Or, “The Twin Tower situation is under control.  I think the stock market is looking great!”

And then 40% of the population followed that line, and denied that the attack was at all serious, or even took place at all.

I live in a place where people seem convinced that wearing a Stetson protects you from the coronavirus, even though they drive past the Covid testing facility on the highway every day.  (It’s a fake testing facility, I guess.)

Since New Mexico went into lockdown for the third time just before Thanksgiving, our daily Covid cases are down by nearly 50%, though the daily death toll has remained remarkably stable.  There was no big Thanksgiving bounce, thank God, and with luck there won’t be a bounce for Christmas and the New Year.  I’ll be staying in, cooking my lonely meals and making free use of the liquor cabinet.

Stay the fuck at home, my friends.

Areteo December 24, 2020 at 10:24 am
wjw December 24, 2020 at 11:32 pm
Keith Reihe December 24, 2020 at 11:49 pm

Great commentary. I hope you’ll also be writing some of the next Praxis novel while enjoying your lonely meal. I loved Fleet Elements and am waiting impatiently for the next novel in the series. Take care.

Don't Forget December 28, 2020 at 5:06 pm

The day the Twin Towers fell, one idiot did go on TV to boast that his buildings were now the tallest in the city (he was lying of course)

DensityDuck January 7, 2021 at 10:03 am

our response to 9/11 was to pass the Patriot Act, empower the NSA to conduct wiretaps of domestic communications, create the DHS, and invade both Afghanistan and Iraq.

and literally everyone everywhere said “these are bad things and we should not have done them”

so

what exactly are you imagining we’d have done about COVID-19 that you’d have countenanced

you’d have been happy with a border closure trapping Americans abroad? a Federal ban on travel between states, a Federal curfew, a mask mandate backed up by the threat of prison time? you’d have trusted a Trump-led system to do all these things in a non-racist way?

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