Even though we had a little bit of warning about federation, I think we’re off to a rocky start. Maybe we should have compiled a list of things we think that may make other people very upset. That way they can quickly get to know what we’re about and go hide in a social media bubble if it scares them.

I figure I’d start with a good one. America deserved 9/11. I’m burying the lede a bit with that one. I don’t think random acts of violence really accomplish much and I don’t think randos, albeit imperial core randos, should die. But this wasn’t a random act of violence, was it?

There’s a little something called Foucault’s Boomerang. Basically it’s the tools, means, and experiments carried out by imperial countries tend to make their way back home one way or another. Military gear gets tried out on the battlefield then next thing you know cops at home have the same equipment. It also works for cause and effect. America did 9/11 to itself.

After WWII America courted the monarchy of Saudi Arabia, who had some really “interesting” religious ideas at the time, to ensure a source of oil. Oil was very important to American manufacturing and the war effort. Our domestic reserves helped us get through WWII. We needed more. So the US decided to look the other way on Saudi foreign policy while they ensured us first dibs on the oil. The UK also made deals on building their infrastructure and finance needs, to which the US eventually pushed them of the back rooms where such deals were made. But that’s another story.

The US also backed anti-Soviet/anti-Communist groups in the Middle-East as they had in other parts of the world. This meant giving aide and weapons and training to those groups. In exchange they would beat up all the communists and pro-soviet people in their country and keep the borders open for US trade.

Not to “yadda yadda yadda” through a lot of interesting history but the US made a lot of enemies and ruined former alliances in these places because we valued the exploitation of their resources more than the actual relationships formed. Once the Soviets were gone, we could just do what we wanted to them and there was nobody left to oppose us.

So our former (and some current) friends stabbed us in the back. The imperialism boomeranged back home and we got a terrorist attack on US soil.

The people who died didn’t particularly deserve it but people die when an imperial power does imperialism. That’s part of why it’s bad. Imperialism will never benefit the common person, it will only hurt us in the end. You best believe all this funding, weapons, and shit going into Ukraine will come back on us too.

What are some other real-ass takes for our visitors who need disillusioning?

  • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    50·
    1 year ago

    I don’t think randos, albeit imperial core randos

    I think it’s worth correcting this. The people of the WTC were not just randos. The tenants list of the towers was:

    WTC1(North)

    Port Authority of New York and New Jersey - Randos

    Marsh & McLennan Companies - Huge finance capitalist firm

    Bank of America

    Cantor Fitzgerald - Huge finance capitalist firm

    Dai-Ichi Kangyo Group - A japanese Keiretsu (monopoly group) (more bastards)

    Sidley Austin Brown & Wood - Law firm, primarily serving finance capitalists

    Restaurant “Windows on the World” - Randos

    WTC2(South)

    Verizon - Randos

    New York Stock Exchange - Finance capitalists

    Morgan Stanley - Finance capitalists

    Xerox Corporation - Randos

    Keefe, Bruyette & Woods - Finance capitalists

    Aon Corporation - Finance capitalist advisory firm

    Fiduciary Trust Company International - Finance capitalists

    WTC7

    Salomon Smith Barney - Finance capitalists

    U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission - Finance capitalist regulator

    Standard Chartered Bank - Finance capitalists

    U.S. Secret Service - Ghouls

    My point here is that these were not “randos” that were attacked. This was a direct and targeted attack on the bourgeoisie. This was targeted directly at the ruling class of america and the response that occurred posing it as an “attack on america” was because the bourgeoisie consider themselves to be america and that any attack on them is an attack on the nation. Had this been a bombing against randos it would have been largely ignored, as you see with most bombings of random shopping centres etc. It was because it was an attack on the ruling class that it created such an extensive response from them.

    • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      40·
      1 year ago

      Xerox Corporation

      Tech companies, especially tech companies that are as old as Xerox, definitely are at least finance capital adjacent. Old school mainframes were almost exclusively catered towards financial institutions like banks because they’re the only place where you would simultaneously need computers and could afford computers, in this case for number-crunching financial transactions. Mainframes were also used by the military and the feds as a counter-insurgent weapon, in this case as a means of handling massive amounts of data gathered by informants and general surveillance. The origins of tech as an industry that caters to the military and finance explains the general reactionary character of subcultures that have origins in tech like gaming as well as entirely predict how social media companies would be entirely incorporated within the surveillance apparatus.

    • worker_bear [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      17·
      1 year ago

      Was the WTC where the actual execs and shit were working though? From what I understood I thought it was mostly middle management and lower type employees in those buildings. This makes a lot of sense, though - I never really connected the contents of the WTC building with its selection as a target for the attack. Still, as much as we collectively deserved 9/11, it’s hard for me to lean in and say ‘those guys ESPECIALLY deserved it’ if they were just middle of the rung 9-5ers. If that was the case, they’re like… a degree or two closer to the imperial core, but this country basically forces you to work for those assholes if you want to be even lower-middle class. Unless I’m totally wrong, in which case forget everything I just said. But I prefer to think along the lines of how Chomsky described our collective guilt via our indifference during the Vietnam war era, namely that we were all equally culpable for not doing everything in our power to stop this project. Every American (us included) should be doing more.