For me, probably the withdrawal from Afghanistan. The taliban seemed ten steps ahead of the US. Al Jazeeras exclusive coverage of the Taliban was as intimate as the NYTs exclusive coverage of the drone murder of an employee of a San Francisco based soy bean NFP. Security camera footage of his movements before his demise left more questions than it answered.
I was talking with my mom on the phone (Vienna to Houston) when she said, "Oh my God. Someone has flown a plane into the world trade center."
I remember 9/11 so well because the relationship between the US and Europe changed after that. We invaded Iraq and reelected Bush. Prior to 9/11 and Iraq, a blue passport in Europe had some cache. For the 10 years after Iraq, I kept my nationality as quiet as I could.
It's hard to say because, as you note, the widespread, shared sensibility required for national moments to exist (as at the bicentennial) feels like it has been eclipsed by the forces you name, technological and otherwise, everything having transmogrified into a simulacrum of itself, like Adam Curtis goes into in Hypernormalization. Lewis Lapham has also noted numerous times how content follows form on account of the rule of images having superseded the written word and the requirements of logical thinking. I also think the change, which is one of moral degradation (let's not forget that), has to do with how the law has been more or less definitively exposed as an instrument of ruling class power and not an evenhanded standard that applies to all regardless of station. At any rate, Baudrillard, who was preceded by the uber-culture prophet, Marshall McLuhan, was completely correct about the Disneyification of everything (this is in the 1980s), where different values collapse into each other and everything becomes pastiche. We're living that par excellence.
Having said all that, the only thing that comes to mind as a national moment is a gradual one that I'm not sure can be defined as a bona fide moment: the recent talk of civil war in the U.S., which started roughly contemporaneously with Trump becoming president. The prospect of renewed "fraternal" violence of that sort, and its portentousness, replete with that particular historical reference that is still charged and which we all stand in relation to in one way or another, really brings it home.
People were whipped into such a hysteria over covid that few people noticed or cared that democratic primaries were postponed and cancelled. Sanders was coerced into suspending his campaign in 2020, ostensibly for contagion fears, as he was in 2016 pressured into conceding to Clinton, due to superdelegate pressure and Trump-phobia. It’s a beautiful irony that Clinton’s defeat enabled the neoliberal establishment to fuel Russophobia enough to justify supporting a Washington-installed Nazi regime in Ukraine, instead of funding Medicare 4 All or any number of domestic areas that have languished due to lack of funding.
National moments as a signifier my still exist moving forward but they all now seem to blur into two main categories of “forever”. Forever wars and forever financial contagions. They are linked as well. Wall Street, the Pentagon and the Washington consensus have consolidated into a Troika of manipulation and control both real and projected. Julian Assange as a touchstone and Snowden as a clarifier show us a window into the real politic of US hegemony and none of it is good for the future. It’s clear now all the national moments will be fear based and have been set in motion already.
9/11 would have to be the most impactful BFD here. Obviously, that "event" was a massive shot in the arm for the National Security State, with the "shock and awed" consent of most American people. I see the Nord Stream explosions as the 9/11 of Industrial Sabotage, although the jury's out on what the consequences will be from this dumb dirty deed...
For me, probably the withdrawal from Afghanistan. The taliban seemed ten steps ahead of the US. Al Jazeeras exclusive coverage of the Taliban was as intimate as the NYTs exclusive coverage of the drone murder of an employee of a San Francisco based soy bean NFP. Security camera footage of his movements before his demise left more questions than it answered.
Withdrawal from there so they could focus on eastern Europe and Ukraine in particular...
Our beloved US is a fascist country -- its democracy left long ago (about 70+ years ago)
I was talking with my mom on the phone (Vienna to Houston) when she said, "Oh my God. Someone has flown a plane into the world trade center."
I remember 9/11 so well because the relationship between the US and Europe changed after that. We invaded Iraq and reelected Bush. Prior to 9/11 and Iraq, a blue passport in Europe had some cache. For the 10 years after Iraq, I kept my nationality as quiet as I could.
It's hard to say because, as you note, the widespread, shared sensibility required for national moments to exist (as at the bicentennial) feels like it has been eclipsed by the forces you name, technological and otherwise, everything having transmogrified into a simulacrum of itself, like Adam Curtis goes into in Hypernormalization. Lewis Lapham has also noted numerous times how content follows form on account of the rule of images having superseded the written word and the requirements of logical thinking. I also think the change, which is one of moral degradation (let's not forget that), has to do with how the law has been more or less definitively exposed as an instrument of ruling class power and not an evenhanded standard that applies to all regardless of station. At any rate, Baudrillard, who was preceded by the uber-culture prophet, Marshall McLuhan, was completely correct about the Disneyification of everything (this is in the 1980s), where different values collapse into each other and everything becomes pastiche. We're living that par excellence.
Having said all that, the only thing that comes to mind as a national moment is a gradual one that I'm not sure can be defined as a bona fide moment: the recent talk of civil war in the U.S., which started roughly contemporaneously with Trump becoming president. The prospect of renewed "fraternal" violence of that sort, and its portentousness, replete with that particular historical reference that is still charged and which we all stand in relation to in one way or another, really brings it home.
Rich guys going to space and the JFK files found at Mara Largo (I can't believe it was Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder).
Thanks !! FYI - Another important batch from our Empire of Lies :
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1627098945359867904
Matt Taibbi - @mtaibbi -- TWITTER FILES #16 -- Comic Interlude: A Media Experiment
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/27/politics/new-york-cancels-primary/index.html
People were whipped into such a hysteria over covid that few people noticed or cared that democratic primaries were postponed and cancelled. Sanders was coerced into suspending his campaign in 2020, ostensibly for contagion fears, as he was in 2016 pressured into conceding to Clinton, due to superdelegate pressure and Trump-phobia. It’s a beautiful irony that Clinton’s defeat enabled the neoliberal establishment to fuel Russophobia enough to justify supporting a Washington-installed Nazi regime in Ukraine, instead of funding Medicare 4 All or any number of domestic areas that have languished due to lack of funding.
National moments as a signifier my still exist moving forward but they all now seem to blur into two main categories of “forever”. Forever wars and forever financial contagions. They are linked as well. Wall Street, the Pentagon and the Washington consensus have consolidated into a Troika of manipulation and control both real and projected. Julian Assange as a touchstone and Snowden as a clarifier show us a window into the real politic of US hegemony and none of it is good for the future. It’s clear now all the national moments will be fear based and have been set in motion already.
9/11 would have to be the most impactful BFD here. Obviously, that "event" was a massive shot in the arm for the National Security State, with the "shock and awed" consent of most American people. I see the Nord Stream explosions as the 9/11 of Industrial Sabotage, although the jury's out on what the consequences will be from this dumb dirty deed...