I am not normally an early riser, but on September 11th of this year, somehow I got up early, located a pen and a coffee and started writing. Most of the writing I have done professionally has been of technical nature, so I welcome any and all suggestions you may have to make me a better writer. I found myself enjoying this far more than I thought I would.
"The purpose of terrorism is to terrify" Lenin
9/11 terrorist attack on the US accomplished that purpose. We were all terrified, pissed off and more than a little concerned. Even the Leftist Democrats who borrowed their primary military strategy of "bend over and push" from the French, temporarily developed some sort of affection for America and pointed out that this kind of terrorist action is a little uncalled for. It was a moment of great unity in the face of danger and it lasted a cool week or so. Honestly, I am no so sure there was all the much unity because the Leftists were simply a little concerned about being destroyed together with America; personal danger was never a part of their plan. Almost immediately the Left went over to their usual pre-occupation of undermining the US, the troops started planning a foray off to Middle East and Central Asia to kick some ass, and the political class set off to come up with the dumbest possible strategy to to use our military. The rest of us were left to quietly wonder whether the TSA is the final proof of the existence of the ever merciful G-d. It had to the Almighty's punishment on all of us since there is no evolutionary reason for it. The whole organization is basically one large recessive gene.
But I digress. It has been 19 years. We are essentially a generation away from 9/11 and two generations away from the end of the Cold War. It sorta stands to reason that when Soviet Union collapsed without fully destroying the Western Civilization, the Left in America felt that they suffered a bit of a setback. Soviet Union was an evil shithole and selling their usual Marxist power grab to the American people, with the Soviet Union exposed as the empire of slavery and misery that it was, became impossible.
The time period between the fall of the Soviet Union and 9/11 was difficult for the Left. In order to continue the destruction of the US, the Communist Party pretty much had to re-label itself as the Green Party. That served two main purposes:
-they had some sort of legitimacy again with the low information emotion-based voter
-predictions of dire but unprovable future environmental disasters turned out to be a great way to launder money and weaken US economy.
The tragedy of 9/11 a generation alter was a gift from the above for the Left. Here was a golden opportunity to outsource the physical destruction of America to someone else without having to go give up DC cocktail parties. They could not support the Islamists immediately, but it did not take long to turn the whole thing around and add Islamophobia to the usual accusations of racism (luckily, an average Democrat voter had no idea that Islam is a religion, rather than a race so it could all be lumped into one). As is usually the case, the Left does not care about the actual plight of Muslims around the world. They just needed something else to hit America over the head with. If they cared about Muslims they'd be all up in arms about the Chinese oppression of Muslims in their Central Asian provinces. However, since they havn't yet figured out a good way to blame America for the Chinese sending a million Uighurs to re-education camps, it barely makes the news. Nearly twenty years after 9/11, having had all this time to corrupt young people who were not there to witness the collapse of the Soviet Union or the disaster of the Twin Towers coming down, we have Antifa and BLM, with vocal approval and support of the Democrat Party, doing what the Islamists could not: destroying our major cities.
After 9/11, most of us came together as a nation to condemn terrorism and support our country.
Are we going to do the same in the face of the domestic terrorism of Antifa and BLM?
I wish I knew the answer to that. I suppose we will know in November.
We ran away from Soviet Union 30 years ago, but there is nowhere else to run. This time we have to stay and fight.
Not bad, but a little more width would help. The tripod is Field Optics Research's Dome Top Hunter 32.
Rather amazingly, the balance on this thing is just right as is.
