I remember after the terrorism after the twin towers came down, Bill Maher, political talk show comedian, who at the time had a show called Politically Incorrect on ABC, said that the attackers were not cowards.
“We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That’s cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it’s not cowardly.”
ABC fired Maher shortly after his remarks, which really came as no surprise.
Michael Eisner, CEO of ABC and Disney at the time, is a close friend of George W. Bush, and he was an early leader in hiring likeminded individuals and getting rid of those who exhibited errant behavior. Toe the company line, or you’re out.
FOX News later mastered this art under Roger Ailes.
The trick is to surround yourself with people who already believe what you believe, practice what you practice, and will fight for what you will fight for, right?
Which is why Maher found a happy home on HBO, a much more liberal network, with a new show, Real Time.
It would be years later when he would find himself an early victim of cancel culture.
#triggered
Trigger warnings caught on like wildfire on college campuses when I was in grad school. Suddenly the door on free speech was slammed shut to protect students from being triggered. Students began to complain their teachers were talking about subjects that triggered their emotions, past traumas, and sensitivities. These “children” needed “safe spaces” in which to learn and prepare for… what? Certainly not the real world? There is no safe space in the real world.
#censored
Thus when Bill Maher was invited to speak at Cal Berkeley, many students petitioned to have him disinvited, and in fact voted against his appearance. They claimed Maher was a bigot and a racist for speaking out widely against organized religion, and especially against Islamic practices. The university overturned the vote, and Maher did in fact deliver the keynote address, during which he spoke specifically about freedom of speech.
But the censorship issues were only just beginning.
Freedom? Terrorism?
Freedom of speech is, ostensibly, the first amendment to the constitution, the very first personal freedom guaranteed to us by the might of the federal government, because it is the most important. We must be allowed to present our ideas, and we must not be shut down, cancelled, or censored for simply sharing those ideas.
Part of that freedom means actually feeling free to express our opinions, present them, say them out loud, maybe change them, maybe not.
The argument going around now that “you have the freedom to speak, but you don’t have the freedom from the consequences of that speech” are profoundly incorrect. The idea that because it is a corporation, or a twitter mob, delivering the consequences, our freedom of speech is not being violated is simply untrue. The country is run by corporations and people. If we’re not protected from corporations and people, then what, may I ask, is the point?
Few exceptions to this right exist, which is as it should be, one of them being inciting violence.
Today, twenty years after Bill Maher was fired by ABC, we are reaping the consequences of what began as “I only want to hear what I want to hear” culture. (Which, of course, began long before that as “those in power do not have to deign to hear those without power.” This is just the latest iteration of blocking speech.)
This is not a left or right issue. It is an American people issue. Both liberals and conservatives do it, and perhaps the largest problem is that we insist on being liberals and conservatives. We need groups to belong to, people to agree with us, boxes to fit into.
Bill Maher Was… Right
Because, here’s the thing: Bill Maher was right, on both accounts, managing to piss off everyone. Goddess knows how he still has a television show.
The 9/11 attackers were not, in point of fact, objectively, cowards. They stayed in the plane. The sacrificed their lives for something they believed in. And they just happened to believe in destroying America.
And, if we could, for just a second, allow in the possibility that maybe they had a damn good reason for wanting to destroy America, we might be able to actually build a country that’s not so damn hate-able.
Notice people get all up in arms about Maher saying the attackers were not cowards, but no one talks about the other part of his comment: “lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away.”
We have destroyed the middle east in the name of… what? Not freedom. Not democracy.
Money and power.
It all, always comes down to money and power. By now, we have all acknowledged that the billions of dollars we have spent in the middle east have never been about freedom or peace keeping. Upwards of 7,000 US soldiers have died since 9/11 while almost 1,000,000 middle eastern lives have been lost since that date as a direct result of the wars we have been waging.
During every single president, all the way up through Donald Trump, we have launched missiles, staged drone attacks, and captured, tortured, and killed people outside of the law, both national and international, using our military might and the mantra of American exceptionalism to justify our, yes, cowardly, actions. We, as a nation, are guaranteed to “win,” and we will not be questioned, challenged, or held accountable by anyone.
So, is it any wonder that our people behave in much the same way?
Each corporation, each network, each college campus student body, and each individual who does this, merely sticks their fingers in their ears, shouting “blah blah blah” when confronted with new information or information that contradicts their belief system, is an extension of the US launching missiles from 2,000 miles away and refusing to perhaps change, or even revisit, its approach.
Thus, cancel culture was born, the newest form of censorship, bullying, and the American way.
JK Rowling was the beginning of my awareness of cancel culture. She dared to express the opinion that biological sex is real and cannot be changed.
Essentially, her argument is that while gender is a social construct, and can be fluid, biological sex is not and cannot. Women are women. Trans women are trans women.
She did not express hate, did not insult or shame, did not incite violence, chaos, anger.
#cancelled
Sales of her books have dropped dramatically, and some called to have her charged with a hate crime.
A fucking hate crime.
Canceled.
Many, many examples abound of this type of crowd sourcing, mob mentality punishment, but this one in particular feels the most outrageous to me.
A liberal feminist, speaking on women’s issues, cancelled by liberals and feminists. How very American.
Social media creates this space that is ostensibly about connecting to each other, communicating, staying in touch, and in many ways it does, but it also creates even more of a vacuum than we have ever had. It allows us to shut each other down, hit the delete button, spread hate, and, only reach other people who feel exactly like us, and then, lo and behold, act like a mob.
It allows liberals to destroy people’s lives and livelihoods, to call for the heads of conservatives or wayward liberals, and it allows conservatives to organize sedition.
Which brings me to terrorism.
Last week, I tweeted out my opinion on the Proud Boys’ attempt to stop the electoral college count in the nation’s capital, charging into the Capitol building and planting bombs. I called them terrorists.
A friend of mine then asked me on social media if I really thought these men were terrorists.
I explained that I don’t think they are terrorists. They are objectively, by literal definition, terrorists. They used violence in a political situation to terrorize people.
“Would you use that same language to describe the BLM rioters and looters then?” She asked, genuinely curious.
“Yes.” Yes. I would. As a staunch advocate of the Black Lives Matter movement, I do have problems with some of the approaches and outcomes of that movement. The autonomous zone in Seattle that terrorized the people who lived in those neighborhoods and saw women sexually assaulted, nine shootings, dozens of injuries, and two dead is, by definition, terrorism.
#terrorism
Over the next few days, I thought about my language, thought about the way I think about terrorism, thought about my need to use that language for the Proud Boys. Why did I need to call them terrorists? Why was I doubling down on the term, allowing myself to then label Black Lives Matter protestors by the same term, despite remarkably different motivations, backgrounds, and outcomes of the two groups, one which I support and the other which I denounce?
Then, I saw a post on author Ijeoma Oluo’s Instagram account, posted by Alaya, the woman who runs Oluo’s social media. She noted that using the term terrorist to refer to the Proud Boys only further legitimizes the term, which then allows for greater police funding against terrorism, funding which is then used against people of color at greater degrees.
“Ah.” I thought. “That makes sense.”
I found myself once again thinking of 9/11. Thinking of when we first started using the term on a societal level. Terrorists.
I thought back to that day when our country was attacked, and how angry and quick to violence we all were, how quick we were to sanction war, bombings, the killing of innocents. “Kill em all and let God sort em out.” I saw that bumper sticker everywhere.
Terrorism: Everywhere.
Because they were terrorists. They terrorized us! This was terrorism!
We waged a war on terrorism.
Of course, another war.
But… we terrorized them.
We terrorized them, first.
They don’t see themselves as terrorists. They see themselves as freedom fighters.
Fighting to free their country from US intervention.
Fighting to get our bombs out of their living rooms.
Fighting to save their children from errant, indiscriminate missiles.
Fighting for their innocents to not be seen as “collateral damage.”
Fighting, ironically, to extricate themselves from terrorism, ours.
Certainly not cowards.
Reflecting on all of this has made me think about terrorism in general, about what sparks it, on what sustains it, on what calling it out does for the cause.
I’m still thinking about it all.
What I think, so far, is this: two, or more, things can be true at the same time.
Terrorists can be terrorists, and terrorists can have their reasons, and terrorists can be desperate, and terrorists can still be wrong.
And maybe, just maybe, what we can do is listen to each other more, cancel each other less, allow for new information, and not be so quick to call each other names.
And when we do find ourselves, inevitably, humanly, shouting each other down, applying labels, stuffing each other into boxes, maybe we could also explore the motivations behind those labels, on both sides.
What makes someone a terrorist? And what makes me so eager to label this person/group a terrorist?
In my case, I needed to perform allyship with people of color, I needed to do it publicly, and I needed to do it with a strong message.
“Terrorist.”
Today, I’m reevaluating my needs, my approaches, and my voice.
I wonder at how easily we are all manipulated, how quick we are to fight, and how wont to be triggered.
We are not a nation of critical thinkers. We are a nation of reactionaries.
And, I would argue, that is by design. (See Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, John Holt.)
Thus, I would posit that the greatest revolution we could stage would be one in which we take back our ability to think for ourselves, though I’m not really sure when we last had it in hand… 1800’s?
Maybe the early 1900’s?
I would posit that the greatest change we can make is within ourselves, recalibrate our DNA in a way that demands we listen to each other, even if, nay, especially if, we disagree.
I would posit that the greatest evolutionary act we can commit is to shape ourselves into open, loving, curious, free thinking individuals, who promote those same values in those influenced by us, and model those qualities in all we do.
I would posit that we pause.
We pause for a moment before reacting, we step behind the veil of ignorance, and we imagine ourselves in the other person’s shoes.
We might even want to, I don’t know, walk a mile while we’re there.
The revolution is upon us, people. That is a reality that is as inevitable as it is outside of our grasp. What is still within our grasp, I would posit, is the outcome.