The 9/12 Project: What?
In case you don’t know, Fox commentator Glenn Beck will host a 9/12 Project rally in Washington, D.C. on Saturday.
Here’s a promo video for it:
What’s the 9/12 Project? According to its 9 principles and 12 values, it appears to be a push back against the threat of bigger government control in the individual’s life, and, according to Beck, a way to return to the way America was in the days following the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
There are a few items on this list that Americans ought to take issue with – not because they’re poor value choices, or that some of the principals are necessarily bad, but more for their collective misrepresentation of the way that America was after 9/11 – the very moment that the movement is attempting showcase.
Take Moderation and Thrift – both on the list of 12 values – for example. If the last couple of years have shown us anything, it’s that moderation and thrift were not high on the list of any Western democracy’s “to-do” list after 9/11, and least of all for the United States, whose citizens were advised to “go shopping” in order to combat terrorism. 9/12 was the day moderation died. As Andrew J. Bacevich opined last year in the Washington Post, not only were Americans told to spend more, (and in some cases, incur more debt), but the government itself ignored any notion of moderation and plunged trillions of dollars into two wars that have yet to reach conclusion.
Or what about “The government works for me. I don’t answer to them, they answer to me.”? Was that what happened on 9/12 when everyone – not just Americans – was scrambling for answers? No. Rather, this occurred: “Just six in 10 felt that [President] Bush was a strong leader when he took office in 2001. After the attacks of September 11, that number rose to three in four.” A fifteen percent increase in popularity. Citizens placed their faith in government, hoping it would do the right thing. If anything, 9/12 offers an example of the exact opposite of individual autonomy in a democracy.
More than individually, though, the 9/12 principles and values as a whole are an example of unnecessary propaganda (eg. “America is good” – not always). The movement uses a catastrophic event to promote a false sense of patriotism that relies on artificial nostalgia for a moment that never really existed. With this altered reality as a backdrop, the 9/12 project pushes an agenda that is in a sense Libertarian, but is framed in a way that suggests that any – or all – of these principles and values are under attack. They’re not, which makes the 9/12 project’s raison d’etre its most worrying attribute.
I’m not suggesting that the 9/12 movement disappear; I’d be a hypocrite if I did. But it seems to be part of a worrying trend. The events of 9/11 affected everyone, everywhere if for no other reason than the fact that they spawned an entirely new world of global politics. Now, eight years removed from it, the legacy of 9/11 shouldn’t be what we all did immediately afterward; it should be the lessons that we have learned in the years since.
*Update: As sanguinesu pointed out, the 9/12 site no longer seems to have the 9 principles and 12 values. They can be found here.
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And those lessons are…?
Anyone who was in or near NYC on 9/11, or who lost someone, knows all they need to know. The rest is self-serving BS. 9/11 traumatized millions of people and nothing anyone ever says will change that fact.
Yes, agreed, many people will never need someone like Glenn Beck, or me, to tell them what they should think about 9/11.
In response to another comment. See in context »Having said that, the lessons I allude to are basically avoiding the kinds of things that Trevor brought up in his comment – limitation of civil liberties, knee-jerk reactionary policies that led to war, etc. et. These things existed prior to 9/11, granted, but were certainly thrown into the spotlight since then. We ought to learn something from it all, and I’m not sure looking only to the first few days after the attack is going to help anyone – there’s more to it than that, wouldn’t you say?
Sorry, this is supposed to bring America back to September 12, 2001? Do these people really have that poor of a memory? The days, months, and years following 9/11 will best be remembered as when the Unites States increased state involvement in people’s lives, restricted civil liberties, ignored its own constitution, and alienated the initial goodwill and sympathy of the international community.
It also amuses me to no end when conservatives feel the need to profess their love of family and honesty as if the rest of the world lives in some sort of soulless anarchism. Everyone loves their family. Seriously.
It also amuses me that for all the talk of unity, they’ve forgotten that there are non-monotheists living in America.
The key idea I take away from the 9/12 Project isn’t that of different sorts of people coming together, but different sorts of people submitting to a single idea of what it means to be American. Never a good starting point for any sort of movement.
I should admit that I quite fancy this line, Colin: “9/12 was the day moderation died.”
[...] this year it’s limited to a nutty little cult leader on basic cable who is encouraging his radicalized band of fanatical followers to invade the cities where the tragedy actually happened in order to shock the populace back into [...]
The 9 Principles and 12 Values page is now coming up with a 404 Page not found error. Glenn Beck’s values quite literally vanished on 9/11.
So it has. How odd! They seem to have been removed from the site entirely, but the rest of it still exists.
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] were looking to relive the glory of 9/12s [...]
[...] was also the well-documented coming together of the country, looking to the President and his bullhorn, unable to turn the TV coverage off, donations pouring [...]
[...] this year it’s limited to a nutty little cult leader on basic cable who is encouraging his radicalized band of fanatical followers to invade the cities where the tragedy actually happened in order to shock the populace back into [...]
[...] this year it’s limited to a nutty little cult leader on basic cable who is encouraging his radicalized band of fanatical followers to invade the cities where the tragedy actually happened in order to shock the populace back into [...]
What happened on September 13th? The right-wingers ran the rest of us off.
Stupid patriotism is a kind of treason.