9/11 Déjà-Vu All Over Again

Anyone looking for examples of American exceptionalism will find plenty of material this week, beginning with the handling of the Boston Marathon bombings and on to a new series of poisoned letter attacks on prominent American politicians in Washington.

It culminates in the Senate’s decision to handle the latest school, movie theater and religious temple gun massacres with a business-as-usual attitude: no ban on semiautomatic assault rifles or high-capacity magazines and no expanded obligatory background checks on those seeking to buy such things, regardless of where and how they’re sold.

As before — and most dramatically on Sept. 11, 2001 — the reactions elicited by the Boston bombing show how self-absorbed Americans are regarding their own country and how little Americans see their nation as part of a global picture. Again, we see the disbelief that “such a thing” could happen in the United States — as if bombs were the sole privilege of other countries.

As if the United States — with its extreme violence and internal as well as external social inequalities — were some sort of island paradise full of peace and happiness. The ricin letters sent from Mississippi to Washington — where they were fortunately intercepted before they could cause any deaths — add to the sense of déjà-vu by reminding us of the anthrax attacks that followed close on the heels of the 9/11 attacks. Then, as now, they all seemed to be signs that the superpower was sinking further into chaos.

But the crowning touch was the Senate’s decision to continue treating guns as if nothing had really happened to justify any change. Against all common sense and contrary to the will of the vast majority of American citizens, the Senate gave the gun lobby continued carte blanche.

These are disturbing signals from an uncertain and irrational nation —

a nation where a considerable portion of those who have the say in politics and the media prefer to look to the past rather than to the future and, even then, seldom outside their own national box.

Thus far, reactions to the Boston bombings have been significantly more nuanced than those to previous attacks. Barack Obama seemingly has learned much from the mistakes of his predecessors. But the womb that gave birth to all the previous restrictions on individual freedom and liberty, and from which all the war and torture emanated, is still extremely fertile.