25 years Post-9/11 - Poster of the Week
Truth Hurts, Lies Hurt More
Steve Bodzin; San Francisco Print Collective
Silkscreen, 2001
San Francisco, CA
16976
Today is the 25th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks. The attacks, orchestrated by the extremist group al-Qaeda, killed nearly 3,000 people and injured thousands more. In the wake of the tragedy, the American media and the Bush administration exploited grief, rage, and patriotism to create the Islamophobic, paranoid, and surveillance state that America is today. The world changed forever.
Hate crimes against Muslims spiked from 28 reported cases in 2000 to 281 in 2001. Twenty-five years later, 42% of Americans still think Muslim Americans have a negative impact on the country, and 51% believe Islam encourages more violence than other religions. U.S. wars on Muslim-majority countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Iran have killed close to 1 million people–despite the vast majority of civilians in these countries having nothing to do with al-Qaeda.
Just 45 days after the terrorist attacks, Congress passed the USA PATRIOT Act with virtually no debate. Spear-headed by President George W. Bush, the Patriot Act and subsequent legislation under the umbrella of “homeland security” limited many constitutionally protected freedoms. It gave the government the power to access citizens’ records, tap their phones and email, and enter their homes without probable cause, without warrants, and without prior notification. Concurrently, tech companies have rapidly developed popular and unregulated devices that constantly surveil and collect data, which is sold to private companies and the government.
In addition to the 3,000 killed on 9/11 and the near million deaths in the wars following, the lies surrounding 9/11 have also led to thousands of deaths at home. Every administration, until Mayor Zohran Mamdani, denied that there were any health impacts from the toxins that remained in the air for months after the attacks. Then-mayor Rudy Giuliani claimed the air was safe days after the attacks. Since 2001, around 49,000 first responders and survivors have been diagnosed with 9/11-related cancers, and at least 9,000 people have died from illnesses linked to the attacks.
As CSPG’s Poster of the Week so prophetically illustrates, the lies Americans were fed after the attacks have only caused more pain, fear, and death.
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