Zizek

In Zizek's quote, The terrorists' themselves did not do it primarily to provoke real material damage, but for the spectacular effect of it, on page 231 was one that stuck out in our class. Everyone spoke of the stories they had of the devastating day of September 11, 2001, which was really interesting to hear. That day I was in gym class when we were told about the towers, and in 7th grade I have to admit I did not really know what the twin towers were. I was from Ohio, and did not see the real magnitude of what the tragedies of this day placed on America as a whole, I felt as if it had no real impact on my life at the time. The constant streaming of footage from that day is something that I will never forget because for my family that was all that my parents had on TV for the next few weeks after the attack. This was the spectacular effect that was damaging for our country. People became puppets ready to attack back, which enhanced many people's desire to join the war. This fear tactic kept everyone on edge and ready to do what they were told was the right way to respond to such a devastating attack to our country.

His other quote "It is surprising how little of the actual carnage we see... in clear contrast to reporting on Third World catastrophes... The real horror happens there not here" 231, ties also into this feeling that I had that nothing too bad ever happens in our country. You always see devastation in other countries and are never given full footage. The oil spill for example has gotten much coverage my the news in the past four or five months. The amount of damage is still going on weather it be the oil in the ocean or the oil that has made it to land. I remember seeing one image throughout the whole thing and that was the rig itself leaking into the ocean. There was one picture of ducks that were covered with oil that was shown as well. This is a catastrophe upon catastrophes for New Orleans, and got about the same amount of coverage as the hurricane Katrina that completely devastated New Orleans. This feeling we get from covering up our own real horror is something that is very troubling about our country. When the power is more willing to help other countries in time of need then helping their own people is a devastation in itself.