this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2025
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Today I Learned (TIL)
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I was about to say the list was incomplete as several million attended the Iraq war protests, but it turns out that was global and only a few hundred k Americans bothered to protest the invasion of Iraq based on manufactured propaganda.
The post 9/11 bloodthirsty hysteria, "you're either with us or against us" dissonance, religious nationalism, and ignorant patriotism is what made me believe the US would become an authoritarian dictatorship in my lifetime. Great job teenage me. I hate it.
I was 16 when 9/11 happened and I was a pretty tuned in kid who spoke up about the issues I had with it, how horrible the patriot act was, all sorts of things and I can absolutely attest the response was always extremely hostile and cutting, filled with personal attacks about how moronic I was, now naive and of course because I’m female I’m inherently too stupid to hold a conversation about this so just shout me down so I will shut my stupid girl mouth and sit down. I’ve never changed my mind, why would I? And you know what, I still get attacked in exactly the same ways but at least the “you’re a terrorist for not supporting the Iraq war” has died down
I think you may have misread the Wikipedia page. There were 300-400,000 in NYC alone.
I was in Boston and there were 10s of thousands, even though it was February and sleeting, SF had another 150-200k.
I think there was a sizable group in DC too.
That's what I thought but those are the "official" estimates, which do strangely focus on NYC.
I guess we're talking about a fascist-oligarch-owned MSM who profit from war and chaos so they had a vested interest to suppress the real opposition.
I was in college at that time and was a typical "centrist" and counter protested. I've changed at lot since then.
Congratulations on your evolution. I was pretty cringe around that era, too.
That was the first overt demonstration that American news outlets were captured by jingoist propaganda. But back then pointing out that media coverage differed from literal experienced reality got you labeled as a terrorist kook.