Knowing Osama bin Laden

At BoingBoing is this:

OK, this makes people look bad. But as Yahoo notes, 2/3 of people looking up who Osama bin Laden is on the internet are teenagers.

Likely interpretation of this information from most people who hear it: "Oh, our children are so uneducated! Our schools are failing us!!!"

But is this true? After all, why should they know about Osama bin Laden? Of course, there are obvious answers to that question. But a few notes here in defense of our ignorant kids:

1. It's not like Osama bin Laden has been a major feature in our national narrative since about 2002. Bush said he didn't care about catching him. We focused on Iraq and then finally Afghanistan, but how often has the media mentioned bin Laden in the past 9 years? Not a whole lot.

2. A 16 year old today was quite possibly 6 years old on September 11, 2001. How much do you remember from when you were 6? Some 6 year olds are going to remember 9/11, others not. Another 3-4 years and none of our college freshmen will remember 9/11. Time passes and it passes fast. We shouldn't blame our kids for not knowing the recent past because most of us didn't when we were 16 either.

3. And that leads to my final point--this is a conversation that older people have had in one way or another back to probably the beginning of human history. Our kids don't know about (the Kennedy assassination) (the Vietnam War) (Pearl Harbor), etc., etc. The horror!!!! We need to relax and realize take it easy on our kids. They'll have the same conversation in 20 years about this or that. It happens.

That the Yahoo post linked to above notes that the leading states for these searches are the rural states of the American West is a phenomenon of some interest, but I have nothing to offer about it.

Bin Laden

Glad the motherfucker is dead, but it really makes no different. People are responding by saying that Republicans are DOA in the 2012 elections. This is completely absurd--it is 18 months until the election and gas prices are likely to have a greater effect on the election as this. Moreover, this will make absolutely no difference on American foreign policy except to check off one box of so, so many.

Not trying to rain on anyone's patriotic parade, but basically, this is nothing more than a nice event. It changes almost nothing.

Climate Change as Imperialism

So it seems Osama Bin Laden released a statement blaming the U.S. for climate change and talking about fighting climate change as an anti-colonial action.

Obviously, we can't take Bin Laden seriously on something like this. Certainly Juan Cole doesn't and lists 10 reasons why Al Qaeda has been bad for the climate, including causing the war which has created enormous emissions.

But let's at least pretend Bin Laden has a leg to stand on. Can we see climate change as another episode of western imperialism against the developing world?

Absolutely.

And it's actually a fairly simple case. Western nations pump out tremendous amounts of carbon emissions. They exploit nations such as Nigeria, Indonesia, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and others to get their fossil fuels. Then sea levels rise and destroy Tonga and Vanuatu, while also erasing much of Bangladesh. Increased drought and desertification make places like Mali and Niger increasingly difficult places to live. Refugees are forced into ever more crowded nations and poverty increases.

The more interesting question whether a global movement can develop that uses climate change as a central organizing issue. It's certainly hard to say. The period of anti-colonial nationalism has largely passed, with old colonial leaders and their descendants making bank off global capitalism. The erasure of western rule or direct domination has made it more difficult for leaders to deflect attention away from their own problems onto the United States or Great Britain. Since the leaders of China, India, and most other developing world nations are trying to increase carbon emissions as fast as possible, an anti-climate change movement will focus on national problems first before going international.

This makes any real organized anti-colonialist movement based around western caused climate change very unlikely.