Nine Eleven

"Is there so much love in the world that we can afford to discriminate against any kind of love?" Father Mychal Judge, FDNY, "Victim number 0001" September 11, 2001

Let’s face it. For 97-98% of us, we’ve done nothing to deserve the sacrifice of those who charged into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Those heroes (whose brethren in the language of today are probably referred to as union thugs) as well as the victims of 9/11 have been given nothing by most of the people of the United States.

Sure, we’ll remember tomorrow, post some random patriotic Facebook status, watch some well made programming with bad music selections, make some random comments to others about how much the world has changed, etc. But mostly, we’ll just go on, like every other day since September, 2001. And I’m just saying if there was a President of the Haven’t Done Much to Help Out Since 9/11 to Change the Discourse and Path of America, I’d likely be a strong candidate.

We all have our 9/11 story, I was driving to Needham to attend a Superintendents' meeting, heard on sports radio that it appeared that a small plane had hit one of the Towers, it was very confusing of course. And shortly after beepers (yes, beepers) and cell phones started blowing up, the meeting quickly split up, the drive home very stressful and my now wife for some reason was kept at work as everyone else headed home to figure out what the hell was going on. Rumors were everywhere, and we went to dinner where everyone was attached to CNN and then to church to reflect on the day's events. Strangely, we were drawn to the Catholic church in Malden, which just seemed a natural place to turn to. My mother was in Lower Manhattan, and the cell traffic was crazy there, and it took several hours to realize that yes, she was not selling umbrellas in the financial district and was at the Javits Center instead. Of course, she said she was worried about us, as if I had made a quick trip to Logan to fly out to California, but such is a mother's way. But for most, we were observers in a crazy affair. Meaning a history changing crazy affair.

Certainly there are the under 1% of the population who have served overseas, and their families who have sacrificed. Certainly those who were widowed/orphaned that day have sacrificed, but for most of us, it’s a time for us to celebrate the concept of American exceptionalism. This exceptionalism is mostly undeserved, but seen as some kind of birthright regardless of any particular effort to make this country a better place. We are the beneficiaries of our own zip codes.I’ve written about his before, http://theangrymiddle.blogspot.com/2007/09/beautiful-day.html,

I generally abhor the idea of patriotism. Not that I don’t love this country, it’s the best political organization ever, and in no country ever would someone like me ever have the opportunity that I do and have taken advantage of. Nor do I not appreciate those that have sacrificed so much, so that I could sit on my fat ass on Sundays and watch football, go to the polls a couple times a year to decide on my leaders, and have all the very real blessings of liberty.

However this bumper sticker patriotism cheapens the sacrifice of what all have done over the years.Instead of building on and appreciating the sacrifice of those on September 11th, we have instead become a bizarre collection of folks. We have grown-up’s who believe in crazy, conspiracy theories. I do understand that there is real evil in the world, and certainly people like Osama Bin Laden and Mohammed Atta were true purveyors of that evil. However, no where in Al-Qaeda’s wildest dreams was there an idea that there would be Sharia Law in the United States or that Massachusetts would become part of some North American caliphate. While I’m certain that may have been used in the recruitment of some Saudi teenager, in the same way you would recruit an 80’s American teenager with visions of Heather Locklear, it was certainly not part of the goals and objectives in the cave in Kandahar.

What was? The idea that America would become confused, coming out of a bar swinging at the first target that it saw, like a drunk with it’s nose bloodied. The initial targets were obvious and righteous, to root out terrorism where it was and where it was supported. Everything after that became blurry, and as much as I hate to say it, at this point, maybe the terrorists have won. We have become a security state, with limitations of civil liberties, we have become more intolerant of difference; one might say that this is the product of war, but we may be in a war that may not have a foreseeable end. In WWII we did incarcerate Japanese citizens and other parts that are in retrospect of course, disagreeable, however of course, this war came to an end, and it was not a permanent state of affairs. Our country has become divided, a place where thinking that not so many years ago would be extremist has become the mainstream of one of the parties, and to ignore it on the other side, a candidate would do at extreme peril.

So on this day, we will reflect, some will pray, and my hope is that all of us will think about what this day did to us, and ironically how it divided us. Those who went up the stairs in the towers, didn’t care what race you were, what class you were, whether you were a citizen, a visitor or an “illegal immigrant” hired to clean the 99th floor. They were there to serve and protect. It saddens me today that we have cheapened that legacy of service.

Tomorrow, I’ll put out my flag, hoping that this day, perhaps in the same way that one bargains with the unknown in a state of illness or dying, that we as a nation will create a new discourse. A discourse that understands that a victory cannot be won solely by counterinsurgency tactics, a security state or in the most primitive words “nuking them”, it is instead a grand strategy of regaining the idea of that “City on a Hill” not because of our amazing military power or the power of our economy but instead on being the country where one is free and as that a beacon to the world and with a people able to create and achieve the level of accomplishment based on effort and ability. That is where the American dream appears to have been abandoned; we have become a nation of “nattering nabobs of negativity”. One hopes that as usual as a people we will rise above, or else the terrorists have won.