Tradition and the calendar dictate I pen a post of remembrance today. I don't have it in me. Not because the emotions are too painful, or the toppling of The Towers represents a milestone in American history, or anything else. Just blame it on time. Honestly, I don't know anyone who lost a loved one on 9/11. I did not know a single victim. I can coldly recount the events of the day, but I don't have a personal loss that ferments in raw emotion. Oh I remember where I was, but my tale is no more and a lot less important than many.
By the mid-1950's Americans were in an economic boom. Pearl Harbor, arguably a more significant, defining, and world-changing event, was two hot wars and one cold war in the past. Did our Dads and Granddads stop to reflect?
The events of 9/11 were the beginning of the great modern politicization of America. The toxic stew that pervades America is a result of religious fanatics crashing airplanes in a desperate act of terrorism designed to destroy our country. Guess what? They partially succeeded. The leftists, and totalitarians on the right, never content to waste a crisis, have succeeded in redefining our society.
Government spies on us with Orwellian intensity. Our freedoms are under assault in the name of security. Christians are prosecuted and persecuted for their beliefs while Islam is taught in the elementary schools. Our young adults huddle in fear from ideas and politics they don't like.
And still Americans are dying for undefined reasons in the high deserts of Afghanistan.
I would say the masterminds of 9/11 succeeded far beyond their wildest imaginations.
It was my intention to let the day pass unnoticed. Instead you get more worthless words than I have penned in a long time. I don't want to go back to September 10th. Life wasn't innocent then either. I'm not that naive. But I wouldn't mind a time where politics didn't pervade every damn second of life. Where football is about sport, not race. Where you could disagree with the President, but that didn't make him the anti-Christ. A time where a statue was a place for pigeons to crap. A time where the notion that we let six year-olds have sex change hormones was unthinkable.
I'm not in the mood to reflect, remember, or reminisce. It is just another September day. I'm good with that.
5 comments:
And yet, one should take a moment to remember, if only to remember WHO THE ENEMY IS...And who wants us dead.
Amen
Well said.
The threats du jour have a tendency to make yesterday's threats recede a bit.
September 11 is my birthday. Next year you can wish me "Happy Birthday."
speaking of memorials, I am sick to death of crosses and stacks of flowers on every road, city and county, memorializing where someone died, often children with a license who were speeding.
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