My Only September 11th Blog

September 11, 2006

Yes, this is my first (and hopefully only) 9/11 blog. It might be helpful to read the previous post for more information about the real topic.

I do remember where I was on September 11, 2001. I was working at Barnes & Noble in Lansing. Rose was also working that day. I was zoning from 7-10, customer service from 10-12, and on register from 12-2 (or something like that). Either way, I was zoning when Randy, our CRM told us that a plane hit the WTC and that they don't know why. A short while later another hit. Then the buildings fell. We listened to the radio throughout the day; I was listening for cause of the event and who would get scapegoated. That didn't take long for both to get filled.

It should be stated for the record that people don't react the way they say they did. I don't remember seeing a male customer after 10 or 11:00. We were busy for a weekday morning, and the mall-walkers were usually done at about that time anyway. We usually only sold newspapers and coffees in the morning anyway. But a strange thing happened over the next few hours: all of the customers appeared to be 30-60 and were white females. This demographic that Republicans would target in '02 and '04 elections as the "security moms" were the ones buying books on September 11^th. I even tried to give updates to them. I would say "I just heard that…" and they would say "I know, crazy! Where are your Clancy's?".

The truth about September 11^th is that it is now a holiday. It is only a holiday because the holiday's name is also the date. I might suggest that this shows a lack of originality, but that is too flippant. What really worries me is what that name (or 9/11) actually suggests: that we don't agree enough with what the day means. This is the same with the rash of 9/11 movies: the media asks "Is it too soon?" Of course not, boneheads. The reality is that we never took the time to figure it out in the first place. We focused on heroism where it could be found and justice where it could be found and that is it. I wish I could say that only New Yorkers went overboard with the reaction but remember the "We are all New York" T-shirts?

Our response to 9/11 (or Patriot Day, as I derisively called it) was like a bad family system: we allowed the domineering father figure to tell us information through his filter, kept the truth secret, and used insinuations ("the terrorists hate our freedom", "objection is unpatriotic", and "if you do that, then the terrorists will win") that discouraged original thought and created a false sense of homeostasis. We never learned the truth, because that would hurt the President's cause, the bombing and invasion of two countries.

There is no rational reason we have for never addressing Bin Laden's (and others') cause for planning the murder of US citizens. How can we prevent what we do not understand? We have no earthly reason to use war language (and doctrine) when it is individuals that have murdered, not governments. How can we sanction a president to call it a war, when he is unwilling to follow the basic commandments of war? Congress never declared war, so there is no war. The attacks of Afghanistan and Iraq were not acts of liberation but acts of military aggression. We toppled their governments unprovoked by those governments. The president has exerted authority that he does not possess to push these acts of aggression. Instead of hunting down Bin Laden and his operatives, we have made enemies of the entire Middle East. Bush's "War on Terror" is really a new Cold War—a never ending, poverty-creating, military-industrial complex enhancing power-grab by a man who is fascinated with killing people. He killed more people (160) as Governor of Texas in a term and a half than any public official in our history. He sent us into Afghanistan and Iraq with guns blazing, murdering hundreds of thousands of civilians, a war-crime in itself. He encourages lax gun laws, and allowed the elimination of an assault weapons ban that kept a dozen fully-automatic weapons out of the hands of citizens, and made it easier for you and me to get shot on a city street by a neighbor. We need to take a long look at who the real enemy is.