As I walked through the streets of my town over the weekend, I saw signs advertising an event to memorialize the attacks of September 11th, 2001. I immediately thought, "Why?"
Is there any American, anywhere, that does not remember 9/11? Of course not. The events of that day have been forever burned into our minds by a media and administration bent on keeping us terrified and submissive to their anti-American, fascist, neo-con agendas. Using 9/11 as a cudgel, Bush and his cabal have beaten our plowshares into swords and our Constitution into pulp.
What we need to do is FORGET 9/11. Or at least, put it into some perspective - yes, we were attacked by a terrorist, a non-state actor, but it has happened before, and we responded with appropriate, law-enforcement measures. I understand that 3,000 Americans were killed, and it is a tragedy. But did we really have the right to use our outrage and grief to justify acts of atrocity - shock and awe, Abu Ghraib, hundreds of thousands of dead civilians, depleted uranium - against a nation that never attacked us? Meanwhile, George Bush has killed more Americans than Osama bin Laden.
Does anyone remember the exact day the World Trade Center was bombed during the Clinton years? No. We do remember that the perpetrators that were known at the time, were caught and are imprisoned for life.
But we cannot forget 9/11. The World Trade Center site remains unhealed. Osama Bin Laden remains uncaught. And Al Qaeda is stronger than ever, thanks to our moronic neo-conservative intervention in Iraq and our failure in Afghanistan. Let's not forget that other, non-nuclear nations in the Middle East, like Iran, are now desperately trying to prevent us from attacking them by rushing to speed up their nuclear programs. Can you really blame them, when Bush and Cheney have their fingers on the proverbial button?
No, we don't need to remember 9/11. We need to remember who we were before 9/11, when our foreign policy was focused on diplomacy, and our domestic policy was focused, for the most part, on improving the lives of working Americans, rather than turning billionaires into trillionaires. We need to take back our country for the pre-9/11 thinkers. Only then will we join other nations in moving towards a freer, more progressive, more peaceful 21st century.
Is there any American, anywhere, that does not remember 9/11? Of course not. The events of that day have been forever burned into our minds by a media and administration bent on keeping us terrified and submissive to their anti-American, fascist, neo-con agendas. Using 9/11 as a cudgel, Bush and his cabal have beaten our plowshares into swords and our Constitution into pulp.
What we need to do is FORGET 9/11. Or at least, put it into some perspective - yes, we were attacked by a terrorist, a non-state actor, but it has happened before, and we responded with appropriate, law-enforcement measures. I understand that 3,000 Americans were killed, and it is a tragedy. But did we really have the right to use our outrage and grief to justify acts of atrocity - shock and awe, Abu Ghraib, hundreds of thousands of dead civilians, depleted uranium - against a nation that never attacked us? Meanwhile, George Bush has killed more Americans than Osama bin Laden.
Does anyone remember the exact day the World Trade Center was bombed during the Clinton years? No. We do remember that the perpetrators that were known at the time, were caught and are imprisoned for life.
But we cannot forget 9/11. The World Trade Center site remains unhealed. Osama Bin Laden remains uncaught. And Al Qaeda is stronger than ever, thanks to our moronic neo-conservative intervention in Iraq and our failure in Afghanistan. Let's not forget that other, non-nuclear nations in the Middle East, like Iran, are now desperately trying to prevent us from attacking them by rushing to speed up their nuclear programs. Can you really blame them, when Bush and Cheney have their fingers on the proverbial button?
No, we don't need to remember 9/11. We need to remember who we were before 9/11, when our foreign policy was focused on diplomacy, and our domestic policy was focused, for the most part, on improving the lives of working Americans, rather than turning billionaires into trillionaires. We need to take back our country for the pre-9/11 thinkers. Only then will we join other nations in moving towards a freer, more progressive, more peaceful 21st century.
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