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 Post subject: Ten Years
PostPosted: September 11th, 2011, 9:40 am 
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It just doesn't seem possible. In some ways it seems like just yesterday.

I was finally getting my first break, and nearing the door to the lounge--dodging the mess, because the store was undergoing remodeling at the time--one of the managers was saying something to one of the guys in sporting goods about "And now I heard the Pentagon just got hit". I had no idea what he was talking about...

Then I got into the break room and saw the television.

The World Trade Center was on fire. I was stunned into silence save for one gallows joke about "Well, at least this means they'll stop talking about Gary Condit for a while" (And if you can't even remember who Gary Condit is, that just sort of makes my point. He was the top story on 9-10 as he had been for weeks)

I saw one of the towers fall, and went numb. I couldn't process it. My fifteen minutes on break came up, and I went back to work. Within an hour, the store was almost deserted. When my shift ended, I joined the line to get my car gassed up--rumor had it gas was about to go to $5 a gallon, so get the $1.95 while you can. It took longer than we thought, but gas eventually did make it to almost $5. I sure miss that $1.95 gas.

It really hit me that evening. I live about a mile north of Indianapolis International Airport (or at least we did then; over the last decade they basically moved a couple miles west), and whenever we have relatives or other company who don't come from here, they often comment about "How do you get anything done with all the airplane noises whenever they take off?" Well, most of the time, we don't notice because we're so used to it.

That evening, I noticed the eerie silence of the airplanes not taking off and landing.

I hope you'll forgive me now, because this is going to veer into some political areas. But that morning, after the attack, the management set up a radio near the Service Desk and the Bob and Tom Show was on; they're nationally syndicated, but their home base is right here in Indy. Understandably, the canned laughter and jokes about Christy Lee's boobs had fallen to the wayside. I remember Tom Grizwold commenting "What kind of twisted value system approves of something like this?" and couldn't help but agree. Maybe he meant Islam, but that's not what I agreed with.

The "twisted value system" that caused that day is the supreme arrogance that comes from saying "My politics, the exact way I worship God, is so superior to yours that I consider you subhuman and unworthy of continued existence. And not only that, because you don't worship God in the exact same way I do, I will kill myself just to speed along your journey to Hell and mine to Heaven." The twisted value system that says crashing airplanes into buildings full of office workers is somehow a good thing. And let's be clear, it's not an Islam thing: that same twisted value system tells a Good Christian Soldier it's okay to blow up a federal building with a truck bomb or to go into a church (a church) and open fire on a doctor who performs a medical procedure you don't like, or to shoot a congresswoman you disagree with in the head, and take out a bunch of others in the process--including an innocent child who would have celebrated her tenth birthday today.

It's the twisted value system that says that because we were attacked, it's okay to go invading other countries even if they had jack shit to do with that attack.

And in the aftermath, that twisted value system has only strengthened the worst of our political leaders. Compassion, empathy, tolerance, education, intelligence, an understanding of science--in this twisted value system, these things are liabilities. The ideal leader is a mush-mouthed fool who leads with raw charisma and "gut", makes up their own words like "Misunderestimate" and "Refudiate", and "What newspapers do you read?" is seen as some sort of "gotcha question"

There were moments of light. The spirit of unity right after the attack. The shining moment three years ago when it looked like the mantle of greed and mendacity was being cast off. Four months ago, American soldiers finally located the fiend behind the attacks and shot him in the eye as he was jacking off in his not-so-hidden Pakistani compound. For a very brief time, that seemed to remind us all of what we had, and what we lost.

But it passed quickly.

When a congressman can publicly decry disaster aid to his own earthquake and hurricane ravaged district right after he's helped hold the entire government hostage in an attempt to gut programs that benefit the poor and middle class in favor of keeping tax breaks for rich cocksuckers' private jets, and not be forced to resign from office due to the outcry, that twisted value system has infected too many of us too deeply.

Terrorists attacked us in hopes of destroying us. They knew three office buildings weren't going to do it--it was what we'd do in reaction to the attack that would do it. And we pretty much did. Massive deficits incurred by one justified but bungled war and one completely unnecessary, unjustified, and just as bungled war. The same war crimes we tried Axis soldiers for after World War II are now actually considered legally murky. The corporate swine are doing well, but nobody else is.

And the silence about it just as eerie as the lack of jet takeoffs that warm Tuesday night.

We shot the man who ordered the attacks on us. On the whole, he probably died pretty happy; he's almost won.

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 Post subject: Re: Ten Years
PostPosted: September 13th, 2011, 10:41 am 
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I wonder how long it took people to get over Pearl Harbor. 'Cause ten years seems a bit excessive to me unless you were literally IN NYC that day or lost a close family member, I guess.

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 Post subject: Re: Ten Years
PostPosted: September 13th, 2011, 2:31 pm 
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well you got to think. Pearl Harbor probably wasn't the;ivied for the hole world to see. the nation didn't see the ships sinking and them men running for there lives like that did with the towers. The only hers about it after. Also we went full tilt in to a war. A that last war that that the nation sported. Just coming out of the depression no one had time to moron as much. Every one was doing there part. It was a different time. No one say the real horrors of what war is not like to day. were we can see a wounded man calling out or in this cace to billing all on a city. There was still corset greed but you it was often from one that often bolt there epicures from nothing or now that an investment take ears to see any real pay off. Not like to day were you over grow baby's living off os grandpas true fund looking for instant gratification as that test one another ranter then talk.
there was still political scandal but it was be or think cold go viral the the hole world cold know about it in a hart beet. Back then there was time to squash a story before it had a chance to get to the next town or to the papers.
But i'm going off on a rant here my self.
one world also say its a big year B/c its also the year the man responsible was killed.

How ever part of me thing this will be be something we are going hear a bout every till the last survivors and every one touched by it has left this world.

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 Post subject: Re: Ten Years
PostPosted: September 14th, 2011, 10:13 am 
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Jason gets close to an ironic point:

Pearl Harbor dragged us into a necessary, justified war that brought the country together and helped bring us fully out of the Great Depression.

9/11 was used to drag us into an unnecessary, unjustified war that was ultimately used to tear us apart then sent our economy into the shitter and, if not for the stimulus in early 2009, probably would have brought about the a second Great Depression. And frankly, with the assholes who created that economic climate still getting votes and doing their damnedest to keep us in a recession for craven political gain, another Depression is not off the table yet.

They're like the bookends of the era of American greatness.

And just two nights ago, the proponents of the twisted value system cheered at the idea of an uninsured man dying in the street rather than see their taxes go up one fucking penny. This is what we've become.

Like I said, if there is a Hell, Bin Laden is probably looking up at what we've become and smiling about it.

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