never again

I’m defeating terrorism.  I’m not going to tell you where I was that day, what I was doing, or where I threw up when I realized what happened.  That is what they wanted, America to do two things be defeated and to live up to the their expectations.  

This constant dwelling on it serves their purpose.  Marinating in grief, carrying it around like a talisman, and making their malice something that defines you or the republic is what they wanted.  We weren’t in any way forged into something stronger or better because of those events.  We spent a few weeks ‘united’ in purpose but ran scared, stripped our liberties in favor of security, vilified those who were different from us, and eventually turned back on our neighbors with renewed vitriol that was astounding.

 They wanted to frame is this as the West against Islam and we did everything we could to validate this framework.  Few people stopped to understand who our enemy was and more importantly wasn’t – foreign or domestic. 

A government designed to be unwieldy by the founders as to not to be easily controlled by one man or a cabal soon was.  I’m not going to vilify George W. Bush – he did what he thought he must to protect the country and I believe that Al Gore would have done many of the same things vis-à-vis the interventions in Afghanistan and against terrorism that the President had.  We also had no opposition to the shenanigans before they were out of control – it would have taken the ‘maverick’ leadership of Senator McCain or the ‘bipartisan’ leadership of (then) Senator Rodham Clinton to coalesce an opposition or at least a pause for thought. 

I am also not going to overlook that we were woefully unprepared for these events.  Mossad had taken the unusually step of warning us in our press because our government seemed unconcerned what was going on with Osama bin Laden’s network – and you watch enough NCIS I to know how Mossad is – and had been on us for years for our dithering.  We can’t just blame Mr. Bush for this, or his government, or his party.  You had his predecessor whose personal foibles kept him from doing anything memorable – mark my words – 100 years from now he’ll be a trivia question Grover Cleveland memorable for the juggernaut that is Secretary Clinton more than anything he accomplished – and mired by an opposition equally obsessed with small initiatives and preventing governance by the President to respond adequately to a brazen terrorist organization that attacked our navy, embassies, the World Trade Center, and military installations. Al Gore mocked Oliver North in the 1980s for being afraid of bin Laden. 

It astounds me that people were surprised that it happened – and maybe because I was steeped in current events from my futile career in collegiate debate and forensics that I was paying attention – because this train was coming at us full speed for a while.  What is even more astounding and surprising is that the majority of us remain ignorant of the world around us and what could very well happen.  We’re wrapped up in our daily, compartmentalized worlds and fail to realize the stake we have in each other and the country to disastrous effects. 

We haven’t learned anything from that day or our collective failure.  I think we like to recollect where we were because our parents and grandparents can tell you where they were when a truly unforeseen tragedy like the Kennedy Assassination happened or when they heard Japan surrendered.  I think saying that you were in the conservatory with Professor Plum with the lead pipe is better than saying, “If I had held my representatives in Washington’s feet to the fire to govern instead of worry about where the President deposits his genetic material we may have been more prepared,” or, “If I had I had listened to Teddy Roosevelt and elected a President who could keep his wedding vows we might not have been in this mess.”

Sure, Senator Lieberman presented and had co-opted a major reorganization of the Federal Government which I think has in many ways made us safer in fits and starts.  Yes, we’re more aware of our surroundings when we travel and are respectfully deferential to the men and women who sacrifice to serve us but I don’t think we’re aware of the threats, the burgeoning problems in the world, or simple ways you or I could fix or prevent them. 

Our politics are more partisan and short sighted than ever.  We’re hobbled by a struggling economy, massive public debt, and a lack of leadership from either party (no, obstruction isn’t leadership Senator McConnell).  When someone presents a common sense, bipartisan solution it’s denigrated simply because it is presented by the wrong person.  We did a great job of weeding all the line crossers in the Senate from Jim Talent to Blanche Lincoln and usually by their own parties first for not being adequately partisan.  We don’t just face a crisis of leadership; we face a crisis of the electorate because we allow this to go on by voting and funding this nonsense. 

Never forget, you are Washington.  The ‘disconnected’ people there are that way because (like your bad kids) you’ve conditioned them to be that way and accepted that behavior.  Our leaders are ours and we need to (as their employers) review and guide their progress. 

I am not going to forget what happened ten years ago but what I am going to do is not go along with the rest of the world and learn nothing from that day.  I am going to keep paying attention, speaking out, cultivating the grassroots, haranguing our leaders, and looking for solutions that a workaday guy like me can affect. 

And, I don’t mean to take away from the legitimate grief of those who saw the towers go down or my friend who was stuck in traffic near the Pentagon.  I’m not questioning the grief that is dredged up this time of year for those of us who personally knew people who died.  For a lot of people it was much more traumatic than their tweets and status updates let on but I’m also confident it wasn’t as traumatic but more a cultural touchstone for others who gather today to remember.

My friend Casey is right, people died that day and we should respect that.  People die every day protecting our rights, freedoms, or serving the prerogatives of our government local and federal.  People that day did what we asked them to do, did more than we asked them to do, but they’ve always done that and always will.  We should never honor someone with our silence but our activism.  I’m not going to stop and say, “I won’t forget,” what I will do is act and say, “never again.” 

What I will do today is defeat terrorism because terrorisms objective is destroy our daily lives, make us afraid and distracted, and stymie our government.  Today I’m going to worship, do some cleaning, play fetch with Molly Mayhem, visit the Art Fair, and catch the Irish Festival.  If I’m lucky I’ll get to grill for dinner.  What I won’t ever do is be afraid, defeated, derailed, or downtrodden.  America is the land of the impossible, and impossibly I’m going to learn from this and then move passed this and I wish you would, too.  

 

Comments

[Margaret]

I love this post!! We do need to move forward and find ways to be active in making our country, lives and the lives of others better. I'm not a fan of wallowing or of calling everyone "a hero." Dying doesn't make you a hero; everyone dies. It's tragic, not heroic. Firefighters and police rushing in to help(as we find out now at the cost of their later health)--they are the heroes.