Remembrance and Rage
On this day four years ago, like most of America and perhaps the world, I was riveted to my TV set, watching the planes crash into the WTC, over and over again in that endless video loop. Nobody got any work done in my office and I later stopped at what was then known as City Cafe because I didn't want to go home alone. For the first time in my life I was truly scared. My dear friend Harry McColgan spent the night with me. When he left in the morning I said, "Harry, the world as we know it ended yesterday."
I didn't quite know what I was scared of then. I'm not afraid to die. I'm a fatalist. But in the last four years I've defined my fears and watching them come true has enraged me to a level I didn't think possible.
It seems almost comical to hear Bush solemnly ask us to make this a day of remembrance, when he evokes the date almost daily on his PR tours. I'm with Bill Quick on this. Forget the day of remembrance, I need a day of rage, although I doubt it's for the same reason as Bill.
I'm appalled that my fellow Americans would allow this administration to eliminate personal rights and trade our freedoms, without a murmur of protest, in return for a false sense of safety. I'm astounded that so many voters refuse to demand accountability and allow the White House to hide behind excuses of national security without question. I can't comprehend how taxpayers can meekly allow their hard earned money to be squandered on ill-advised policy and rampant cronyism. And I'm stunned that so many citizens are willing to uphold the agenda of a bunch of politicians who hold them in scorn and whose every policy is designed against their best interests.
I'm not afraid of dying in a terrorist attack, I'm afraid of living with my own government. And I'm angry that the victims of 9/11 died for nothing. If "the terrorists" goal was really to destroy our freedoms, then the Bush White House did the job for them and we've got nothing to worry about. Meanwhile 2002 American soldiers and thousands of civilians died in vain, in their names, and in ours.
I didn't quite know what I was scared of then. I'm not afraid to die. I'm a fatalist. But in the last four years I've defined my fears and watching them come true has enraged me to a level I didn't think possible.
It seems almost comical to hear Bush solemnly ask us to make this a day of remembrance, when he evokes the date almost daily on his PR tours. I'm with Bill Quick on this. Forget the day of remembrance, I need a day of rage, although I doubt it's for the same reason as Bill.
I'm appalled that my fellow Americans would allow this administration to eliminate personal rights and trade our freedoms, without a murmur of protest, in return for a false sense of safety. I'm astounded that so many voters refuse to demand accountability and allow the White House to hide behind excuses of national security without question. I can't comprehend how taxpayers can meekly allow their hard earned money to be squandered on ill-advised policy and rampant cronyism. And I'm stunned that so many citizens are willing to uphold the agenda of a bunch of politicians who hold them in scorn and whose every policy is designed against their best interests.
I'm not afraid of dying in a terrorist attack, I'm afraid of living with my own government. And I'm angry that the victims of 9/11 died for nothing. If "the terrorists" goal was really to destroy our freedoms, then the Bush White House did the job for them and we've got nothing to worry about. Meanwhile 2002 American soldiers and thousands of civilians died in vain, in their names, and in ours.
posted by Libby Spencer at 5:47 PM
2 Comments:
Impolitic, we are not so far apart as you seem to think. I have blasted Bush almost continually over the war, over the emerging national security state, over his supine approach to advancing the reasons stated goals for which he was supposedly elected. I abominate his religious/social conservative approach to the War on (Some)Drugs, the War on (All) Gay People, the War on (Some) Terror, his naked complicity and business ties with the Saudi regime and his refusal to take effective action against the single most dangerous source of Islamist terror, the regime-financed export of Wahhabist lunacies to Saudi-financed mosques all across the globe....
I could go on.
It's the single biggest reason I prefer rage to soppy, pathetic days of mourning. We are at war. It would be good if our leaders could force themselves, on just one day a year, to remember why. And feel the appropriate emotions.
You're right Bill we don't exactly intersect but we run parallel on most of the issues. There's a lot of us like that.
So the question I'm asking myself four years later is how did we get here, and how the hell do we get out of this mess?
Post a Comment
<< Home