9/11
When the planes hit the Twin Towers and the Pentagon that morning, I said to someone, “This is the worst day of my life.”
I didn’t know then what I meant, but it was as if the crust of the earth had suddenly cracked and we would never again feel safe going about our daily lives. Over time, that feeling has receded, but the world has not been the same since.
What we lost that day seven years ago is social trust–the sense of not having to be constantly on guard against the malice of unknown people who want to hurt or kill us for no personal reason whatsoever.
Before 9/11, we took for granted unspoken rules that protect us: We could walk safely in front of cars that would stop for red lights, eat food that had passed through the hands of countless unseen people, hand over our children every day to strangers who would protect and nurture them.
We still do all that and more every day, but we can’t board a plane, go to a stadium or walk a crowded street with the same sense of security we had before 9/11/01.
Our public life has become meaner, coarser and, in this political season, we are not the people we were in the last century–fiercely opinionated, intensely competitive but optimistic and generous underneath it all.
When Barack Obama and John McCain come to New York for a forum after the Ground Zero memorial today, we can only hope that some of that spirit is still there to inspire them.
Cross-posted from my blog.
4 Responses to “9/11”
Republicans Hijacked 911, by Keith Olberman on 9/11! Courage to Speak Truth!
http://www.jedreport.com/2008/09/special-commen…
Never again should a President you want to have a beer with be allowed to lie the American public into a False & Phony war and ignore the real war as George W. Bush was able too! National Security strength, I don't think so, after all 911 happened on the Republicans' watch, but they distorted that message too and you would think that Democrats are weak on national security! Politicans who lie to the public are engaged in a betrayal of the public trust and such distortion should be deemed unethical and in some cases, criminal!
And, it is an outrage or should be that the government can give millions of dollars to CEO’s from the failed Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac and yet, cannot give a second stimulus check to American citizens in these hard economic times?
Republicans say No to a second stimulus while the Democrats say Yes to a second stimulus!
Is the Republican Congress working for CEO’s or are they working for you, the people?
A lot of Americans feel similarly – you hear it all the time, the lost sense of security you describe, the feeling that “the world changed.” It seems a very common response to that day's tragedy.
But I've never felt that way. Perhaps it's my background as a military brat and veteran – I don't know. To me, the world was and is a place where bad people do horrible things every day. There were decades of wars, as well as horrific examples of domestic and foreign terrorism preceding 9/11. To me, the likelihood of destruction on that scale was never an if, but when, and where.
What I do feel we have lost is what you touch on at the end of your post – the belief that our national leadership would never purposefully use such tragedy for political gain. For fulfilling a destructive agenda. As an excuse to attack nations which pose no existential threat, to needlessly and for political gain promote fear as an excuse to subvert the Constitution. Or to torture prisoners in a gulag system. And that the checks and balances so carefully put into place by the founders would fail so miserably to prevent such an outcome.
That has been the real shock to my system in the aftermath of tragedy. My naive belief was that could never happen in America. We, quite simply, were better than that. I'm 7 years older, and quite a bit less naive today.
Much of what Stein complains about dates back to the 1980s and 1970s and late 1960s.
“We could walk safely in front of cars that would stop for red lights … meaner, coarser “
Much of what Stein complains about dates back to the 1980s and 1970s and late 1960s.
“We could walk safely in front of cars that would stop for red lights … meaner, coarser “
In truth, nothing has really changed much in NYC, people still walk against the light, because you know we just don't have time to wait- if it's clear, we go.
That being said any New Yorker will help a blind person cross the street and walk with them if the signal's go- or tell the person it is. Have done so numerous times as I work in an area where there is a foundation for the blind. In fact I am constantly slaloming around the sweeping canes that swish back and forth like their personal sonar/radar.