9/11 Marked an American Sunset

[Exiled in America]

I haven’t marked every 9/11 anniversary with deliberate remembrance. But this year I found myself watching video from that day and reflecting. I sat at my house over lunch and cried.

I think there’s something deeper that grieves me even more seriously than the tragedy of that horrible day. It’s the fact that virtually everything our government has done since that day and in the name of that day has undermined and undone everything I ever thought was great about the ideal of “America” we were all taught to pledge allegiance to in school.

The day after the attacks America stood in an unparallel position in history. Virtually the entire world stood completely united with us. There was an unprecedented level of support, unity and cooperation between America and countries that just 24 hours ago hadn’t even been on amicable international speaking terms. For a brief moment in history it looked like humanity might actually have a chance to trump nationalism.

Of course it goes without saying that a country that is attacked in such a brutal fashion will no doubt seek retribution on its attackers. So of course we were “going to war.” But we had the support of the entire world – it was an absolutely inexcusable crime against humanity that the leader of our country did not use such and opportunity to work towards something proactive and forward thinking rather than merely retaliatory.

Want to strike a blow against terrorism? Try telling the world that while they support us against such barbaric violence – i.e. while we have the world’s attention – we’d like to say that the best thing you could do to stand united with America is be willing to sit down and talk about how we make a better world to live in. And making a better world to live in doesn’t just mean a “safer” world.

It does mean that in part, and if we needed to retaliate against people who attacked us, fine. But it also means a more just world, a less poverty stricken world, a healthier world, a cleaner world, a world with more community and broken down barriers and more brothers and sisters and less strangers.

The United States of America had this one shot – unique in all of history – to set the world’s agenda for years and years to come. And united together we could have set out with a proactive plan of not merely punishing those who wronged us and protecting ourselves from those who want to harm us, but also of improving the world community that we all share, weakening the roots of terror which spring from poverty and ignorance and an absence of empathy.

But no.

I was going to write that we did not have a proactive agenda – we only had a reactive one. But sadly we all know that’s not true now. The United States did have a proactive agenda – not to better the world but rather to dominate it. Its agenda was to exploit the tragedy and deaths on September 11th 2001 for imperialistic gain and capitalistic profit. Profit and Power – the age old agenda of the nation state.

America immediately told the world to go fuck itself, began to lie, distort information and manipulate the public in order to pursue an agenda of hegemony. In the name of “security” we allowed the rape of civil rights and human rights and international and domestic law and instead allowed criminals to run our government.

We ignore the torture our government conducts without apology.

We look at spying by our government on its citizens and the absolute abolition of any notion of privacy through the fourth amendment and turn it into the punch line of a joke.

We pretend like free speech zones and press banned from reporting, and detentions without due process are just part of the norm now.

And endless war costing tens of thousands of lives, and lie after lie after lie after lie to the American public about matters of state are all just business as usual.

We’re watching the sunset of the American ideal – indeed of America itself – and no one gives a fuck. Not really. If we did – and this includes me – we would refuse to live under a tyranny. But we don’t. It’s always someone else’s problem.

America had one chance to write a new page of history, on September 12th. That was when the entire world was listening and open to a new message. Look what happened.

I’m ashamed of my country, and I grieve for the world. That’s how I remember 9/11 five years later.

[scarletwoman]

1. Wow! Just... wow! What an eloquent and spot on piece of writing!

You echo my own thoughts. I have probably cried more the past couple of days then I did on this date in 2001 -- and for the same reasons; not just the heinous loss of life, the squandered opportunity for moving forward into a better world.

Thank you for speaking of these things so well.

sw

[Exiled in America]

2. morning up.....

I had the bad timing last night to post this right as keith olbermans amazing commentary broke the news, and thus it kind of got lost prematurely :)

[scarletwoman]

3. Well, here's an afternoon kick.

Your post definitely deserves more attention!

sw