December 7th, 1941. “A date which will live in infamy.”
Many of you will immediately recognize December 7th as Pearl Harbor Day, and the characterization as the first line of a speech by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in asking for a Declaration of War against Japan. How many of you will decide to spend the day thinking about the lives lost? How many will spend the day in solemn remembrance? A handful, mostly old men and women who lost a loved one that day. For the rest of us, we barely give it a thought and certainly don’t let it affect our schedule for the date. So much for infamy.
By 1945, the United State of America won two wars in two theaters on opposite sides of the oceans. By 1949, GIs were home and settling into the new homes built for them in places called suburbs, having received a college education from a thankful nation and having babies. They looked forward to the greatest economic boom in the history of the world, sitting comfortably in their living rooms, surrounded by their happy family, looking out their bay window.
September 11th, 2001. Nine years later and the site remains a hole in the ground while interest groups fight over whose claim of ownership is weepier. The nation is paralyzed by fear and hatred, characterized by some unknown Koran burning pastor and the wholesale forfeiture of the birthrights of Americans. Two pseudo-wars drag on, with lives lost because of mistaken allegation and the inability to remember that a dictator had nothing to do with a terrorist. The billions of dollars wasted on these wars combined with the greed and reckless banking have drained the economy and faith to the point of hopelessness, and soldiers returning have neither jobs, homes nor the prospect of an education.
This is the fourth September 11th since I started Simple Justice. I’ve told my 9/11 story before. Last year, I decided that I had enough of 9/11 posts. This year, I hope that others might similarly recognize how dwelling on this doesn’t reflect any honor on our part, but rather our failure to take the lesson of the experience and use it to move forward. Our nation is a complete wreck as a result of how this incident has been used to manipulate us, and we are disgraced by our reaction to it.
America was a nation that once knew how to take adversity and use it to strengthen our resolve and improve our lives. Today, we wallow in it while our “leaders” use it to make us more afraid, more hateful and substantially stupider than we started.
I’m not inclined to wallow. When I see a problem, I want to fix it, not bemoan it.
When someone tries to manipulate me by fear or emotional appeals, I tell them to get lost. I don’t want to be stupider today than I was yesterday. I reject it, even though so many around me seem to embrace it, take comfort in being part of a big, stupid group of whining, helpful, ignorant people.
Nine years after 9/11, we are a nation far worse than we were on September 10th of that year. This isn’t acceptable to me, and standing by, watching it happen, and meekly accepting it as the “way it is,” no longer cuts it. No one is “honored” by the relinquishment of freedom, employment, integrity or thoughtfulness. I’m done wallowing.
Are you with me?
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Hi, I’m John from Long Island, NY. I’m a Marketing Director of [deleted] Products.
Amen, brother.
As the man said: “Cast a cold eye on Life, on Death. Horsemen [the doers] passby.” The best memorial is to rebuild the damn hole and get on with the business of living.
Thank you, John, for being the first comment to this post. Normally, a piece of shit spam comment like yours would be immediately tossed, but I’ve decided instead to put yours through, with certain deletions naturally to preclude you from getting any benefit, because you, John Dee, are the poster boy for what this country has become. You are like the cockroach that survives nuclear holocaust. You have my appreciation for demonstrating what has become of America.
Yes. I am so very, very with you! We have behaved stupidly and cowardly,and have thrown awa the Constitution as if it mean nothing tous. Leaderz do not lead when they destroy our freedoms
I am sitting at my computer, hands above keys wondering what to write. As an Afghan-American, all sentiment not in line with ‘never forget’ or ‘they hate us for our freedoms’ (really, what do they hate us for now, then,that we’ve given most of them up?) will be viewed not in the spirit that they are intended. I guess that’s a risk I gotta take, right? You defend me when I’m locked up in gitmo? Oh, but they’re closing that, right?
Suffice it to say, I’m with you. But I’m telling my story anyway.
Nobody here is giving it a second thought. No reason why you need to consider it a risk to speak your mind.
Really excellent post, Scott. And did you see that September 11 is “Patriot Day”? I wonder if Hallmark sells cards for it . . .
I’m definitely with you and particularly living abroad, I can see how the US has gone down and seems in no position to change trajectory in the near future if ever. The cost of freedom is clear. What are people’s thoughts about why we are in the economic trough, with seemingly no end in sight? We recovered in the second half of 2003, and then as we all know got hit hard in second half of 2008. Do you think the phony wars etc. are responsible for this at all? There has been a huge wealth transfer to the public sector, which obviously hasn’t exactly translated into a Keynesian multiplier effect.
No, Scott, I’m afraid that I am not with you, because I believe that those who died on 9/11 deserve remembrance no less than the GI’s who did not come home to “a college education from a thankful nation” after the second World War, or the first World War, or Vietnam, or any other war for that matter.
Should we take action to fix the problems that we see? Yes we should. That is why I was pleased to see the Restoring Honor rally take place on the National Mall on August 28, 2010. I believe that rally was “action intended to strengthen our resolve and improve our lives.” And, if that’s what you mean, then I’m with you.
But as for those who visit the World Trade Center site, the USS Arizona Memorial, or any other memorial site, to remember and honor those who died on 9/11, or Pearl Harbor Day, or any other day, I’m afraid that I’m not with you. I won’t insist that you buy an NYPD hat to remember 9/11, but I respect those who do.
Enjoy the tea party, and don’t feel badly if Sarah Palin uses big words you don’t understand. You are every bit as good a Glen Beck.
I bought a birthday card and just crossed “birthday” out and wrote “Patriot” in crayon. Thanks.
That is a really pissy response to a reasonable comment. While this is your party, and you can run it any way you want, your response certainly doesn’t seem to be a reasoned one, but rather one based on some attempt at manipulation through weak humor. I don’t know how “afraid, … hateful and substantially [stupid]” you were before this comment, but if I am generous, the comment seems to have made you more so.
I’m deeply sorry that I didn’t please you. Your harsh criticism of my response has made me realize how much I owe every person who chooses to write a comment a fully conceived, reasoned and respectful response that meets with your approval. If I were you, I would never come here again.
Thank you. It is an honor to be included in your thoughts with such fine company as Sarah Palin and Glen Beck.
You’re welcome. I thought you would appreciate the company.
Roger that.
I agree with the feeling of your post, but then it occurred to me that it’s an example of the very problem it describes: namely, you’ve whined but haven’t actually suggested a constructive action anybody can take.
If you have some in mind, I’m all ears.
If you really meant, “I don’t care what you do, just DO SOMETHING!” that is exactly the mandate both Presidents Bush and Obama seem to have followed from 2001 to the present. I submit that doing nothing at all would have been much more productive.
Are we with you? Are you going to pro bono defend somebody for arrested for refusing to allow a search of their possessions at a train station? [The recent PATCO searches prompts this question.] It’s quite easy to say that people are just sheep, complacently allowing restrictions of Constitutional rights. The only way to fight it is through the courts and that takes money.
The political process isn’t going to do it, too many people are sheep that are all for individual liberties unless given a good government rationale for restricting a right or set of rights.
The department of Homeland Security needs to be dissovled, the Transportation Security Administration needs to be restricted to a role restricted to identifying potential terrorists and reporting to the FBI or CIA respecively. The Patriot Act, which I admit I haven’t even read, should be repealed simply because of the Orwellian overtones of the name of the act.
Yeah, we’re with you. But we know you aren’t going to be there because we can’t afford you.
Next dumb question.
My thoughts on the rememberance of Pearl Harbor day: In the 1990’s while driving along I recall hearing on the radio some drivel about apologizing to Japan for using nuclear weapons on two of their cities. I became somewhat enraged began screaming to no one “Bomb them again, then we’ll have something to apologize for.”
Rebuild the towers. Place a modest memorial and get on with commerce because we are not(in theory) victims.
Really, Scott, you do need to “evolve and get sensitive”. As you may not know, I have done this, sort of, a little, so listen up. Next time I go to your neck of the woods–in mid-October I need to be in Mahwah, NJ and later Manhattan–I will bring an extra lavender or maybe pink dress shirt of mine. We’re about the same size (well, generally anyway, if you know what I mean) so the shirt should fit. I will take an extra day in Manhattan with you, if you can swing it. We can (a) both wear our shirts, (b) go to some art museums, and (c) act sensitive together. I can show you the ropes. I do this several times a years on 3 continents. It’s made me a better and more satisfied person. No wives, though.
Although I tend to take an activist approach in redressing the serious shortcomings of our government related to the events of 9-11, I do believe there is a kernel of truth in what Scott is telling us. If we suffer a serious injury from our enemy, we should not let that define us, or distract us from the work we were on our way to doing when the injury occurred. As New Yorkers, we should not be anything less just because a government wishes us to be, and has tried to forcefully impose its view on us. This of course would not prevent us from objectively investigating the events of 9-11, as they should and still need to be, but it would prevent our enemies from declaring victory over us by turning 9-11 into the defining moment of our history. Remember the many remarks by Bush administration officials to the effect that America would never be the same after 9-11? Who says, and why not?
I prefer lavender. Pink is so 1980s preppie.
No problem. I’ve 5 of each from Britches of Georgetown’s “Cad’s Museum Wear” line.
Hope they’re button down collar. Lavender looks wrong with a straight collar.
Generally I wear bow ties–though never in prissy-hick Midwestern backwaters where you and I met and spent time–so not to worry. Where you live? Every girl’s crazy ’bout a sharp dressed man.