Honest Reflections

On the morning September 11th, 2001, I got out of bed─ showered, dressed and went to the living room to put on my shoes and the intent to read the newspaper before school. As I sat on the loveseat, my mother was sitting on the couch, reading the paper: and noticing the content of front-page, I began to gripe about the lack of real news-coverage by our local paper.

My mom said something along the lines of, “there will be real news in the paper tomorrow,” while she turned on the TV─ I think to Good Morning America─ incidentally, just as the first tower fell.

Honestly, most of that day is a haze. Most teachers had their TV's tuned to some news station, I think some released their classes. A handful number of students had family in New York or Washington; one of my best friend's father worked in the Pentagon.

I felt sympathy; I was trying to be empathetic. At the time, I was also struggling to align (some sort of) theism with a rational world view. I felt guilt (and do to this day) about my gut reactions, my feelings and my thoughts about the attacks.


Rewind back to the moment I saw the towers fall, I had a visceral response, disgust at the loss of life, but I said something like, “well, it's about time” and I believed it.

The truth is we deserved the attacks─ not the people who were murdered or injured or suffered the loss of a loved one─ our nation, America, deserved the attacks. (Writing this, I feel chilled but I believe it true.)

I do not condone what happened that day and I don't come close to thinking it was right or justifiable. However, the US had pursued half-a-century of Zionist and Neocolonialist policy. I believe the attacks were provoked by the hypocrisy and greed of our government & corporations.

The mantra after the attacks was “everything has changed,” it would have been nice, were this true.

If anything changed after September 11th, 2001, it was not for the better. The so-called “hawks,” in Washington DC got to fight a war they'd been pushing, since at least the first Bush administration. The Department of Homeland Security was created─ questionable policies which undermined the Civil Liberties guaranteed in Our Constitution were enacted─ the hypocrisy of our government and the greed of our corporations was entrenched.

Change- real change- meaningful change, would have looked entirely different. We would have rebuilt quickly, with government funds and no profit motive or political tiff holding up construction for almost a decade (perhaps longer). We would have realized that any satisfaction cannot be worth the price of revenge and sought contentment in forgiveness. We would have recalled our troops and re-evaluated our foreign policy.

Maybe, I'm naïve to think such changes possible. It's foolish to expect rationality from a mob, especially in the immediacy after suffering such a grievous psychic wound. And what is America or Congress, but a Mob? Rationality can, however, exist within an individual, unfortunately it did not exist within our man at the time: George W. Bush.

That president (the self-proclaimed “Decider”) began to beat the drums of war. Initially, I believed he must have some insight I was lacking, so I supported his cause and repeated his rhetoric. I regret this and more-so I regret when I finally saw the error of it all, that I didn't join the protestors.

I've decided not to live in regret, so I will not pander to zealotry and I will not bite my tongue under the pretense of respect. I wish our politicians would do the same.