9-11-01

September 11, 2001

A day that truly did create a new world.

And a new perspective.

Forever more will be the reference to "before 9-11," "the Day" and "after 9-11"

I've been stalled for more than a week on what to write about the anniversary of the attack.

Partly on how to express my own feelings on that day.

But more, I've been stalled because I have so much trouble getting past the rage that that day, and its aftermath, have engendered.

Rage at bin-Laden, certainly.

But that rage is one that is impersonal, against a target that is the product of an outlaw environment that views individual human lives as insignificant, an environment that uses a guise of religion to subvert that religion's teachings of peace and justice to murder and atrocity.

But the fiercer, and more personal rage I feel is for this presidential administration, that purposely ignored the lessons learned in the Clinton presidency, either because of simple ignorance and disbelief or because of some spiteful "*we* didn't find it, so it must be wrong" process.

An administration that used the attack as a way to try to distract the United States citizens from the Bush administration's failures, and as a way to cement the political and economic power that comprised the status quo obtained when those party conservatives had captured the keys to the kingdom by numerical control of the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate and the executive branch.

An administration that purposely set out to denigrate the aid and support that much of the world offered to the United States.

An administration that has been lying to the citizens of this nation from the start - from trying to downplay the importance of the reports of an impending attack by calling it an "obscure historical analysis."

An administration that directed the agency that is chartered to inform the public about dangers to our environment, and dangers from our environment, to lie about the toxicity of the debris from the remains of the towers' destruction.

An administration that continued to lie, even about its own public utterances, even so far as claim that the President's own statement that he was no longer concerned about the previously stated goal of the capture and trial of the architect of the attack, even after declaring A "War On Terror." A war that would never be ended.

A "war" that has also had the result of quickly stripping the citizens of our constitutional rights, under the guise of "national security."

An administration that started one war against the nation that harbored and collaborated with the attackers, and then lost focus and started another war, using knowing deceit in the expression of the "justification," and created a new environment that fostered a fertile breeding ground for the very terrorists that were supposed to be "eradicated."

A war that is costing the U.S. 250 million dollars a day.

250 million dollars a day that is stripped from funding for education.

250 million dollars a day that is stripped from funding for the proper health care of our seniors.

250 million dollars a day that is stripped from funding for the proper health care of the veterans of our armed forces.

250 million dollars a day that is stripped from funding for the infrastructure of our industrial society.

Thousands of our citizens killed and wounded in that second, unneeded war. And quite truthfully uncounted thousands of the citizens of Iraq who have been killed and maimed.

And levels of corruption and pandering to monied interests has been unmatched since the Unites States' own civil war, and that may add a new catchphrase that will be recognized by the name itself, much as "teapot dome" does.

On that day I turned on my television to catch a weather forecast, and was stunned.

My wife and I watched in disbelief as a second missile struck the second tower.

And the perpetrator is still at large, the people in the nation of Iraq have poorer healthcare and access to civil services than under the Baathist rule, the rights of women in Iraq have been stripped from the, and the poppy-for-heroin crop in Afghanistan is at record levels.

I still cannot freely and dispassionately write about what happened that day.

I don't know if I ever will be able to, no matter which party controls the legislative branch, no matter which party's representative sits in the oval office.

Maybe that's just part of the world we live in now, "after 9-11."