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A retrospective article that is depressing in its accuracy, but well worth the read.
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The hallowed burial grounds of 9/11 were supposed to bequeath us a stronger nation, not a busted one. We were supposed to be left with a finer legacy than Gitmo and the Patriot Act. When we woke up on September 12, we imagined a whole host of civic virtues that might rise from the smoldering ruins. The New *Normal promised a new national unity and, of all unlikely miracles, bi-partisanship: The still-green president had a near-perfect approval rating for weeks. We would at last cast off our two-decade holiday from history, during which we had mostly ignored a steady barrage of terrorist threats and attacks. We would embrace a selfless wartime patriotism built on the awesome example of those regular Americans who ran to the rescue on that terrifying day of mass death, at the price of their own health and sometimes their lives.
Quote:
In retrospect, the most consequential event of the past ten years may not have been 9/11 or the Iraq War but the looting of the American economy by those in power in Washington and on Wall Street. This was happening in plain sight—or so we can now see from a distance. At the time, we were so caught up in Al *Qaeda’s external threat to America that we didn’t pay proper attention to the more prosaic threats within.
I am proud to say I was one of the reasons our new president had a "near" perfect record for weeks after 9.11 and not a perfect one. I hated him just as much on the afternoon of that fateful day as I hated him in the morning. I knew he would turn a tragedy into a colossal disaster. He didn't disappoint. They picked the perfect time to sucker punch us -- with a monkey in office who would do their dirty work for them after the first blow.
I am proud to say I was one of the reasons our new president had a "near" perfect record for weeks after 9.11 and not a perfect one. I hated him just as much on the afternoon of that fateful day as I hated him in the morning. I knew he would turn a tragedy into a colossal disaster. He didn't disappoint. They picked the perfect time to sucker punch us -- with a monkey in office who would do their dirty work for them after the first blow.
Sickening...isn't it? Not one SOB from Wall Street to Washngton has ever paid the price. Now we are stuck (for the time being) with a party in Washington that is proliferating the crimes...not to mention a portion of the populace that cheers them on with pom poms and attacking the very people, the average American that were the real heroes of that horrible tragedy.
I think we fell asleep after 2001. We allowed our government to erode our rights and to allow other human beings to be categorized as having no rights at all. We ignored the obvious signs of torture being done in our name and the horrors of wars that made no sense (as if any war makes sense). We sat on our hands and watched the wealthy tip the tables toward themselves. We watched their faces alight with glee as they cashed in on our slumbers. We accepted official lies as the official truth and then divided ourselves over which side was the correct one. Control and manipulation in all its manifestations, which had up until 9/11 eluded our mass consciousness, took center stage and dictated what we thought and talked about. It's as if we all became exhausted by these last ten years. Our energy, our creativity, our spunk, our ingenuity are now all drained. Ten years later, we are a shadow of what we could be, what we should be. Do we hide our faces from our children knowing that it may be too late? Or do we exhale our regret in a giant sigh, forgive our sins of omission and move forward en masse to peacefully and carefully take back what was unconsciously given and deliberately stolen?
I think we fell asleep after 2001. We allowed our government to erode our rights and to allow other human beings to be categorized as having no rights at all. We ignored the obvious signs of torture being done in our name and the horrors of wars that made no sense (as if any war makes sense). We sat on our hands and watched the wealthy tip the tables toward themselves. We watched their faces alight with glee as they cashed in on our slumbers. We accepted official lies as the official truth and then divided ourselves over which side was the correct one. Control and manipulation in all its manifestations, which had up until 9/11 eluded our mass consciousness, took center stage and dictated what we thought and talked about. It's as if we all became exhausted by these last ten years. Our energy, our creativity, our spunk, our ingenuity are now all drained. Ten years later, we are a shadow of what we could be, what we should be. Do we hide our faces from our children knowing that it may be too late? Or do we exhale our regret in a giant sigh, forgive our sins of omission and move forward en masse to peacefully and carefully take back what was unconsciously given and deliberately stolen?
Did we fall asleep or were we caught up in a national grief of sorts?
When I look at it this way I can see similarities between the tumult of our post 911 grief and the national grief associated with the assisination of JFK. Does anyone else see this?
With the lost of life lost, are there really any winners. Can we say with fact and certainty that we are a safe Nation and mean it. If there are those who insist on destroying the US and wanting to see us tense and stressful, what have we won. If we still are looking over our shoulders, are we really any better off. The way we now do things are differently then before 9/11.
War was not the proper response to 9/11. In the name of national pride and honor.. well, its all empty when China comes in and buys it all up. Typical testosterone overdose. We need change in the government.
The 9/11 attack damaged us. We could have recovered with very little loss. Instead we followed up with ruinous wars that are destroying us. The terrorists won because they triggered our own economic and societal self destruction and the creation of ever more terrorists dedicated to our end.
Ten events or trends more important than 9/11 that have come since 9/11:
10 -- Overwrought US response to 9/11
9 -- Arab Spring
8 -- Rebalance of Asia
7 -- Stagnation of the developed world's economies
6 -- Facebook
5 -- Smartphones
4 -- 2008 Market crash
3 -- Eurozone crisis and Euro crash of 2011 and 2012
2 -- Global warming
1 -- China becomes the world's #1 superpower
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