9/11 Thoughts

I got up this morning, naturally cognizant of the day. I planned to read my LJ flist, because remembering where we were eleven years ago today is important to retell so I wanted to see what my friends had to say. But for some reason, I didn't want to rewrite what I'd been doing yet again. Instead, I dropped back down, cuddled with my cat, Abby, and thought instead of the changes to this country since 9/11 - and the number turned out to be staggering to me. It was all pretty heavy thinking for a woman who hadn't even had her Instant Breakfast yet.

One thing that sticks in my head in the days - and years - following 9/11, were the amount of public reassurances that Al-Qaeda had failed in their attempt to ruin us financially - which was the reason often given for 9/11 (as well as, of course, creating 'terror' in our minds; to paralyze us with the additional attack on the Pentagon and the failed attempt to crash into the Capitol Building). We were constantly assured there would be no lasting effects to our economy; that slamming into the Twin Towers and Pentagon wouldn't ruin us by causing monetary devastation.

I'm thinking now - they were all wrong - or just plain lying. How could such an immediate and yes, intimate attack not hurt us in more ways than we could count? Many people were saying things like, 'We suffered such an attack once before, at Pearl Harbor, and we survived', but in all reality, for most Americans, Pearl Harbor was 'far away' and, according to my mother, who was 15 at the time, the first response by Americans older than 25 was "Where's Pearl Harbor?"

No one needed to ask where New York was.

And of course, as we'd later learn, the fatalities exceeded the attack on Pearl Harbor as well.

We were definitely shaken to the core, scared and scarred, but supposedly rallied and marched on. Only...now I wonder if we did?

Today, eleven years later, I think Al-Qaeda; the men who planned the attack, carried it out, died for it, might have accomplished more than even they could have dreamed. I think the financial hit was larger than we'll ever truly be told - although economist around the world have made their opinions known; opinions the US has shrugged off, and that bothers me. I think we did change and the damage went beyond what could be considered 'normal', if that makes sense?

The attack on Pearl Harbor offered us an immediate outlet for our fear and rage; we went to war. But 9/11? Sure, our government said we were at war, with terrorism, but in reality, the 'bad guys' this time weren't visible even though they had a name: Al-Qaeda. But unlike our 'foes' in previous 'wars', these men and women were shrouded in mystery and lived lives we couldn't begin to fathom - nor did we try. Maybe that's why the change to America seemed less obvious; why it took more time to occur and why, as it was happening, it was far less noticeable.

With almost 3,000 losses - and the numbers growing each year,
thanks to the toxic air the First Responders, residents and workers of New York had to breathe for almost an entire year - changes for those affected should have been expected, but I think now we were woefully unprepared in every way. I wonder if the pre-9/11 America would have taken NINE YEARS to pass a health and compensation act to aid the First Responders, public and survivors who took in all that bad air? Would the Pre-9/11 America have, at any time, refused healthcare to the point that a law even needed to be passed? Would pre-9/11 America have lied about the air quality for almost a year?

We've always been good at keeping national secrets (sometimes, not so much), but this didn't have anything to do with National Security - this was about our HEALTH. How many Americans even know our government told the EPA to lie about the air quality to New Yorkers? Reassured them it was okay even though the air didn't reach pre-9/11 quality until June of '02 (and even that date is debatable)!

I also started to think of the changes to the mind-set of Americans and found myself --- oddly disappointed. Which is weird. Somehow, in retrospect (which is always easy after the facts, right?), maybe we should have opened our arms to the world instead of closing in on ourselves? It seems as if we're a more suspicious people now - of everyone including each other. And that hatred, which has grown and expanded over the years - that's what really scares me. Sure, no war occurs without some hate, I realize that. I'm hardly naive. But this hatred - due possibly to the fact that our enemy this time was so hard to find - found another outlet. We aimed inward; at immigrants, minorities, at any one who was different from what we perceived as a weird kind of normal; a normal we built into something we convinced ourselves had been lost, when in reality this 'normal' never really existed.

This sounds as if everything that's changed since 9/11 is because of 9/11 - but yeah, I think it's possible. I know it's a very complex issue, with more layers than an onion, and there's certainly no single answer to explain where we are today - but I truly think 9/11 was a kind of catalyst.

So many people's lives changed radically in the last eleven years - and while one would argue that's normal, I found when comparing the changes experienced by myself and so many others - to the fifty years that occurred before 9/11 (my fifty years) - yeah, there may be some basis for my thinking. And is there any arguing with the fact that we've been in not one, but two wars, one lasting ten years, the other, still going after ten years? A war we're not even fighting in what could be considered a normal manner?

Today, so many things we took for granted before 9/11 - are now not only in question, but in danger. Civil Rights, the Right to Choose, Women's Rights, agencies created years ago to help preserve our air, environment, education, even our parks, are all in danger now. Values that can't possibly be defined, let alone legislated, are now considered to be requisites for even being an American. Is 9/11 responsible? Yes, in a way, I believe it is. We were rattled to such a degree, we climbed back into our shells and buried our heads in the sand as we conjured up a utopian vision of what our lives used to be. We made up a danger to our religion and yes, even to the 'white' race. We targeted those who were visible and handy because the real danger was too far away and unfathomable.

The American Dream was attacked on 9/11, but today, some are trying to tell us what, precisely, that Dream was and should be, and that it was lost, but we can get it back. Today, in what I assume is an effort to retrieve that perceived American Dream, we seem to have slipped back to the ten years following WWII. Life was, however briefly, pretty typical. Men came back from the war, many took advantage of GI loans to buy the 'new', modern, sleek homes made possible by all the technological advances forced by a world war. They married, settled down, and had their 2.5 kids. Others used their GI status to take advantage of college opportunities interrupted by the war. The suburbs took on a whole new meaning as communities rose rapidly. Church on Sunday, work on Monday, putter around the new house on Saturday. Families eating around the dining room table while looking out on a 'neighborhood' street, possibly a cul-de-sac. Across the street, Mr. Fleming was mowing his lawn while his wife put the finishing touches on dinner and the small ones watched their new television. Next door, the Cochrans were barbecuing. Life was good.

But today, that life seems to have been the only way we lived before 9/11. The war years, the dismal and dangerous 30's, the immoral Roaring 20's; all quietly disappeared from the collective memories of so many. As did the eye-opening, sometimes violent, 60's and 70's. Two decades (almost) that changed this country forever - or so we who fought for those changes - thought. Anyone remember the late 60's and early 70's? The marches, speeches, violence, protests, upheaval? Or the result?

Women fighting for respect and equality in the workplace; minorities fighting to share in the American Dream; marches and protests to stop a war we'd come to realize was wrong, and college students getting involved. Bras were burned - and so were flags, but the results? TV shows where blacks and Latinos actually starred and shows where gays weren't comic relief, their gender preference never mentioned but demonstrated by a stereotypical swish, but instead, were just men; brothers, sons, etc.

Today, those years are being challenged and I'm beginning to believe 9/11 may have a lot to do with it. The fears that day generated seem to have stayed with us, under the skin, festering almost unnoticed until a man with a foreign name and dark skin took up residence in the White House. Suddenly, those fears had a face and a name. The terror exploded outward even as the people experiencing it cloaked them in political rhetoric about 'returning to the traditional Family Values of America' - as if one man in the Oval Office could have stolen those values in three and a half years. Values that should never be defined or legislated anyway; values that are not only personal but as varied as America herself. And the American Family? To try to define it in an effort to assuage our fears, to limit it in order to feel safe - is wrong. Family is everything and can be any grouping of individuals - who may or may not be related by blood or marriage. Family has no limits - or limitations, nor should it. And by defining it, narrowing it, we can't retrieve what we lost on September 11, 2001. By once again restricting rights and creating divisions among Americans, that day will not be erased. Nor should it be.

I'm not sure what the answer is - but I know that trying to go backward, to limit who and what this country stands for - is not the way. We must honor and remember the dead, we must care for those who suffer today, and we must embrace our differences, love them, cherish them, for those differences created the best of this country.

Maybe that's the way to commemorate 9/11. Go forward, not back. Love, not hate. Broaden our beliefs instead of narrowing them and stop trying to define that which can never be defined.