The Day That Changed Everything

[filkertom]

Actually, it only changed some things.

First, it killed 3,000 people, horribly, live on TV around the world, and broke the hearts of their families, their friends, their country, their fellow humans.

Second, it allowed a very small-hearted man to proclaim a huge victory. He had tagged the giant, and the giant has been unable to strike back. Said giant lashing out at everything else in frustration is an unexpected bonus.

Third, it allowed another very small-hearted man and his small-hearted, big-idea cronies, led by the twisted philosophers of the Project for a New American Century, to launch this country into one war and lie us into another. This has, literally, screwed up the world, and continues to do so, and until the Dems in Congress find their spines and defund this madness we will kill and die in Iraq to no good end, we will drain our treasury, we will anger and offend and repel the world.

Fourth, it solidified a division in this country so profound and bitter that I fear it may never be healed. There are large numbers of people in America who believe large numbers of other people are, literally, traitors, deserving to be killed or incarcerated merely because they oppose the President. Many of those other people believe the first people are stupid tools, blind to everything except political loyalty, traitors in their own right for supporting blatant, admitted violations of the law and of the Constitution.

Fifth, lying -- at the very least, a heavy dose of denying reality -- has become standard operating procedure for a vast number of politicians and pundits, and for a lot more ostensibly smart people than I ever imagined. There is a big problem with that: reality doesn't care about your politics. You can fool some of the people all of the time, maybe all of the people some of the time... but you can't fool science, history, or sociology. You can, however, obscure them, and I guess those people hope that'll be enough. It won't.

Sixth, our legal and economic systems have been turned against us by people who apparently think the US system is inferior to feudalism.

Apart from that, not so much. "War On Terror"? Our "government" is doing everything it can to perpetuate terror, on every front. Without terror, they have proven time and again that they have nothing. The irony, of course, is that, if they're so good at thwarting terrorist attacks, if their political party is the only hope against new attacks, why do they spend so much time inciting new attacks, so much time telling us how many there are going to be? As AmericaBlog pointed out yesterday, Osama bin Laden can't be both "virtually impotent" and "regain[ing] a significant level of their capability".

The world has been changed, not by terrorists, but by fearing fear itself.

Anyway. I'm going away for a few days, to a place with little Internet connectivity. I'll be back by the weekend. A couple more quick posts this morning, and I'm outa here. I love you all, and I hope you have a good day and a better week. Any plans between now and the weekend?

Comments

Thanks, Tom.

[briansiano.livejournal.com]

Exactly what I was going to post over at my own blog.

Saved me a fair amount of typing.

[bedlamhouse]

You and I don't often agree, but this:

The world has been changed, not by terrorists, but by fearing fear itself.

needs to be proclaimed around the country and hung in banners from every street corner.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Maybe we don't agree on much politically, Bill, but I think we agree on more than enough other stuff. You're a good guy and I love you. So there. Nyeah. ;)

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

I don't live in fear of either the terrorists nor the neocons. When you are in fear, they win. I'll not give the b***ards that power over me, any of them.

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

The local SCA had a rash of unrelated heart attack deaths a few months before 9/11. There are times when I envy them, not having to live in the new 21st Century.

#5 is a base canard though. Politicians have always lied, don't you remember?

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

There's lying, and then there's lying to your faces repeatedly even though the truth is in plain sight, documented, and shoved in front of them. As mentioned, after a point it becomes denying reality.

My own remembrances of that week 6 years ago

[archiver-tim.livejournal.com]

My plans include being guest to Dad & Mom for the next six weeks. Well, their urns that is. Dad started dying in the evening of September 12, 2001, waiting until after he finished watching a war movie, just to make sure we Americans won, on the decision that the chest pains need immediate attention instead of maybe the next day. He finally had mom call 911. He finished dying in the first hour of September 13, 2001, still 9/12 to four siblings in the Central time zone.
Connection to 9/11? Well, it seems that someone in The White House forgot to exempt Medical emergency flights when all flying was halted in the US. I swear I heard the delayed and finally approved helicopter, overhead that would have got him from Garden City to Ann Arbor after Dad was pronounced dead.
I hope to spend some time with my brother who will be bringing the urns over this 9/12 to remember both parents, who will be buried at the Great Lakes National Military Cemetery in Holly, Mich (Dad was an Army Air Corp Veteran), on October 26, 2007. I never got to visit Dad's urn after we kids got mom settled into the seniors apartment (multi-level care facility).
So the week will have several remembrances, including phone calls to the sibs.

-Ryan

[wwetuesday.livejournal.com]

There are those who believe that our own government had a hand in taking down the towers. It's their right to believe it (I personally don't).

There's some evidence that our country knew of this beforehand, going as far back as the Clinton administration. Possibly even before that. But now all that is irrelevant, as it doesn't change what happened.

Regardless of your own political views, today should be a day to remember that anything could happen at any time to anybody that could change everything in their life.

Mothers, Fathers, Sisters, Brothers, Sons, and Daughters were lost. Families were destroyed.

Keep your loved ones close. Tell them you love them. Because at any time, at any place, they could be lost.

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

Last year, I wrote this. I stand by it today:

It's not that I have a problem with people remembering. It was something that affected each and every one of us, and my cynicism over how that event has been exploited for political and commercial gain doesn't change the fact that very real people are experiencing very real emotions today. I'm not immune. I won't ever forget that day. But I won't let it define my life. I can't. If we let this tragedy define us, then we've allowed the bad guys to accomplish something, and I guess I'm just too stubborn to give in to that.

[ohiblather.livejournal.com]

I *so* agree with this sentiment.

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

Fourth, it solidified a division in this country so profound and bitter that I fear it may never be healed. There are large numbers of people in America who believe large numbers of other people are, literally, traitors, deserving to be killed or incarcerated merely because they oppose the President.

A number that, on the bright side, is dwindling every day.

This has, literally, screwed up the world, and continues to do so, and until the Dems in Congress find their spines and defund this madness we will kill and die in Iraq to no good end, we will drain our treasury, we will anger and offend and repel the world.

Not going to happen, I'm afraid. The Democratic congress wants the war in Iraq to perpetuate for the remainder of the Bush administration because they want his administration (even moreso than it is now) to be synonymous with the greatest military and foreign policy blunder of this generation. Why? Because they want the Republican party as a whole to look like a failure.

Little did they expect that the Bush administration has every intention to beginning military operations in Iran, knowing it will be an even bigger mess than Iraq due to us not even having the resources we had when we went into Iraq, right when his administration ends so that the next President, which will likely be a Democrat, will have too many disasters going on than any human being could know how to deal with. Why? Because they want the Democratic party as a whole to look like a failure.

And that, my dear Tom, is precisely what American policy is all about.

Not "doing what's right".
Not "helping America".
But "making the other guys look even worse than we are".

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

Rep: I'm running for president because... we started this mess. Heh, yeah, vote for me you suckers.
Dem: Fine. We concede.
Rep: I'm gonna... what?
Dem: We concede. You got us into this mess - you get us out now.
Rep: Wait, you can't do that!
Dem: We did it. Congrats. Your party now has a 3 front war that you created yourself. Have fun.
Rep: But I don't want to win!
Dem: That much we already know.
Rep: Where's my supreme court?

[darthparadox.livejournal.com]

And then there's getting full complicity in their lying from the news media that the country used to be able to trust to expose the politicians' lies.

If CNN, Fox News, the New York Times, etc were actually doing their fucking jobs as journalists and keepers of the public record, the country as a whole would have called this government on its bullshit years ago. Some of them are finally starting - just starting - to come around, but only because they feel the wind changing and they want to position themselves properly for the coming power shift.

But I fear it will take fifty years or more to fix the damage that has been done in the past six.

(This icon really doesn't do my feelings justice. I need an "I'm so goddamned angry I can barely see straight" icon.)

[firedrake-mor.livejournal.com]

Fourth, it solidified a division in this country so profound and bitter that I fear it may never be healed. There are large numbers of people in America who believe large numbers of other people are, literally, traitors, deserving to be killed or incarcerated merely because they oppose the President.

A number that, on the bright side, is dwindling every day.

Is it? Then please tell me why people were hauled away in handcuff yesterday in front of the hearing chambers, without having said or done ANYthing illegal -- simply protesting and disagreeing. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/10/AR2007091001068.html?hpid=topnews)

When did protest become illegal? People have been dissenting in the Senate galleries for years. It's almost a sacred tradition!

From Harry S. Truman: "Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear."

Sound familiar?

[firedrake-mor.livejournal.com]

LOL -- I hadn't considered that as a strategy . . .

[mdlbear]

Well said

[batyatoon]

There is a big problem with that: reality doesn't care about your politics.

Lois Bujold's Leo Graf said it best:
You can fool the men. You will never fool the metal.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Actually, what the big media broke in October 2001, we, you and I, fixed during Katrina. The blogosphere got credibility. The big boys will slowly, over time, become irrelevant. More so for you and I, faster, but eventually it will trickle down. Probably not fifty years; 20, tops.

As for the icon? Try this one.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Hear, here.

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

It's like I said in response to; "The Daily Show jumped the shark when people started considering it a legitimate news program".

No, mainstream media jumped the shark when that happened.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

hat the big media broke in October 2001, we, you and I, fixed during Katrina.

The bloggers may have made ground, but I am still staggered that there has been less backlash against the handling of Katrina than against this insane war. Bush campaigned promising to keep us safe... and citizens drowned by the hundreds on American soil.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

There was backlash all right. The Democrats won the 2006 election *despite* the fixed voting boxes. It was quiet... but it was there. Frankly, I think the backlash has *just* in the last few weeks figured out it's got some momentum...

[fuuberry.livejournal.com]

The father of a friend had never voted in his life. He was about 50 or so. Last election, he voted for Bush for that same argument. Sadly, it doesn't work too well when the people that fucked up have deluded themselves into thinking that they're still in the right.