Six years later

I'm glad it's raining today.

The overwhelming gloominess outside is the perfect metaphor for what this annual pity-party has come to represent. Pity-party? "Blasphemous," you say? Not nearly so blasphemous as the way this date is still being used as an excuse for jingoism, warmongering, and general stupidity. Used as a convenient slogan and a fucking bumper-sticker. Used to brainwash a gullible public into living in a constant state of fear and willful ignorance.

I heard on the radio that George the Younger planned to observe a moment of silence at the White House this morning. No doubt this is his most appropriate course of action, mirroring as it does his inexcusable, frozen minutes of inaction on that September morning six years ago.

Anna Quindlen writes this week:

There was a moment when it seemed that what had happened to this nation would result in an unparalleled display of those things that make America great: audacity, community, a sense of the future as a broad plain upon which this country could make its mark for good. Instead, at almost every turn, our government and, yes, many of our citizens took the narrowest road. Instead of expanding, we contracted. Instead of a new juncture, we retreated to old ways.

Six years later, and where do we stand, America?

We faced a moment of truth in the days immediately following the attacks of 9/11 during which we could have decided to live up to our status as "the greatest nation." Instead, we chose to follow the lead of a petulant playground bully and his gang of simpering sycophants, conveniently forgetting the responsibilities of being "American" in an orgy of bloodlust for anyone bearded, turbaned, and Brown.

Instead of rising to the challenge of protecting our most sacred freedoms especially in a time of crisis, we witlessly allowed them to be cast aside, just so long as we could still flock, unfettered, to our local WalMarts every weekend.

Instead of holding to a moral high-ground for all the world to see and admire, we unleashed the primal beast within, justifying torture and unprovoked invasion and kidnapping and state-sanctioned murder, kneeling before self-appointed demagogues who've made America a global pariah.

As Yoda once presciently intoned, "Now matters are worse."

The most unforgivable thing of all is that we've willingly taken these missteps under the guise of "honoring the memory" of those who perished on that gorgeous, crisp fall morning, thereby dishonoring their memory in the most egregious way possible. I can feel only embarrassment and anger now that my country, my fellow citizens, have spent six interminable years pissing on the graves of the friends and neighbors who were taken from me that day.

And for that, we should be ashamed.

Oh, we should commemorate 9/11, but we should have learned enough by now to look at this date in a proper perspective. It marks a moment in our collective history when America had the choice to follow one of two paths toward the future. Sadly, like frightened lemmings, we chose the low road, a decision which will haunt us for generations to come.