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Happy 911 day
Sep. 11th, 2002 08:44 pmA couple of weeks ago, the local newspaper issued an open invitation to submit essays on "your feelings about September 11th, and how the world has changed in the year since".
So I wrote the following. Well, the issue came out today and, surprise surprise, this wasn't in it. :-)
Along with what seems the rest of America, I spent most of September 11th, 2001, staring in stunned silence at the television. I watched the planes strike. I watched as the towers fell down. I tried to grasp the magnitude of the act. I sat, possibly literally, on the edge of my seat, as each new amateur tape was delivered to different news groups. I nodded in agreement as the head of the FAA took bold, decisive action in immediately grounding all flights in the country. I cheered the Mayor of New York as he appeared on TV, calming fears, letting us know everything was going to be OK, and organizing the resources that would be needed for rescue and treatment of the injured. I wondered if the President of the United States was alright. A few hours later, he'd finished practicing his newly-written speech, and finally appeared to reassure us. He told us that America would remain strong. That he would hunt down the evil-doers and bring them to justice. That our military was on full alert world-wide. And that a new crusade had begun. He told us that the "evil-doers" attacked us because they resented our freedom and prosperity. By that evening, it was decided that Osama bin Laden was behind the attacks, despite the fact that he had issued an uncharacteristic denial of his responsibility. Perhaps he really didn't do it, or perhaps he simply realized that he'd gone too far.
Despite what all the networks tried to tell me, it didn't remind me of Pearl Harbor. In fact, in the last year I have spoken to several people who remember Pearl Harbor, and they all tell me that the attacks didn't remind them of it, other. Universally, what they said the act reminded them of was the assassination of John F. Kennedy. A shocking act, a stunned nation holds it breath wondering who did such a thing, and why. Waiting for the news reports to come in.
I wasn't around for Pearl Harbor, and too young to remember JFK. I've learned about both in history classes, of course, but what the attack reminded me of was Columbine. Yeah, the school shooting.
Columbine was a sudden, senseless act, like the attacks on the World Trade Center.
The talking heads on TV after Columbine spent weeks loudly pondering the mystery of why someone would do this. But there are many of us who know exactly why someone would do it. The nerds, the geeks, the outsiders. Everyone who grew up in a system where we were bullied by other students, and all to frequently by the teachers. We felt powerless and hopeless and alone, and every one of us fantasized about doing the same thing Harris and Klebold did. We weren't nearly as shocked at it happening as the talking heads on TV were. We were surprised that it didn't happen more often. It was a violent, senseless act. One that most of us never committed due to either just a bit more spark of humanity, or perhaps we still fanned a brief spark of hope that someday things would get better than they were, or perhaps we were simply beaten down so far that even following through on an adolescent revenge fantasy seemed beyond our power. At any rate, those of us who didn't commit suicide in high school survived and grew up. (And we run the computers that run the world now. I hear the kids going through the same thing now are starting to get into biotech. There's something to think about next time you push around some kid simply because you know he can't stand up to you.)
When the World Trade Center fell, the talking heads all got on TV and began pondering the mystery of why someone would do this. They talked about how the terrorists resent our freedom, or our prosperity, or the fact that women are treated as equals to men in our society. But I saw a bunch of defenseless kids, tired of being pushed around, feeling powerless and hopeless and alone. So, like Klebold and Harris, seeing nothing to live for, they committed suicide. Loudly, violently, taking as many as they could with them. They hated the US all right, but they didn't kill themselves to take down a few thousand of us because they thought we were weak. They understood we were strong. That's what they hated. Our strength, and our use of that strength to keep them weak. The perception most of the world has of the United States is the playground bully. We push other nations around because we're stronger than them and we can. It doesn't matter at the moment whether this perception is accurate or justified or not. That's their perception, and people's actions are based on their own perceptions, not on yours. And thousands, if not millions, around the world, even while saddened at the senseless loss of life, understood the desire to give the US a bloody nose. And they weren't shocked that it happened, they simply wondered that it doesn't happen more often.
Reactions to Columbine varied from what we in the US have come to see as the usual flurry of lawsuits and countersuits, to wildly inappropriate attempts at fixes on the part of school administrations. It sickens me that for so many people, even after losing their own children, their first thought was how to cash in. Lawsuits and talk shows and selling their stories to tabloids. And after the World Trade Center how many people rushed to market with commemorative coins (only $39.95 plus shipping) or Osama bin Laden toilet paper. Or millions of paper American flags (made in China) that used to be given away for free at gas stations now being sold for a dollar each at Wal-Mart. Ford Motor Company only took a couple of weeks to come out with their new commercials capitalizing on all this upsurge in patriotism. The worse of the bunch were the right-wing Christians. I'm not talking about all Christians by any means, but there's a sect in America that's always been more political than spiritual. Both Columbine and the World Trade Center were proof in these people's minds (and expensive advertising campaigns) that we needed to have children pray to their god in schools, and to stop teaching science that contradicted their interpretation of their own holy books. In Columbine, one family even went so far as to create a tale of their child's "unlikely martyrdom", complete with book deal and talk circuit, despite the fact that every report of the incident says that it never happened. But there is a set of religious leaders willing to exploit their story if it means more sheep in their fold. And more cash in their coffers.
The same group tried to use the World Trade Center to push their long-standing desire to have more church presence in public schools. They rallied behind Bush's plan to give tens of billions of dollars of our money to "faith-based" organizations as if it was a new idea made necessary because of the attacks, while completely ignoring the supreme irony of the fact that the attacks themselves were the most prominent faith-based act of the new century.
But perhaps even worse than the gross mercenaries and opportunists are the more subtle good-intentioned acts. Such as the people who, after Columbine, reacted by more closely monitoring nerds (a notoriously anti-monitoring group). Or by banning trench coats, or questioning student website content, or searching backpacks and confiscating samples of suspicious writings. Pushing those students, already marginalized, further into the margins. Doing nothing that would lessen such acts in the future, and quite possibly making more people consider them.
And after the World Trade Center bombing we react by immediately declaring War. By bombing the hell out of yet another third-world country, and by supporting the most horrendous war crimes abroad, and suspending more civil rights than even during the civil war at home. Pushing those who hate America even further in that direction. Doing nothing that would lessen such acts in the future, and quite possibly making more people consider them.
The World Trade Center attacks have more in common than the Columbine shootings than most people would like to think. But perhaps the greatest commonality is the greatest tragedy of all, and that is, even after such a wake-up cal, we still haven't learned a damned thing.
So I wrote the following. Well, the issue came out today and, surprise surprise, this wasn't in it. :-)
Along with what seems the rest of America, I spent most of September 11th, 2001, staring in stunned silence at the television. I watched the planes strike. I watched as the towers fell down. I tried to grasp the magnitude of the act. I sat, possibly literally, on the edge of my seat, as each new amateur tape was delivered to different news groups. I nodded in agreement as the head of the FAA took bold, decisive action in immediately grounding all flights in the country. I cheered the Mayor of New York as he appeared on TV, calming fears, letting us know everything was going to be OK, and organizing the resources that would be needed for rescue and treatment of the injured. I wondered if the President of the United States was alright. A few hours later, he'd finished practicing his newly-written speech, and finally appeared to reassure us. He told us that America would remain strong. That he would hunt down the evil-doers and bring them to justice. That our military was on full alert world-wide. And that a new crusade had begun. He told us that the "evil-doers" attacked us because they resented our freedom and prosperity. By that evening, it was decided that Osama bin Laden was behind the attacks, despite the fact that he had issued an uncharacteristic denial of his responsibility. Perhaps he really didn't do it, or perhaps he simply realized that he'd gone too far.
Despite what all the networks tried to tell me, it didn't remind me of Pearl Harbor. In fact, in the last year I have spoken to several people who remember Pearl Harbor, and they all tell me that the attacks didn't remind them of it, other. Universally, what they said the act reminded them of was the assassination of John F. Kennedy. A shocking act, a stunned nation holds it breath wondering who did such a thing, and why. Waiting for the news reports to come in.
I wasn't around for Pearl Harbor, and too young to remember JFK. I've learned about both in history classes, of course, but what the attack reminded me of was Columbine. Yeah, the school shooting.
Columbine was a sudden, senseless act, like the attacks on the World Trade Center.
The talking heads on TV after Columbine spent weeks loudly pondering the mystery of why someone would do this. But there are many of us who know exactly why someone would do it. The nerds, the geeks, the outsiders. Everyone who grew up in a system where we were bullied by other students, and all to frequently by the teachers. We felt powerless and hopeless and alone, and every one of us fantasized about doing the same thing Harris and Klebold did. We weren't nearly as shocked at it happening as the talking heads on TV were. We were surprised that it didn't happen more often. It was a violent, senseless act. One that most of us never committed due to either just a bit more spark of humanity, or perhaps we still fanned a brief spark of hope that someday things would get better than they were, or perhaps we were simply beaten down so far that even following through on an adolescent revenge fantasy seemed beyond our power. At any rate, those of us who didn't commit suicide in high school survived and grew up. (And we run the computers that run the world now. I hear the kids going through the same thing now are starting to get into biotech. There's something to think about next time you push around some kid simply because you know he can't stand up to you.)
When the World Trade Center fell, the talking heads all got on TV and began pondering the mystery of why someone would do this. They talked about how the terrorists resent our freedom, or our prosperity, or the fact that women are treated as equals to men in our society. But I saw a bunch of defenseless kids, tired of being pushed around, feeling powerless and hopeless and alone. So, like Klebold and Harris, seeing nothing to live for, they committed suicide. Loudly, violently, taking as many as they could with them. They hated the US all right, but they didn't kill themselves to take down a few thousand of us because they thought we were weak. They understood we were strong. That's what they hated. Our strength, and our use of that strength to keep them weak. The perception most of the world has of the United States is the playground bully. We push other nations around because we're stronger than them and we can. It doesn't matter at the moment whether this perception is accurate or justified or not. That's their perception, and people's actions are based on their own perceptions, not on yours. And thousands, if not millions, around the world, even while saddened at the senseless loss of life, understood the desire to give the US a bloody nose. And they weren't shocked that it happened, they simply wondered that it doesn't happen more often.
Reactions to Columbine varied from what we in the US have come to see as the usual flurry of lawsuits and countersuits, to wildly inappropriate attempts at fixes on the part of school administrations. It sickens me that for so many people, even after losing their own children, their first thought was how to cash in. Lawsuits and talk shows and selling their stories to tabloids. And after the World Trade Center how many people rushed to market with commemorative coins (only $39.95 plus shipping) or Osama bin Laden toilet paper. Or millions of paper American flags (made in China) that used to be given away for free at gas stations now being sold for a dollar each at Wal-Mart. Ford Motor Company only took a couple of weeks to come out with their new commercials capitalizing on all this upsurge in patriotism. The worse of the bunch were the right-wing Christians. I'm not talking about all Christians by any means, but there's a sect in America that's always been more political than spiritual. Both Columbine and the World Trade Center were proof in these people's minds (and expensive advertising campaigns) that we needed to have children pray to their god in schools, and to stop teaching science that contradicted their interpretation of their own holy books. In Columbine, one family even went so far as to create a tale of their child's "unlikely martyrdom", complete with book deal and talk circuit, despite the fact that every report of the incident says that it never happened. But there is a set of religious leaders willing to exploit their story if it means more sheep in their fold. And more cash in their coffers.
The same group tried to use the World Trade Center to push their long-standing desire to have more church presence in public schools. They rallied behind Bush's plan to give tens of billions of dollars of our money to "faith-based" organizations as if it was a new idea made necessary because of the attacks, while completely ignoring the supreme irony of the fact that the attacks themselves were the most prominent faith-based act of the new century.
But perhaps even worse than the gross mercenaries and opportunists are the more subtle good-intentioned acts. Such as the people who, after Columbine, reacted by more closely monitoring nerds (a notoriously anti-monitoring group). Or by banning trench coats, or questioning student website content, or searching backpacks and confiscating samples of suspicious writings. Pushing those students, already marginalized, further into the margins. Doing nothing that would lessen such acts in the future, and quite possibly making more people consider them.
And after the World Trade Center bombing we react by immediately declaring War. By bombing the hell out of yet another third-world country, and by supporting the most horrendous war crimes abroad, and suspending more civil rights than even during the civil war at home. Pushing those who hate America even further in that direction. Doing nothing that would lessen such acts in the future, and quite possibly making more people consider them.
The World Trade Center attacks have more in common than the Columbine shootings than most people would like to think. But perhaps the greatest commonality is the greatest tragedy of all, and that is, even after such a wake-up cal, we still haven't learned a damned thing.
