On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was still sound asleep. Oblivious to the frantic and troubling breaking news coming out of New York and Washington D.C. It wasn't until 8:30 in the morning, Chicago time, that my mother woke me up to inform me that the United States was under attack.
Images of the World Trade Center being ripped by passenger jets, disguised as missiles took my breath away.
The events that unfolded like a dollar bill were like scenes from a bad, Hollywood action film produced by Jerry Bruckheimer.
Sadly, I wished it was.
And, as the towers melted with the planes of the dead still inside, I became frozen. I had no thoughts what so ever. It's as if the events took every fiber of being out of me and left it on the ground to die.
5 years later, this Monday, I still have those same thoughts and I came to the conclusion that I'm still in denial that the entire terrorist attack never happened. No, it never happened. It was all a dream. There's no one that capable to pull such an evil deed like crashing an airplane into a building. Thus, burning innocent people alive in the process.
I was wrong.
Those events on Sept 11, 2001, weren't a fantasy but a cold slap of reality to every American who believed in their heart of hearts that this nation was invincible to any attack from a foreign threat or a group of blood thirsty cowards who believed that their heinous acts would grant them a seat in paradise.
On Monday, the nation collectively reflected on that heinous day. The lives lost and the innocence lost. Going through the television set I was amazed at the coverage from both CNN and MSNBC. Not for just broadcasting the rememberance at Ground Zero, but for rebroadcasting the actual events of 9/11/01 as it happened.
At first I was dismayed at the notion of replaying 9/11/01 as some sort of movie. After the John Mark Karr debacle I was skeptical to MSNBC and CNN's rebroadcast of 9/11/01, when the story broke.
But then as the day turned into night, my mood changed.
9/11/01 wasn't a movie, but an actual, historical document of a tragic event in our nation's history. CNN and MSNBC weren't merely rebroadcasting those events just to reel in the ratings but to make us never forget what was truly lost that day.
It was clearly a sharp contrast to ABC's 9/11 docudrama, 'The path to 9/11' which was strife with lies and deceit.
ABC's fraudlent film that was based on the 9/11 commission report was used to further the Right-Wing's continued hatred for Bill Clinton. Sadly, 9/11 was used as the bridge.
The Right, who claim to love this country more than the left were willing to bastardize the memory of those who were vaporized on 9/11/01 to smear a rival of theirs.
My message to the Right; shame on you.
Shame on you for pissing on the memory of 9/11 to continue with a tired inquistion of a man you failed to run out of office.
Shame on you for bankrolling a project that uses 9/11 as a political gym to flex the GOP's sagging muscles.
Shame on you for fictionalizing the events of that horrid day.
'The path to 9/11' is a complete fabrication. A total waste of air. And, a sad piece of fiction. Where's James Frey when you need him most, at least he was a hungry artist willing to sacrifice his craft in order to get his name out. The Right-Wing were willing to sacrifice the memory of the 9/11 victims, in order to score points with their withering base.
The rebroadcast of 9/11/01 on MSNBC and CNN.com were historical documents. No muscle flexing from political goons. No opinion-mongering from the likes of O'Reilly and Coulter, just the sad, cold truth of a day that we will never forget.