Seven years ago on September 11 a handful of men aspired to crush America....to shatter our hearts and in doing so to shatter our nation.
They were successful. Despite a brief time of shared grief and outrage, the unity of America was quickly eroded by a President and an administration bent on capitalizing on the tragedy. Our President used our grief, our vulnerability, our fear to drag us into a nonsensical war in the Middle East. He lied to us, hoping that our fear of another attack would give him free reign on the use of our resources both financial and human to play childish war games in a country his Father had not been able to crush in years past.
Americans were encouraged to doubt the motives of people who looked different, who worshipped differently, who spoke differently. Keeping us afraid and at odds with each other and the rest of the world isolated us and kept us weak, the perfect recipe for a government who would use the distractions instigated by terrorists on 9-11 and perpetuated by their rhetoric to run up a massive deficit, spend billions and line their own pockets with blood money. The Bush administration reveled in our fear, fed it, encouraged it. The terrorists they purported to want to chase to the ends of the earth to destroy watched as our own leaders did to our country exactly what they had hoped that day in September would do....destroy our unity, undermine our confidence, break our spirits and crush our hopes. Everything beautiful about America had become as dark and tainted as the clouds of dust and smoke that rose from the destruction of that day.
The world has watched as we struggled these last 7 years. Some wished to see us suffer but many wished for us to find our way back. They watched as two choices arose for us, two choices that seemed as easily defined as a choice between hope or hate.
The world has watched us navigate a mine field of bigotry, racism, hatred, violence and divisiveness as we made our way to the day when we would finally make that choice.
The world watched last night as America once again came together, after years of fear, years of uncertainty.....they watched as America rose again to take its rightful place in the global arena as a unified people, as leaders of the free world, as a country that represents so much to so many. The world watched last night as we chose hope over hate, right over wrong, progress over pain, peace over war. As America took a step toward a new day and rejected the idea that we would live in fear and vulnerability.
The world watched as we finally, finally stepped out of the rubble to reclaim what had been taken, asses the damages and begin to rebuild....to rebuild something even better than before. America is back.