On September 11, 2001, my (then) wife was VERY pregnant with our firstborn (a son). She was unable to teach her freshman chemistry labs, so I had volunteered to take them on for her. On this morning, the lab was early. I walked downstairs, fixed breakfast, and turned on the TV just in time to catch video of a plane (I think it was the second one) hitting the tower.
I don't remember what I said, but it was loud enough that my wife rushed half-way down the steps to ask me what the fuck was going on...I think for most of the next few weeks I was in a daze. Not just because of 9/11, but because of how everyone else was reacting to it.
I remember distinctly walking in the quad immediately before the lab, and looking around at everyone. Nothing seemed different. Nobody seemed to know, or if they knew, it seemed like they didn't care one bit. At this point, I need to make a declaration. I have always felt that the citizens of a democracy bear the responsibility of the actions of their government. Now, I do not think that those people deserved what happened that day, but I felt strongly then, as I do now, that our constant imposition of our own economic best interest over the rights of citizens of other nations was bound to come back to our shores one day. I remembered praying for angels to come and sing songs of peace to our leaders, and hoping fervently that the experience would wake our citizens up to the fact that actions have consequences. Let me say that I am not so glaringly naive now as I was then.
So I went in and taught the class, mostly filled with nursing students and other non-science majors (I still can't understand why the two were in the same course). Then the most sickening part of the day began. I had the misfortune of frequenting a Clear Channel radio station (classic rock) and on the way home, I got the first dose of what was to be a 72 hour hate-a-thon. It seemed that every redneck within radio range unleashed every ounce of testosterone upon the airwaves.
I remember arguing with a colleague about the impending invasion of Afghanistan. He mocked the idea that 'bombing the goat-shit splattered hills', already rendered back to the stone age by the Russians previously, would accomplish anything. He was a Romanian, and had invaluable insight on growing up in a Communist regime, and the difference between living under a despot and being one.
My son was born the following month, into (I feel) a much colder world than existed before that morning. Of course, that feeling is biased by my fortune to be born and live on this continent, and as an American. Over years since our country's conception, we have been the on the giving end rather than the receiving end of a lot of the world's shit. We are the only nation on earth to have ever used nuclear weapons, and we used them deliberately on a civilian population whose government was already on the precipice of surrender. We have committed genocide against our native population. We have been guilty of a great many things, and that should not be forgotten even on this day.
If continue to weave a mythology of America as a righteous nation who was wronged on that fateful day, we do ourselves and our children a great disservice. If we, as progressives, care about building a world based on justice....it cannot only be justice for America.
Anyway, I have carried on far too much for any one diary (of mine, at least).
For those who have read through it, thanks, and feel free to leave your own footprint in this little sandbox of memory.
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