The Legacy of 9/11 - 20 Years Later

 

I remember going to work on Metrolink (San Bernardino Line), leaving Claremont when I get a call on my cell phone from James Bell telling me a plane had flown into the side of the World Trade Center and I assumed it had been a small private plane, until he reassured me no - it had been commercial aircraft, of some size and that was when I started repeating what he was telling me aloud, loud enough for the passengers around me to hear because cell phones were RARE and nobody else had one in the entire car.

 

Nobody believed me. Even when I was telling them a second plane had been flown into the Towers and they were falling.

 

Then we arrived at Los Angeles Union Station to a near lockdown. Yes, you could continue but the police and FBI presence was THERE, and NO I didn't want to go underground, and took the red DASH bus to my final destination in Manhattan Beach where my boss and co workers listened all day to the news, and tried to reach the people they knew who were in the danger zone.

 

We were so lucky. We didn't lose anyone.

 

The days that followed, fundraising began for the families of those who died. We started looking out for each other just that much more, were kinder in our shared grief that much more and were that much more aware of what had led to this action - which we would have discovered had been under our noses for over a decade. The World Trade Center had been attacked once before, remember? Leaving office, Clinton had warned W that there was a good chance a plot to fly planes into the place existed - and it had been responded to with 'they wouldn't dare.' That was the plan, beginning middle and end, to address that plot.

 

And then Rush Limbaugh came in and mocked every fundraising effort, claiming the victims were getting more money than anyone else EVER, they didn't deserve it and it wasn't fair. And people became more racist and xenophobic daily. Why yes, actions were taken in Afghanistan immediately, even though the place had been occupied since before Reagan by the Soviets - and oh yeah, Iraq. We need to invade Iraq! They're going to be the ones to attack us next! France said no - and all of a sudden, it's Freedom Fries and surrender monkeys. Worse. Remember?

 

I resisted. I was never at war with Iraq. American troops went in, topped a regime and when we left, what happened? People who hate us are now in power. We stayed in Afghanistan and when we left, what happened? People who hate us are now in power. Lives, money and resources HAD to be be spent there, and deficit? NAH. Our healthcare and educational systems? Sick, stupid and afraid, that's the American Way!

 

CNN was still pretty new then. FOX saw what they were doing and saw a cash cow waiting to be milked, slaughtered and resurrected every 20 minutes. I knew you could report the news in less than 30 minutes and be as well informed as you needed to be. If you have to fill the space 24 hours a day demands, what are you going to do with it? Well, propaganda works if there is no Fairness Doctrine and that went the way of Reagan in 1987. There was NO oversight and no accountability of what was being reported. Brought before a judge over the "fair and unbiased" claim, FOX NEWS had to admit they were only an entertainment venue, and had no real credibility for unbiased news reporting. It's the same claim Astrology has. It's just for fun, don't take it seriously. Except now, as a free service, it was being pumped into every place people went. And those Boomers, Silents and Greatest Generations raised with the Fairness Doctrine still believed it applied.

 

I took a Science degree in this stuff. It was as horrifying to watch happen as seeing the Towers fall.

 

It divided us. Destroyed us from within. Did everything Bin Laden had hoped, dreamed of and executed. Obama finally found and killed the guy, but that could have happened under Bush. He was just too convenient as a boogeyman, and don't try to tell me differently.

I haven't seen a conservative since 9/10. Conservatives work to preserve systems that serve the Republic. Liberals work to creatively find solutions when those systems fail, and with conservatives to integrate those solutions so they serve the Republic. Not get things Our Way over Your Way.

 

What I see today is every effort to keep this country divided, and it is killing us because a virus just doesn't give a fuck. You don't pay attention to novel solutions to a novel virus, you die. You pay attention to people with vested interests in keeping you dumb, sick and scared, you die when you take some quack medication instead of getting real care. Refusing vaccinations because someone used that as a means to know if you are one of Them or one of Us, not because they create harm instead of prevent it.

 

You Question Authority. Whoever that sets themself up to be.

 

And you love everyone, no matter what.

 

James Bell and I got onto planes to fly to Hawaii in 2001 to have a lovely vacation, and well, eloped. We had clear plastic backpacks and mine had a Red Maglite as long as my arm with zip ties in it and the Army Rangers nodded sagely and smiled as they waved me through Security. Later on, the TSA would confiscate that same Maglite. Also, pomegranate jelly but not the beeswax candles. Idiots. Scared and stupid, remember?

 

I get my news directly from Reuters. BBC for a different POV. Not from CNN, FOX or MSNBC. I sent money to save Snopes. And really side-eye anyone who denies fact-checkers that disagree with them (but really did a good job of exposing the nonsense), and then present their own 'conservative fact-checker' as if that would change the truth. It didn't, by the way. It never does.

 

People tend to take themselves out of my spaces, it's not comfortable if you're going to lie to me, yourself or the room. I don't call myself liberal and I'm not a Democrat. Intelligent and well-behaved and what the fuck are you doing attacking the Capitol on January 6th? Couldn't fly planes into the World Trade Center? They were trying to do the very same thing.

 

So the lesson today is remember who works to protect you, who works to use you, and who works to keep the truth present and available to you instead of gatekeeping what is and what isn't okay for you believe for you to stay in the group with them. You're safe when you keep thinking, and only then.

 

Scared, stupid and divided. The legacy of 9/11, exploited by those who would destroy us for their own profit.

 

And that is what I remember.