I have opinions. Sometimes they are not popular opinions. Sometimes they make other people angry. I have a feeling this might be one of those times.
This is about September 11. I don’t know if you were aware, but last Sunday was the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. Oh, you knew? Okay. Just want to establish a context.
If you knew about that, and then you were anywhere near the internet that day, you probably also read about a gazillion people’s documentation of “where they were” that day. People who were dragging other people out of rubble or serving water to those who fled from the collapsing towers, people in the Pentagon, people in D.C., and then people in Oklahoma, and all the way out to the West Coast, everyone had something to share.
I was in Goodyear. It was about 5:30 in the morning and I was conked out in bed. I could have been farther away from the terror and agony the East Coast was witnessing. By the time I turned the news on, everyone was in agreement that this was, in fact, a terrorist attack and that the plane that landed in a field in Pennsylvania was actually intended for the White House or Capital. I watched this from the safety of my living room. I knew no one who was in danger, no one I was worried about. The only thing I really cared about personally was how the possibility of us going war was going to affect my education, especially if they were going to start a draft that included women, because I am a small person and I only run if someone is chasing me and there is a very real threat of death. Yes, I know. Selfish. Like I said, I felt no connection to what was happening.
It’s not as if I didn’t worry for the people who were actually dying or scared of dying. I watched those towers fall over and over again, and every time, my breath caught in my throat and I wanted to cry. Family members, someone’s best friend, someone who had fought with their spouse that morning, not to mention all the people who would die of the injuries inflicted on their lungs in clean-up efforts years later – so many people dead and lost. It’s tragic; one of the most tragic things this country has experienced. I know you know this. I just want to make sure you know that I know this, because I’m about to become unpopular.
Over the next ten years, “Never Forget” became just as much a national motto as “Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.” You can get that slogan emblazoned on bumper stickers or across the back windows of your truck, or buy it on a shirt or on a sign to stick in your yard. “Never Forget.” I know we’re talking about the importance of remembering that there are people out there who want to kill us because we live in a republic and believe in a democracy and we let blacks and women vote and we are all allowed to have opinions – people who hate us because we have that freedom. But I think “Never Forget” has done more harm than good.
Can we ever forget about all that when we’re reminded every day by the escalating war debt and our omnipresence in Iraq, and the number of people who died there and are still dying there. I don’t think we’re in danger of forgetting any time soon.
You know who really loves “Never Forget”? People who want us to keep living in fear. People who advise against going to large public events because you never know when someone is going to fly another plane into something big. People who want you to keep relying on the government to protect you.
People who run the security at the airports.
You know those cancer machines that every tenth person lucks into and then gets to choose “cancer or molestation”? Never forget. We give strangers x-ray vision under our clothes, or permission to touch us in ways that we tell kids only mommy and daddy and your doctor should touch you. We decide the chance of cancer is less important than the chance of another yahoo taking over a plane with box cutters again. And apparently the nearly naked visual check/invasive “pat down” is the best way to find these would-be box cutter wielders. You never know – it could be that 3-year-old in the Elmo shirt.
We should be safe. Definitely run everyone through a metal-detector. But a knee-jerk reaction never works out well. Case in point: The Patriot Act. People were clamoring for some kind of “protection” immediately after September 11, and now the government can listen in to your phone conversations and monitor your computer searches and emails. And we all agreed that this was necessary ten years ago. Because of The Terrorists. We let the government monitor our personal effects and willingly sacrificed our privacy and the Fourth Amendment. Did any of that actually make us safer? Did the government being able to scan internet use prevent terrorist attacks? Maybe it did, but I’m willing to bet it didn’t. What it did was make us FEEL better. The backscatter machines are the same knee-jerk, dog-and-pony show. We refuse to forget that at any second, The Terrorists could come and steal our planes, so we let the government herd us into machines that dose us with unregulated amounts of radiation, or touch us inappropriately. Those machines are called “virtual strip searches.” A strip search! Of people who are not suspected of doing anything wrong but desiring to board an airplane. Why? So we all feel safer. But still people wear “Never Forget” shirts.
In a way, we shouldn’t forget. One of my dearest friends was on the Hill September 11, and if that downed plane in Pennsylvania had reached its destination, she might not be here today. I chose to write this after I read, on the tenth anniversary, her recounting of the events, of her fear and apprehension as for all she knew, another plane was headed her way with a huge target on the Capital. It means the world to me that she is here. I mean no disrespect to those who died or those who lost people, and no disrespect to the American principles that inspire so much hatred in others that they would want to destroy our country. I’m not saying we should move on and forget. Those who lost people in terrorist attacks should continue to mourn their dead as long as they need. We should continue to fight for the health benefits for the people who become ill cleaning up the rubbish. We should appreciate those who lost their life fighting the war. And we should always remember that people will try to take our freedom away from us. I am saying that the Fourth Amendment is slowly dissolving before our eyes, and before long, we will not only lose our freedom, we will have handed it over on a flag-draped platter.
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