16 years ago. Seems like yesterday. A before and after. A time to heal that has never been completed. The true beginning of the division of our country. The loss of our values and the further erosion to this day. So when we commemorate those who died, those who gave their lives and the heroes of Flight 93, we need to ask ourselves if we have indeed commemorated them properly or have we squandered it.
For me it is a memory that will never fade. I have books galore about it and watch the documentaries. I have cried while reading 102 Minutes - and everyone should read it - and I cry at what we have lost from that time. I cry to realize that it is now an everyday behavior for little kids to put their little stuffed animal thru the machine, to even get patted down. What a sad world we are leaving to them.
Even worse is at the head of our government is now a man whose validity in election is questioned, whose loyalty to the country is questioned as his spider web ties to Russia and various characters there become more and more entangled, a man who represents not a single one of the American values that we should treasure, only the greed of the robber barons of the past but even they endowed philanthropic institutions and funding. What has he done other than to put his names on golf courses and buildings, all to enrich his own pockets?!
This is the same man who said he lost "hundreds of friends" in the Towers but cannot name a one. This is the man who claims to have seen thousands of Moslems and/or Arabs dancing and shouting with glee over there in Jersey City and yet there is not one bit of proof or any other sighting. another piece, or rather the beginning of the alternate reality and facts that this man puts forth. And what have we done by allowing him in.
The ostensible President and the Senate are at war with each other. Politics has taken precedence over the common good and each and every side and person is trying to prove a point, leaving the little guys up the creek. So Trump and the Democrats made a temporary deal, good till December and the Republicans are screaming foul. Never mind that it allows the country to move forward. Never mind that Trump did this with the usual not loyal to anyone or anything so once again he shifts from his ostensible party.
Now the defense bill is in the playground for the little kids to fight over and never mind what happens with the country. Now Steve Bannon is back at Breitbart and shooting his hateful stones and arrows at his chosen foes and screeching that Trump made a huge mistake by firing Comey. Never mind the facts that the truth is coming out. Never mind the shame that this is now the President who is being investigated up to and including actual chargeable crimes. And now Sessions is planning to use lie detectors searching for leakers! How about the fact that they are leaking crimes and misdeeds, doing the honorable thing but nope, not that way for Sessions. It is like the Mafia searching for those who violate Omerta.
Finally, for now, for today, we have the disgraceful DACA, throwing out Americans, kids who have contributed to the economy of the country, who have grown up here and Bannon tells Charlie Rose that nope, the country is only for citizens - no matter color, ethnicity, religion, gender or orientation - as if that is to be believed. When Rose said that immigration is part of the country, its building, its values, Bannon went into his citizen diatribe, forgetting that when immigrants came here over the centuries they were not citizens yet!!
Such is the America of today, 16 years after 9/11. Such is the America that still has good in it as we older folks reawaken and the younger kids wake up to protests. It is the America where people reach out to others to rescue those who needed help, no matter their skin color or religion or anything else - only that they were human, fellow Americans, just plain people who needed a helping hand. Which America will we have next 9/11? In the meanwhile, remember those of 9/11, take some time to sit and think, to pray for a better future where we do not have people blowing others up in the name of their god or ideology.
Remember 9/11
Which America will we choose?
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