As I watched the smoke plume from the pentagon that day I grew the fuck up. In a moment I realized how much I had been lied to, and how my cushy suburban upbringing was the social equivalent of child abuse because it had made me lazy. Lazy because I was all too willing to accept what I was told, what I read, and what I watched in the news. 9/11/01 was the day I grew up and out of my childish notions that believed my school teachers who preached that America would never be attacked on it’s soil. As the hot flames licked the skies and left their ashen fingerprints I grew up that day because the lie died, as it should have died for everyone that day. The lie made us feel safe, as if there really is such a thing. The lie made us feel like we didn’t have to pay attention to the rest of the world because we were powerful and rich and no one would dare attack us. I didn’t lose anyone I knew that day in the smoke so I can’t claim any particularly moving 9/11 story. I have no harrowing tale about narrowly escaping death, or having just dropped a loved one off at the pentagon for work. I have no story except that the smell of the fire sent the lie up in smoke for me that day.
Jill at Feministe hits the nail right on the head. I couldn’t have said this any better. I hate the stories. I hate the “where were you on 9/11?” exchange as if it’s a competition. These stories are usually by people who were no where near the attacks in order to conjure up some grief. Greedy greevers. I hate that it was twisted to justify a sorry ass war on a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and I hate all the people who are just now realizing that. I hate how fuckers around the country started waving American flags all over the place and were willing to give the most powerful fucker on the face of the planet carte blanche to reek havoc on whoever they damn well please. I hate the media spins and how they play, and replay the same clips over and over again that fuel the misplaced patriotism of so many. I hate the movies. I hate the documentaries. I hate the supposed controversy over the tilt of those damn movies. Do we really need to have this shit reenacted? Could we not live without the created dramatic dialogue and a minute by minute breakdown of all the fucked up shit that led to that day in 2001? Is it absolutely necessary for every one in the country to act as voyeurs to the pain of people who actually lost someone tangible that day?
I am still trying to understand this supposed “collective grief”. Supposedly, we all lost something that day. Yea we lost our imperialistic sense of immunity. Collectively as a country we all lost our sense of security, but that was a lie anyway. So forgive me if I am not exactly moved by the sentiment of people who couldn’t sleep that night, shed tears, or moved about their lives uneasy for a while. Uneasy? Try worrying about getting blown the fuck up every day you take the subway. Try walking and driving past the building gravesites as part of daily life. Try actually losing someone when all they did was go to work. I’m not sorry that I don’t give a damn about you mourning the lost of your sense of security, because you too were just as foolish as I to believe that you ever had it to begin with. I am not sorry your world was rocked, this day 5 years ago was evidence that all of our worlds needed to be rocked. So please put your flags and your misguided foolish patriotism back in storage, because if you really wanted to show an act of national solidarity and true patriotism you would still be too angry to even look at a flag today.
Bitter Nectar 