September 12, 2009

  • Planes, Trains, and Crazy Guys In Turbans.

    There is a tree at a school I used to attend that has been growing for seven years now exactly. It was planted as a memorial for the September 11th terrorist attacks. It has been allowed to grow unmolested and is probably a beautiful sapling now. But it's only a memorial. One event happened within a relatively drama-free period of history and catapulted many changes in our nation that are still seen today. I don't mean to sound uncaring, but I don't believe 9/11 was that important in the grand scheme of things. It kind of reminds me of the sinking of the Titanic, where the ship was supposed to be unsinkable but it sunk anyway and because it was not handled correctly, it became a history-making disaster. Mostly what I can remember from that time was a lot of capitalizing on patriotism and lots of musical "tribute to America"s where I kind of just stood there, bored as hell, keeping my middle finger raised in the crook of my arm while someone sang "God Bless the USA" off-key. I also remember watching a lot of CNN and most of it replaying the attacks over and over so we would feel the full effect. It was a shock (and I could go on to say that humans are a bit masochistic in some ways, and that they feed a bit off of seeing horrible things happen, but I imagine that I would probably be called something insulting. I don't like being insulted.) only because Americans aren't used to seeing explosions that don't have a director calling the shots. That's the truth. Suddenly everyone was up in arms because we were fucked with by a bunch of radicals (it really didn't even matter that they were Muslims) and supposedly our 'Merikun way of life was being threatened. What I ultimately want to know from all this was: 1) would we have cared so much if we had actually even seen real war on our soils that wasn't against Redcoats or Natives, 2) Were we really that threatened in the first place, and 3) (In the words of my friend Ian) Where is this mythical land of America everyone talks about?
    I guess I'm just frustrated, jaded, and cranky. Do they still serve freedom fries?