September 11th And The Politics Of Fear

                 September 11, and the Politics of Fear

 

 

September 10, 2011

So we are have reached the ten year mark since the events of September 11, 2001, and it seems to me that nothing has changed. The politicians and the builders are still arguing over what will go up at the old World Trade Center site. The shadowy Al Qaeda  group is still out there, somewhere, plotting to pull off another spectacular attack. The world, it seems, is at constant war with itself. One group wants to commit genocide on another. There are revolutions going on across the globe, all with one thing in common: They call for the United States and her Allies to “Help Us”. If we don’t go, they curse us. If we give them support, they complain bitterly that we are not doing enough, and the offended regimes curse us and scream about interfering in an internal affair. If we go all out and help them, then you can rest assured that when the dust settles we will be reviled and vilified  as a war like nation that fosters instability.  We cannot win, folks, and the time has come to stop being the ready reserves for the whole world. I cannot remember one day of peace in my entire 64+ years of existence. I am tired of seeing our young men sent out to fight for people who, after a couple of years, hate us and hold up the US as what is wrong with the world. We cannot afford it. We cannot afford to keep spilling American blood, or the blood of others, for that matter. We cannot afford to keep sending increasingly more and more expensive armaments overseas.. the costs are in the trillions, a figure I did not even hear growing up. It’s time to tell the UN and the rest of the world that, except for humanitarian acts, the United States no longer will be the beat cop for the rest of the world.

  While I’m on the subject of  September 11, I need to say this to anyone who will listen: I am tired of being told that I need to live my life in fear of anything and everything in this crazy world. This is not who I am, this is not what the America I grew up in is about. Since the attacks on the World Trade Center, we have had to endure news commentators, politicians and numerous and sundry ‘Experts’ going on and on about how we must be constantly vigilant, that we must scurry about like so many rats,  casting our eyes from side to side, looking out for the next group of crazies that want’s to blow us all to hell. Well, I for one, refuse to live my life in a constant state of terror. This is exactly what the crazies want to do: To instill us all with terror.. that’s why they are called TERRORISTS! We need news networks and the politicians to stop feeding into their agenda. Report the news, do your damned jobs, but stop trying to instill fear in the entire population. If you want to mark September 11th every year, thats fine, but I don’t believe (and this is just my opinion, so don’t send me hate mail) that we need a countdown from three months out, every day on the news, and follow ups for a week afterward. It has already become a highly politicized event, with the very people who gave their all to try to save people in those buildings barred from attending the ceremonies so that more politicians and family members of some that died could attend.  I have had it with their ceremony when there is no place on the dais for the firefighters, the police and the transit police, not to mention all of the emergency medical personnel, the very people who wanted to help and ran into the doomed buildings. Some of these men and women are suffering today from the effects of inhaling the smoke and ash, after being told it was safe to breathe. It really sickens me.

 So friends, be careful, always be safe, but don’t live your lives in fear. Be yourselves. Be Americans.