Late Night Ramblings on 9/11 ...

Man, what a week. I've been so busy with work the last few weeks, and so focused on all the big stuff going on, that as I got home today and collapsed on the couch and turned on the TV, expecting to see the usual political back-and-forth ... the footage being shown on MSNBC hit me liek a frieght train. The network was devoting its primetime hours to replaying the early-morning NBC news coverage from September 11th, 2001. And though I tried to resist, reminding myself that I had hoped to use the evening to relax, to take care of a few things I'd been putting off, to veg out ... I couldn't help but remain glued to the TV screen. It's been 7 years since 9-11-2001, and in many ways watching that footage feels like historical, archival footage from another era entirely. And yet, in many ways, it's all too relevant, all too immediate. Watching Katie Couric and Tom Brokaw attempt to maintain some semblance of composure in those chaotic broadcasts, those old feelings of anger, sadness, and confusion began to hit me all over again. I looked back at my blog from two years ago, where I wrote a lengthy entry in rememberance of the 5th anniversery of 9/11. At that time, two years ago, I cited a Boston University column I wrote in 2001, and I said that at that time, 5 years later, we seemed to STILL be waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Two additional years later, and I think we are STILL waiting. The world feels quieter and safer, but the silence can also be eerie. And yet, the issue of our security has now been so heavily politicized that it's had a numbing effect. As usual, we're so caught up in our own little cults of personality that we foreget the real issues of substance, the real pressing problems both new and holdovers from earlier times. It's amazing, because re-watching that footage of George W. Bush from 9/11, he was so clearly confused, disoriented, in over his head. Not that you can fully blame him, because obviously on that day everyone was in a bit of a shock-induced waking coma. But that sense of muddled confusion that Bush emitted on 9/11 has never quite gone away. Seven years later, there is STILL no clear picture of how to combat organized terrorism, of what the real threat level is, of how exactly these organizations are tied to the nations that we go to war with, trade with, or negotiate with.

It's still unfathomable that someone would willingly fly a passenger plane into a building in the name of fundamentalist Islam. And yet for all the bravado of the last seven years - from hunting down our enemy to smoking out Bin Laden's cave to "mission accomplished", there's a discomforting sense that in many ways, we've yet to truly deal with the larger ramifications of 9/11.

Because, let's face it - it's a lot easier to politicize terror, to turn it into one more newsbyte that fits nicely alongside Obama's "lipstick-on-a-pig" comment or Palin's daughter's baby. It's easy to invoke 9/11 whenever you need a quick justification for war in Iraq or drilling in Alaska or whatever the issue of the day may be. It's a lot harder to confront the fact that this giant battle of ideologies is still being waged - that there are still all of these people out there who hate America and everything it stands for and wish that every day was 9/11. And I don't know if it's a problem that has any easy solution.

But I do think there's hope. The fact that New York City is still New York City. The fact that we are resillient enough to debate the economy, the environment, and all the other big issues of the day - the fact that our Democracy is still very much intact. The fact that thanks to the diversity of the Presidential campaign, the US is once again showing the world that we blaze trails. The fact that the youth of our country is once again active and engaged. The fact that there's been no great attack on US soil since 2001, that in some ways we've gotten wiser, more alert, more prepared.

I feel like the last 7 years have been the knee-jerk reaction to 9/11. In some respects it's been ugly and wrong-headed. But these 7 years have paved the way for the next era, the era when we can hopefully put that event behind us. When we can stop invoking it whenever convenient. When we don't forget it, but we move on, obtain resolution, and figure out the next steps. Tonight I was reminded of just how dark a day 9/11 really was. But more so than I have been before, I'm hopeful of a bright future ahead.