Before my kids went to school today...
we had a brief history lesson... I showed them part of a film of 9-11 and explained the tragedy to them as best I could...how our world changed, how we have been at war their entire life, how 3000 people died, and the heroism of a small group on a plane that crashed in pennsylvania... there is no way to explain the shock i felt that morning watching the news, as we all did...i was pregnant with my daughter at the time and wondered what kind of world I was bringing a child into.
It gives me pause today, to think that it has been 11 YEARS, that our lives have changed so much and yet we hardly remember now what it was like without airport security....all those romantic movies where the guy or girl runs to the gate to stop the person they love - they would be tackled, tazed or worse now!
We are still in the clusterfuck of Afganistan, and yet we don't hear as much about that quiet little war still raging...drones, civilians, soldiers...so many more lives damaged and lost in the wake of that one september morning...and how many of those people, either civilians or soldiers, even have a stake in an event that happened 11 years ago? How many families buried in rubble in remote villages, how many orphans? How many more soldiers and families torn apart by injuries, or suicide?
Sept 11 is our generations' pearl harbor....we had never known that kind of feeling of violation as a country for many a decade... but in the decade since, how has it changed us? and what kind of world AM i raising my kids in?
where we basically accept the fact that data mining and wiretapping is the norm.
where we know it could mean being pulled into a room and groped if we step out of line or speak out at an airport (and sometimes ANY public place)
where first amendment rights of peaceful assembly are no longer tolerated
where our country can hold indefinitely both foreign and us citizens with no access to legal aid, much less humane treatment
oh god, I could go on but you get the drift. There's so much about our lives that has changed in such insidious ways.
and there's still so many pieces of the 9-11 puzzle that need to be completed and the right thing has to be done...
and while I stop this morning to send prayers to the families of the victims, etc...I pray even more for US, because we are still victimizing ourselves and so many others because of this wound.
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