As the nation remembers 9/11/01, will the powers that be learn their lesson in what in truly means to be honorable? by Kaydee Barnett
(libertarian)
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Hello, all.
We are all aware of September 11th’s significance, and all of us, whether we lost loved ones or not, have been affected by the senseless and horrific attack of one our nation's most treasured landmarks. It is because of this that I want to write not of the attacks, but of the senseless underlying reason that was offered by the offenders for them.
First, let me say outright..I AM ANGRY as hell! Not just with the obvious physical attacks, or the massive counts of innocent people who lost their lives that day, but for the subsequent and continual blanket of fear, rage and grief that someone's cowardly act of twisted honor in which the world is now enwrapped. I loathe the fact that in addition to all of the serious issues our children have to face just to deal with growing up, we have to add explanations of heightened prejudices and fears that plague our nations without truly understanding why they exist ourselves.
How do we explain to our youth that a group of foreigners took it upon themselves to execute a premeditated sneak attack guided by some twisted belief against one of our nation’s most cherished landmarks, and killed a mass of people as a result?
Our nation was both widely and locally engulfed in a blanket of rage, hurt, paranoia and confusion all at once, and while it is indeed an unforgettable tragedy that resulted from a bunch of heartless cowards, America was left in disarray far more troubling and tragic than the rubble of building debris and human remains. It was the continuing effects of self-inflicted ignorance arising from fear and hatred.
Yes, everyone I am angry. I have watched as the very people who were once just the local grocery store and community business owners suddenly became enemies simply because they happen to come from the country or neighboring cities as did the terrorists. In return, the very Americans who had been frequent and loyal customers of those local business owners suddenly became enemies from which they needed to be defended. Children who once played together in schoolyards and playgrounds now took a stance against each other because adult prejudices had contaminated their innocent minds.
The word that the terrorists used to explain their actions was "honor" in the name of Allah. And again, I’m enraged. They dare say that God would find it honorable for anyone to take it upon themselves to play judge and massacre thousands of innocent people who had nothing to do with politics? What god would condone training youths to believe that planned murder-suicide is "honorable"? What god would condone such cowardice? And yes, it was cowardly. The attack was premeditated for only God knows how long, and the plan was to crash not one, but two jets into buildings in the early morning hours instead of confronting the people who were in the position to make whatever decisions they did that hurt your feelings in the first place?
And America replied with our own brand of "honor". The deep roots of our already raging cauldron of emotions about the attacks were constantly being stimulated--with the endless replays of the jets crashing into the Towers, and the follow-up passionate, anger-enriched speeches of promised action by our leaders telling us that America won’t stand back and tolerate the cowardly acts of terrorism. We must send a message that America is a force to be reckoned with. Of course, there was the cherry on top…the endless newscasts of the grieving families of the World Trade Center victims at the destroyed site. There were no free mental moments to breathe or actually deal with the grief and take a look at the bigger picture before we were convinced that retaliation was a necessary recourse.
Youths just barely past surviving the battlefield of the War on Puberty shot out of their homes to trade in their cell phones for military artillery on the battlefield of the U.S. Armed Forces. They were to seek out Osama Bin Laden, the named mastermind behind the attacks, (but who I refer to as "The Phantom of the Military" because they can never seem to find him), only to be forced to remain stationed away from their families until they find Bin Laden, only to be allowed to go home after killing Saddam Hussein instead. Hey, he was on America’s bad list, too, right? At least the post-traumatized soldiers got something out there, hm?
(Whew! I just gave myself a dizzy spell trying to summarize the Vicious, Senseless Circle of Political Talks in laymen’s English! Hold on, I need a moment…..Okay, taking a breath….CLEAR! Let’s go on).
I sit back and think about the people who went to work that day. A bunch of Janes and Joes woke up, hit the snooze button a couple of times, indulged in their morning freshen-up routine, kissed their loved ones good-bye, and set out to brave the commute to the Corporate Jungle. I wonder how many of them were sick or running late that morning and contemplated calling out or playing hooky and decided instead to "do the right thing". I imagine them racing into their offices desperately trying to get a move-on on their work, only to have to race directly to the emergency exits, (or in some cases, their 100th-floor windows), to escape a sixty-ton jet plane that was heading straight for them? I think about that critical window to run for safety that they forfeited while frozen with disbelief as their minds tried to decipher if their eyes were playing tricks on them?
I also think about the endless victims those plane crashes created…there’s the deceased and their families, the murdered and missing soldiers and their families, the Pentagon victims and their families, the soldier widows and those babies who were conceived with fathers but born into the world without them, and then there are the living countless victims…the rest of us, who screen people more closely now before saying hello, are skeptical of flying, and have become more anti-social than ever. We are willfully keeping ourselves a victim of our own doing.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I find honor in teaching my children that all of us are God’s creations, regardless of their differences, and they deserve respect until they themselves do something to lose it. Even then, they should respect themselves and choose not to deal with that person if they feel uncomfortable with bad behavior. Honor is accepting that the world is jam-packed with differences and diversities, but those are what make humanity the superior race above animals, even in God’s hierarchy. It is when one part of humanity begins to believe that their way is the only way and sets on a mission to persuade others to convert to their ways when the trouble starts, especially in politics.
It’s time to allow God’s true honor prevail. Respect people and their differences and allow political talks to stay in the conference room and out of the battlefield. When politics get personal, the public suffers personal loss.
Until next time…God bless you.
Kaydee
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