Oh Thank Heaven, It's 9/11

Five years ago today, crazy cult members killed a few thousand people and, ever since that fateful morn, Americans have made exponentially less sense with each passing month. It's hard to write a 9/11 Commemoration post because my fellow citizens (and in some ways, myself) have dealt with the crisis so poorly. I'm always tempted to talk about the horrifically destructive aftermath of Osama bin Laden's attack, rather than the actual attack. The horrors visited around the globe because of 9/11 are still going on. 9/11 itself has already happened. It only lasted a few hours total.

I think we all need to suck it up and get over it. Accept that we're not 100% safe like we naively once thought, accept that they "got us," kick all these Republican cretins, weirdos, scumbags, criminals, embezzlers, perverts and totalitarians out of office (and King of the Cretins, Joe Lieberman) and get on with the business of exploiting half the world while selling our country slowly to China and Saudi Arabia.

9/11 was a horrible day. I recall it clearly. So clearly, in fact, that it's kind of amazing five years have already passed. I tutor kids who are 16 and 17 years old. For them, 9/11 is ancient history. Some stuff that happened when they were little that they vaguely recall, but that triggered all the events they have grown up with, particularly the Iraq War. Their Bush presidency was my Clinton presidency, the dominant event of their young adult lives. At three years and running, the Iraq War has been going on solidly throughout these kid's adolescences.

I, on the other hand, was doing very much what I am still doing on 9/11 - working some random job, living in some crummy apartment (Hollywood instead of Palms), watching a lot of movies and trying desperately to kickstart a writing career. My friend Aaron called me at around 6 am to inform me that New York was under attack. I ended up going to work that morning regardless, not knowing what else to do.

I think that's really the crux of why 9/11 was so terrifying to those of us who didn't lose someone. If your friend or family member died that day, okay, obviously it's horrible because of that tragedy. But for the rest of us, it was simply a shock to realize that we were this vulnerable. Modern Americans tend to prefer fighting our wars way the hell away from where we actually live. We're an intensely warlike people, but only if the actual war zone is, bare minimum, a 12 hour flight from America proper.

There simply wasn't a protocol in America for a terrorist action. None of us had any idea what to do or what to expect. It was, in every sense of the word, an unprecedented event. I immediately began to question how our dimwit President would play this event out, how he'd turn it cynically to his advantage. It's been far worse than I dared imagine that day. My friend and co-worker Steve suggested we should "drop a nuclear bomb on Saudi Arabia." He's got his finger on the pulse, I'll tell you that much.

In this way, it was a shared experience among Americans, which is what gives that imagery power to this very day. But far too often, Americans who were not directly impacted by 9/11 attempt to co-opt the tragedy, to make it their own in order to use it for cynical, agenda-pushing purposes.

The fact is, this is a tragic thing that happened to some of us. New Yorkers, people related to those killed in the Towers or the people on Flight 93, people in or around the Pentagon. That's about it. Everyone else, we were shocked, it was horrible, we felt badly, but that's about it. Life went on and continues to go on.

That's not being insensitive. That's being realistic. It's also the kind of attitude that's morally defeating to terrorists. They want to make Americans scared. That's the whole point. When we run around for years and years and years afterwards sobbing, building cheesy memorials, writing obnoxious country songs, burning Osama in effigy and staging candlelight vigils, making woefully ill-informed docudramas and obscene Hollywood recreations, and worst of all, starting ineffectual endless wars, we let guys like Osama bin Laden and other wacky cult members (white and Muslim) know that they can get to us. That we're open and willing to be terrified and to freak out when they attack us.

A better attitude is to let those who continue to grieve grieve, and for the rest of us...to get the fuck over it. Seriously. It's enough already. This thing happened. It was a-no good. Let's move on with our lives.

I like George Bush's holiday idea. Except let's not call it Patriot Day. Let's call it 9/11. And let's hold it on 9/11. Yeah, I know, 9/11 is already Moby's Birthday, but it can be two things at once. Every year, on this day, we'll remember to think for a few minutes about the tragedy and those who lost their lives that day. Maybe a moment of silence (at some hour when we're all awake). I'm not really sentimental in this way, but if it helps some people feel better, I'm all for it.

And then, the rest of the year, let's stop running around like frightened little children (what the Governator would charmingly call "girlie men") and problem solve. On his blog today, Andrew Sullivan seems to have the right idea. He's featuring all content intended to prove to terrorists that they don't frighten us. It's a big middle finger to al-Qaida, which is exactly the right attitude.

Not "let's go smoke 'em out of their holes." Not "Axis of Evil" and "evildoers" and "they hate us for our freedom." That's fearmongering. That makes people anticipate the worse and approach international relations with a sense of dread.

I'm thinking more like Al Pacino in Carlito's Way: "Who the fuck are you, al-Qaida? I should remember you? What, you think you like me? You ain't like me motherfucker, you a punk. I've been with made people, connected people. Who've you been with? Chain snatching, jive-ass, maricon motherfuckers. Why don't you get out of here and go snatch a purse?"

Unfortunately, as he tends to do, Sully goes and messes it all up by conflating the wacky cult members of al-Qaida with the Muslim community at large. Yes, many Muslims were upset by the Mohammad cartoons published in those European newspapers, and yes, many of them rioted in the streets. But that doesn't mean they are terrorists or our enemies. They're just dumb religious people.

Americans should totally understand what it's like to live in and amongst crazy religious idiots. We have hundreds of millions of them! I don't want to be judged by the actions of Jerry Falwell, David Koresh, Pat Robertson and all those Left Behind idiots, so let's not say that Teh Muslim is an enemy to goodness and freedom, okay?

I just...I want us to stop doing this all the time. I want us to stop focusing on this thing that happened five years ago and focus on the world of today, on the damage we've done to the planet in the time since al-Qaida did this one bad thing to us.

The number of American casualties in Iraq is 2,666 according to Antiwar.com. We usually think of the casualty rate for 9/11 as being 3,000, but it's actually a few hundred people fewer than that. Our "mission" overseas can be called, in strictly numerical terms, a tragedy on the same scale if you are feeling jingoistic and consider only American deaths. Obviously, if you're talking total human deaths, Iraq has been far more severe.

It wasn't all at once, in a shocking display of violent carnage, so it doesn't really have the same psychic impact. But there you have it. Al-Qaida is a villainous terrorist organization. It's their goal to slaughter, for the publicity and to influence world affairs. What's our excuse?

Oh, yeah, 9/11. So we have to invoke it constantly. Frankly, I think we've gone beyond cheapening anything that day might have stood for or meant. All the bravery and heroism of Americans that day (and it was considerable) has been forgotten amidst the gruesome campaigning of our President, who stood on the rubble a full three days later and repositioned 9/11 as a coronation moment for himself. The day he went from Boy to Boy-King. Arthur pulled a sword out of a stone, Doofus McPretzelgag grabbed a bullhorn and promised everyone in shouting distance that he'd catch the men responsible. One of many bullshit, unkept promises.