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9.11 5th Anniversary
2006-Sep-12, Tuesday 22:22Yesterday was the 5th anniversary of the worst attack on American soil in living memory. (And yes, I recognise that Pearl Harbor is in living memory, however, I feel I ought to remind you that Pearl Harbor was a legitimate Military Target even if it wasn't prepared or provoked. The World Trade Center was a civilian commercial center in the midst of a busy morning of industry.) I remember that day. Bear in mind, that I live right in the back yard of Wright Patterson Air Force Base. I work right along side of those brave men and women that protect our country in crisis at times like that. Wright Patterson is where the Dayton Accords were signed to end the Bosnian war if you didn't know that. Let me tell you what kind of day it was. it was eerie... and maddening... The silence in the skies was absolutely deafening, and then when fighters started launching again later in the day, that was as deafening as the silence between. You can't imagine what it's like to see the sky completely devoid of anything when you live close to an air base. You become so accustomed to the sounds of the regular flights, that not having them fills you with a sense of wrongness so intense that you feel you could just collapse under the pressure of it. Yet... there are people who don't want to hear any more about it. 'It's time to move on', 'Get past it', 'why can't we just stop talking about this?' 'It was five years ago'. Well at least those people are free to say that even if I don't agree at all. and I don't agree at all because the people who destroyed the twin towers don't want them to be able to express their opinion to anyone. My first impulse to people who have things like that to say is to just say "SHUT UP!" but then.. no... I don't agree with you, but you have the right to your opinion. I believe in that. It's part of being an American. The ones who think everyone who doesn't agree with them should just shut up don't understand what it means to be an American. I don't agree with you. We shouldn't stop talking about it. We shouldn't stop thinking about it. And we had never ever forget.
Five years ago, 3000 people were murdered by people who hate us because we are free. We are still free, so those people still hate us, and want to kill more of us. Not talking about what happened on 9.11 will not make the people who did this go away... nor make them stop wanting to hurt Americans. Just the contrary. If we forget, if we relax our vigilance, if we start to think.. 'well that wasn't so bad... I just wish people would stop talking about it.' That is when we will face another attack from people who hate us. When people think "well we need to find out why they hate us, and try to reason with them.... try to change.
Let me tell you something I have learned over the years. Reasoning with people who hate you just because you are strong... who hate you because you are free, because you are yourself, because you don't think and act just like they do. Who hate you because you don't agree with them exactly and say so... those people cannot be reasoned with. People who want only to change you into who THEY are, and cannot accept you for who YOU are cannot be reasoned with. I for one am not willing to give up my freedom of speech, my freedom of religion, my freedom to swing my arms just because some people in another country who don't agree with me don't like that I am strong, that I am free, that I have chosen my OWN beliefs and not theirs... This addresses many different people, and ways of thinking.
Of radical Islam, the sort that spawns people who would kills thousands of innocents just because those innocents don't think exactly like they do, because they are men and women who work together, laugh together, speak together and look at each other as friends and companions, I have this to say. I'll preface that with this: Not all Muslims are Terrorists, but in the current era, most terrorists are muslims.. radical muslims, and until we actually FACE that fact and are willing to SAY it out loud and accept that whether it's politically correct or not, that it is true, then we will never fully understand what happened on 9.11... and I don't think we can stop talking about it... and we had better NEVER forget what happened.
Move on? Leave it alone? How can we? I refuse to accept that someone should be permitted to hate me and my people in such an extreme as to target a non military target, no in fact a commercial center at the height of the business day just as all these people were coming to work to begin their day's commerce, because they don't like the way we live our lives because they aren't in control of every aspect of it. How can we forget that they refer to us often and loudly as the great Satan... not because we are really and truly evil, but in fact because we are free and different from them? That I (as a woman) don't cover my face, my head, my hands, with cloth and hide who I am from the world because that's what they think I should do... That I do not (as a woman) go to the market place permitted only to gesture to things with my hand and not actually speak, for the sound of my voice might tempt the men around me to unsavory acts. (funny that we don't seem to have the problem here in the us of having the man at the deli jumping over the counter in a fit of lust every time I speak to him and ask for a pound of salami, even though I use my voice, and have various aspects of my skin uncovered, including (oh my GODDESS) my face) that I do not worship their version of god, but instead in fact in my own freedom absolutely revile it because of the sins it commits against women, and humanity in it's name.
This part is specifically to the terrorists (and those who side with them and like to imply that this was somehow our fault and we should just shut up about it.)
I want a memorial raised in honor of those who died. However, I do not want it to be an empty place, where only memories wander. Where a great commercial center was razed, I want a great commercial center raised again. A statement of our determination not to let some few tell us how to conduct our affairs in our own country. Frankly, any of you people who think we don't run our lives or our country right, and you aren't a part of it? and you don't have a vote here, or you don't exercise it. If you don't like it then stay in your own damn country and mind your own business. We weren't bothering you. We weren't telling you how to worship your god, or how to live your day to day lives. Not until you came over here and tried to force your 10th century will on us, and tell us what we were doing wrong. Let me point out to you that while you are living in the tenth century, our people men and women, black and white and red and brown, Christian, and Muslim, and Jew and Hindu and Wiccan, Taoist, Buddhist, Shintoist and Pagan are all living and working together in peace... we live in prosperity, where even the very poorest of our people have more than the wealthy of some nations, and yet we give and give and give, and never is it enough for those who take. We give to countries who do nothing but spit in our faces, treat us as dirt, and revile us because we are at peace within and prosperous en main. We are a nation of commerce and industry and people working together, not fighting and killing each other over petty differences of faith. When we want change, we vote for it. We don't always get it, but we know that we can effect change without violence. So while you are busy living in the 10th century, reviling your women as some sort of evil chattel, and calling those you don't agree with on every level the great Satan... killing and killing and killing people who don't have anything to do with you at all... arguing amongst yourselves like children... leave us the hell alone.
One last thing. When we came after you that did this to us, we went after the specific you. You might note that we have been (WAY TOO) careful about not hurting your civilians (when you murdered 3000 or ours in one day) or offending your (10th century) sensibilities. It is not evil to strike back, even if one strikes back harder than struck, if the purpose of that strike is to stop further evils. Frankly, You are goddamn lucky that five years ago today... mind... that's 9.12, that we did not make your entire world into a fucking glass parking lot. We (because we are free and inherently good) choose not to. Something evil enough to merit being called "The Great Satan" would have. You might do well to remember that WE still can...
Five years ago, 3000 people were murdered by people who hate us because we are free. We are still free, so those people still hate us, and want to kill more of us. Not talking about what happened on 9.11 will not make the people who did this go away... nor make them stop wanting to hurt Americans. Just the contrary. If we forget, if we relax our vigilance, if we start to think.. 'well that wasn't so bad... I just wish people would stop talking about it.' That is when we will face another attack from people who hate us. When people think "well we need to find out why they hate us, and try to reason with them.... try to change.
Let me tell you something I have learned over the years. Reasoning with people who hate you just because you are strong... who hate you because you are free, because you are yourself, because you don't think and act just like they do. Who hate you because you don't agree with them exactly and say so... those people cannot be reasoned with. People who want only to change you into who THEY are, and cannot accept you for who YOU are cannot be reasoned with. I for one am not willing to give up my freedom of speech, my freedom of religion, my freedom to swing my arms just because some people in another country who don't agree with me don't like that I am strong, that I am free, that I have chosen my OWN beliefs and not theirs... This addresses many different people, and ways of thinking.
Of radical Islam, the sort that spawns people who would kills thousands of innocents just because those innocents don't think exactly like they do, because they are men and women who work together, laugh together, speak together and look at each other as friends and companions, I have this to say. I'll preface that with this: Not all Muslims are Terrorists, but in the current era, most terrorists are muslims.. radical muslims, and until we actually FACE that fact and are willing to SAY it out loud and accept that whether it's politically correct or not, that it is true, then we will never fully understand what happened on 9.11... and I don't think we can stop talking about it... and we had better NEVER forget what happened.
Move on? Leave it alone? How can we? I refuse to accept that someone should be permitted to hate me and my people in such an extreme as to target a non military target, no in fact a commercial center at the height of the business day just as all these people were coming to work to begin their day's commerce, because they don't like the way we live our lives because they aren't in control of every aspect of it. How can we forget that they refer to us often and loudly as the great Satan... not because we are really and truly evil, but in fact because we are free and different from them? That I (as a woman) don't cover my face, my head, my hands, with cloth and hide who I am from the world because that's what they think I should do... That I do not (as a woman) go to the market place permitted only to gesture to things with my hand and not actually speak, for the sound of my voice might tempt the men around me to unsavory acts. (funny that we don't seem to have the problem here in the us of having the man at the deli jumping over the counter in a fit of lust every time I speak to him and ask for a pound of salami, even though I use my voice, and have various aspects of my skin uncovered, including (oh my GODDESS) my face) that I do not worship their version of god, but instead in fact in my own freedom absolutely revile it because of the sins it commits against women, and humanity in it's name.
This part is specifically to the terrorists (and those who side with them and like to imply that this was somehow our fault and we should just shut up about it.)
I want a memorial raised in honor of those who died. However, I do not want it to be an empty place, where only memories wander. Where a great commercial center was razed, I want a great commercial center raised again. A statement of our determination not to let some few tell us how to conduct our affairs in our own country. Frankly, any of you people who think we don't run our lives or our country right, and you aren't a part of it? and you don't have a vote here, or you don't exercise it. If you don't like it then stay in your own damn country and mind your own business. We weren't bothering you. We weren't telling you how to worship your god, or how to live your day to day lives. Not until you came over here and tried to force your 10th century will on us, and tell us what we were doing wrong. Let me point out to you that while you are living in the tenth century, our people men and women, black and white and red and brown, Christian, and Muslim, and Jew and Hindu and Wiccan, Taoist, Buddhist, Shintoist and Pagan are all living and working together in peace... we live in prosperity, where even the very poorest of our people have more than the wealthy of some nations, and yet we give and give and give, and never is it enough for those who take. We give to countries who do nothing but spit in our faces, treat us as dirt, and revile us because we are at peace within and prosperous en main. We are a nation of commerce and industry and people working together, not fighting and killing each other over petty differences of faith. When we want change, we vote for it. We don't always get it, but we know that we can effect change without violence. So while you are busy living in the 10th century, reviling your women as some sort of evil chattel, and calling those you don't agree with on every level the great Satan... killing and killing and killing people who don't have anything to do with you at all... arguing amongst yourselves like children... leave us the hell alone.
One last thing. When we came after you that did this to us, we went after the specific you. You might note that we have been (WAY TOO) careful about not hurting your civilians (when you murdered 3000 or ours in one day) or offending your (10th century) sensibilities. It is not evil to strike back, even if one strikes back harder than struck, if the purpose of that strike is to stop further evils. Frankly, You are goddamn lucky that five years ago today... mind... that's 9.12, that we did not make your entire world into a fucking glass parking lot. We (because we are free and inherently good) choose not to. Something evil enough to merit being called "The Great Satan" would have. You might do well to remember that WE still can...
