I've grown weary of all the 9/11 remembrances, especially the big ones.
Nearly 3,000 people lost their lives that day seven years ago, most here in New York. So, it's right to remember them and recall how their lives enriched our world in ways large and small. I lost no one that day. I had two close calls with a brother who was supposed to be in Tower One that morning and a sister who witnessed the second plane crash into Tower One as she was merging onto West Street from the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. I lost no one, still, I felt the loss that day, as every American did.
What has me so weary is not so much the many remembrance ceremonies, but this inescapable notion that some of these gatherings, particularly the televised ones, have become more important than the event it commemorates. Is it any wonder that fewer and fewer family members of the victims of 9/11 even bother to attend them?
Why is that? Could it be that they're tired of bullshit politicians picking at the scabs of their wounds for the sake of political gain?
Rudy Giuliani is one such bullshitter.
I can't begin to describe the loathing many victim's families have for his "9/11" antics, particularly those of the 343 FDNY firefighters who died that day. Buried somewhere in his "I'm-the-hero-of-9/11" show, is the fact that Mayor Giulani's inaction in replacing the outdated FDNY radios probably cost those firefighters their lives. Many who went into the burning towers died in the collapse because they never heard the call to evacuate. Two years ago, Wayne Barrett and Dan Collins wrote a scathing critique of America's Mayor called Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani. If you haven't read it, you should.
George Bush is another one. Here's what he had to say today at the Pentagon ceremony:
Indeed. But at what cost? Since 9/11, we've lost over 4,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and caused the deaths of a million Iraqi and Afghani civilians. And, we're now were on the verge of sacrificing more lives in an attack on Iran, when it all could have been prevented, had Bush acted on intelligence reports handed to him on the 6th of August 2001 indicating a 9/11 attack was imminent. Because of his failure to act, we now live in a nation so jacked up about the need for security, that few if any understand just how much our civil liberties have eroded since 9/11/01.
We had one such gathering in my town of Lindenhurst, NY. It was a rather subdued ceremony to honor the six residents we lost in that attack. But like many of the local town officials standing on the dais tonight, I did not know Susan Clyne all that well, just as I did not know either of the Joe Angelinis (father and son FDNY firefighters), or Geoffrey Guja, or Gary Lee, or Lawrence Nedell.
A color guard was on hand to present the flag, and someone gave a poorly-sung, but heartfelt, rendition of "God Bless America." Various town officials and religious leaders spoke to the crowd, none missing a beat in calling the attacks cowardly and lauding our dead as heroes.
But unlike Rudy Giuliani who milked the 9/11 tragedy dry for personal profit, and George Bush who used fear of another 9/11 to shred our Constitutional rights, what I witnessed and felt tonight in Lindenhurst was a genuine sense of unity.
What I heard them say to the victim's families is something you'll never hear from Giuliani or Bush or any other politician coat-tailing these events. What my neighbors say is "I'm sorry for you loss"?
