"Twenty-five years later, we forgot our greatest strength was inside."
Consider the less metaphorical idea that our greatest strength was and remains our democracy. But it is also our most fragile. We must embrace it and safeguard it, and voting like you understand this is all we have left. The extremists among us are those willing to embrace a scoundrel for age old reasons.
Elise, the line about never trying to institutionalize the resilience of September 12 stayed with me. We built systems for airports and intelligence, but not many habits that help people trust each other when fear and spin show up. That makes your point about unity being strategic, not sentimental, feel important. A country can have strong walls and still be weak inside if every fight turns into proof that fellow citizens are the enemy.
We were always divided it seems but we could come together, not only at 9/11 and for a day after. Maybe it was the reverberations from WW2 alone we were living on. Prior to that we were building on the divisions from the Civil War... and prior to that. We were born with divisions and passed them on. It has gotten worse. Thus-the scourge upon us. This has taken too many, vulnerable, ignorant, selfish to it's side, a machine dispensing hate, lies, division, ill intentions , taking us down and apart. The Constitution is gamed or ignored.
This seems a chasm that we cannot bridge, cannot even come together to celebrate our 250th no less this tragedy on 9/11.
We never learned the lesson we should have from that date. I don't think there was in the first place a consensus agreement about the basic visions for this country.
After 9/11 we as a country, fell for those who were to make it worse. Many knew better.
Now we are being held by an existential threat that we put in place, one who would make us the enemy, as we the people, the majority, are being called now for daring to oppose.
What did we learn from 9/11? Worse than nothing. We kept digging our hole, "We the people" shrugged and kept getting and spending and falling for the hate. We are more vulnerable than we ever were it seems. 9/11 still has value if it makes us look at ourselves as a whole... not united.
One more thought is that the emergence of our inner strength comes at times of great tragedy and suffering. It doesn't and shouldn't have to work that way.
It does and that is the way it works or does not work. Great tragedy, pain, is an opportunity like no other because we feel it.. and if we take it, if we absorb it, if we learn.
I thought a lot about this post and others I read about 9/11 this weekend. Talked to the friends I was with when we found out or who I spent that evening and the days after with. The 25 year anniversary really hit us harder than most. We were young college kids who were so unaware of so much. We've now lived what can feel like multiple lives within those 25 years. The families and friendships that have grown during that time. What that meant for the lives cut short and what could have been.
We watched a show called The Undeclared War recently and your lines about troll farms and dividing Americans really hit home. In the show they're doing to this to the British people. But the idea was the same the first step in hurting the country was dividing the people. The hate for each other and the inability or lack of desire to understand others lived experiences helped provide the framework for their harm. It felt almost too real at times.
What surprises me is Americans seemed to never have much empathy about the people they kill.
100 or more innocent people in Venezuela a few months ago, 200 off the coast of Venezuela, 170 elementary school girls in Iran again completely unprovoked and an estimated 1,700 civilian casualties in Iran to date.
And what is supposed to be America's greatest strength inside? Not the welfare state, not trillions of debt, not government control of our lives and not to punish success. It is the freedom that the Declaration defined and the Constitution is to secure.
And not one word of that from our political class. I watched a good part of the mid-term convention of the Republicans and did not hear the word freedom or liberty once except in Lee Greenwood's song. And the other side is indistinguishable from any claim to American principles.
So, it is essential that with every policy pronouncement or criticism of policy, it should be stated by public and private citizens alike, how exactly such policies protect the freedom and security of individual Americans.
"Twenty-five years later, we forgot our greatest strength was inside."
Consider the less metaphorical idea that our greatest strength was and remains our democracy. But it is also our most fragile. We must embrace it and safeguard it, and voting like you understand this is all we have left. The extremists among us are those willing to embrace a scoundrel for age old reasons.
Elise, the line about never trying to institutionalize the resilience of September 12 stayed with me. We built systems for airports and intelligence, but not many habits that help people trust each other when fear and spin show up. That makes your point about unity being strategic, not sentimental, feel important. A country can have strong walls and still be weak inside if every fight turns into proof that fellow citizens are the enemy.
So true, Jeff.
We were always divided it seems but we could come together, not only at 9/11 and for a day after. Maybe it was the reverberations from WW2 alone we were living on. Prior to that we were building on the divisions from the Civil War... and prior to that. We were born with divisions and passed them on. It has gotten worse. Thus-the scourge upon us. This has taken too many, vulnerable, ignorant, selfish to it's side, a machine dispensing hate, lies, division, ill intentions , taking us down and apart. The Constitution is gamed or ignored.
This seems a chasm that we cannot bridge, cannot even come together to celebrate our 250th no less this tragedy on 9/11.
We never learned the lesson we should have from that date. I don't think there was in the first place a consensus agreement about the basic visions for this country.
After 9/11 we as a country, fell for those who were to make it worse. Many knew better.
Now we are being held by an existential threat that we put in place, one who would make us the enemy, as we the people, the majority, are being called now for daring to oppose.
What did we learn from 9/11? Worse than nothing. We kept digging our hole, "We the people" shrugged and kept getting and spending and falling for the hate. We are more vulnerable than we ever were it seems. 9/11 still has value if it makes us look at ourselves as a whole... not united.
One more thought is that the emergence of our inner strength comes at times of great tragedy and suffering. It doesn't and shouldn't have to work that way.
It does and that is the way it works or does not work. Great tragedy, pain, is an opportunity like no other because we feel it.. and if we take it, if we absorb it, if we learn.
I thought a lot about this post and others I read about 9/11 this weekend. Talked to the friends I was with when we found out or who I spent that evening and the days after with. The 25 year anniversary really hit us harder than most. We were young college kids who were so unaware of so much. We've now lived what can feel like multiple lives within those 25 years. The families and friendships that have grown during that time. What that meant for the lives cut short and what could have been.
We watched a show called The Undeclared War recently and your lines about troll farms and dividing Americans really hit home. In the show they're doing to this to the British people. But the idea was the same the first step in hurting the country was dividing the people. The hate for each other and the inability or lack of desire to understand others lived experiences helped provide the framework for their harm. It felt almost too real at times.
What surprises me is Americans seemed to never have much empathy about the people they kill.
100 or more innocent people in Venezuela a few months ago, 200 off the coast of Venezuela, 170 elementary school girls in Iran again completely unprovoked and an estimated 1,700 civilian casualties in Iran to date.
Sometimes you get what you give.
And what is supposed to be America's greatest strength inside? Not the welfare state, not trillions of debt, not government control of our lives and not to punish success. It is the freedom that the Declaration defined and the Constitution is to secure.
And not one word of that from our political class. I watched a good part of the mid-term convention of the Republicans and did not hear the word freedom or liberty once except in Lee Greenwood's song. And the other side is indistinguishable from any claim to American principles.
So, it is essential that with every policy pronouncement or criticism of policy, it should be stated by public and private citizens alike, how exactly such policies protect the freedom and security of individual Americans.
Please foregive the rant Ms. Labott. Take care.