Tuesday, September 11, 2012
The moment on 9/11 that America began to die
It was at this moment we realized things would never be the same:
And unfortunately, we were wrong. They remained the same, which was not good. Because on September 10, 2001, we were already a nation in decline. Oh, we didn't realize it. We had maxed out our credit cards and focused on our PlayStations and that brand new Internet world enough to ignore the signs of the times. But like bringing pus out of a wound, the 9/11 attacks exposed the inner rot that had already infected this once great - and yes, I said great - nation.
It's not gotten any better. We've found out the speed with which the nations of the world would exploit our sorrows to hamstring our efforts. We've seen the inner divisions of our nation rise up and invest a thousand times the effort to fight one another while dismissing outside threats of those who pine for our ruin. We've seen radical revolutionaries exploit the disastrous loss of life to advance their own ideological hatred of this country and the civilization and religion from which it was born. In short, wave all the flags we want, but we have to admit, the terrorists won.
Oh sure, we killed the leaders, we've defeated the organizations for a season. But that was to be expected. I doubt the perpetrators expected anything else. They probably were prepared for what we did. It was the long haul that they were aiming for. And it's that long term goal that Americans, in all our post-Boomer glory, served up on a silver platter.
So this year, I will still hang my flag. I know our country is falling apart, and our freedoms are on life support despite assurances from those hoping to put our freedoms out of their misery once and for all. I know we are a decadent and corrupt nation, drunk on our own debauchery, oblivious to the chasm that yawns before us. I know that grand institutions and corporate interests are becoming the Pharaohs of the modern age, exploiting and ruining the peasants that once were the American people. But I can still pray while I hang that flag, and not pray that everyone else become as hip and smart as I am and get on my bandwagon because it's their fault everything sucks. But pray that God heal our land and bring us all back to repentance, and stop the divisions and arrogance and cynicism that is the cancer eating away at our nation's heart.
If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
2 Chronicles 7:14
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"We've seen radical revolutionaries exploit the disastrous loss of life to advance their own ideological hatred of this country and the civilization and religion from which it was born. In short, wave all the flags we want, but we have to admit, the terrorists won." First of all, you cite Sam Harris as a source for 9/11? Sam Harris, the originator of the completley ignorant and intolerant New Atheism? Second, I don't hate the United States, hate is a very strong word. However, you are talking as if the USA is an innocent Shangrila that wouldn't dare to do anything wrong. Just search Operation PBSUCCES, or Salvador Allende to see that that's not the case. Its true there are crazy conspiracy theories about 9/11, none of them true, but you can't change the fact that Bush used 9/11 as an opportunity to attack the Muslim world, killing much more people than those in this terrible act.
ReplyDeleteRead it again. I site Sam Harris as one of the leading exploiters of 9/11. He was the drum major leading the parade of '9/11 proves all religion is evil and the source of human suffering.'
ReplyDeleteAnd no Alejandro, I have no problem with America's sins and failings. Most today don't. I simply am able to point to the sins and failings of other countries without feeling the need to invoke 'but America is just as bad if not worse' at a constant rate.
Do I think Bush used 9/11 as an opportunity to attack Iraq? It's possible. Most believe he had his sights set on Iraq to begin with. But you know what? That doesn't mean I must focus only on that, and dismiss the violence and death in the Islamic world that has happened since, and had happened before, anything we did relating to 9/11. Nor must I do a Tavis Smiley that says Muslims may occasionally kill their hundreds, but Racist Americans slaughter their tens of thousands every day!
That sort of unbalanced perspective is the difference between a person sincerely repenting, and a person eventually shoving a shotgun in his mouth and deciding he's beyond redemption. In other words, it's not a healthy approach to looking at the problems in America, or the problems abroad.
I apologize for quoting you out of context. I should have read better. Its just that I feel that people use this day to further and spread nationalism, discrimination and hatred and over-victimize themselves.
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