Disillusion

As perhaps the most widely-covered news event in four decades, September 11, 2001 was looked at endlessly and from nearly every conceivable angle as round-the-clock news coverage at all major networks literally stretched onwards for days. Once that 4-5 day period of nonstop coverage ended, I remember watching the news wrap-ups on CNN every night and listening to NPR in the car and in the computer room at home for a month or so afterwards as the political and cultural fallout of that day continued to drop from the skies (I should note here that this was also the last time to the present day that I have listened to the radio on anything approaching a regular basis).

With so many books, DVDs, and TV programming aimed at re-living or re-experiencing the event through one thematic lens or another, everyone remembers or observes September 11 differently. For me, this reflection has already changed considerably over the last four years. Initially, as I'm sure was (and still is) the case with many others, I remembered the surreal horror of the day, watching videos that re-created that disorienting sense of freefall and exponentially-rising anger that I felt watching the World Trade Center disintegrate and the Pentagon burn, then the intense sorrow at the stories of senseless loss and despair from the multitudes affected by it all.

Over time, though, my thoughts of September 11 began to focus instead on the weeks after instead of that day itself. It feels extremely weird to say it now, but I look back on that fearful, paranoid, shaken, uncertain span of months with a sense of bitter nostalgia for the way things were. No, I'm not talking about everyone being utterly freaked out and seeing Al Qaeda operatives everywhere they looked, but rather I find myself pining for the short time after September 11 when this country was not divided into two screaming halves, each one trying to force a sock in the mouth of the other once and for all. This was the last time, for better or worse, that we really were a nation united behind anything or anyone.

I realize that I tend to speak in sweeping numbers when talking about this subject, but there was a palpable change in individual people as well. Yes, there was outrage and sorrow in nearly every face, and the crackpots had (and continue to have) a field day with all of the grandiose conspiratorial opportunities offered up by the scale of these attacks, but there was also a new tendency at the store of people suddenly looking each other in the eyes when they spoke, with a note of warmth or concern that felt weirdly alien and yet unmistakably comforting. Without us ever having discussed doing so, Greg and I replaced the ubiquitous "have a good day" farewell with a more personalized "take care" and it seemed like everyone was more polite and considerate and kind to each other all at once. Hell, even MTV found itself a voice of compassion and care for one day, setting aside the mindless anomie and bling-bling in lieu of music of compassion and hope. Yes, all of this happened for all the wrong reasons, but it was a beautiful thing while it lasted.

So, what happened to this wonderful time when we actually all got along? In effect, we blew it. Or someone blew it, depending on your outlook ...

There is no denying whatsoever that the events of September 11 were anything less than an act of war: this was a conclusion that no one disagreed with. Despite being pandered to with one of the lamest, most stilted, most uncomforting speeches from our leadership later that evening, the nation rallied around the President to an extent unseen since at least the Gulf War in 1991, and probably even as far back as World War II. It helped immensely that after this faltering start, dear old W. set about earning his leadership stripes. Finally drawing up the kind of gravitas and stone-faced resolve the country sorely needed, W. pulled off the impossible and started to talk and act like "my President." It didn't hurt that he had a Cabinet full of veterans of previous administrations (read: the Gulf War), which certainly made me feel at the time like we were headed down the correct course.

Not knowing what was going to happen next, but grateful that someone had stepped in to take the steering wheel, America gave the President a political blank check: in effect, allowing him to do whatever he had to do, and we waited to be asked for whatever sacrifice was needed to accomplish the new goals of our new War On Terror ... and what's heartbreaking to remember is that at the time, we would have gladly made it. There was a lot of bloodlust and a shared thirst for revenge, to be certain, but on the other hand there was also a real desire to help out, as evidenced by the enormous amount of volunteers and monies collected for whatever relief fund asked for them. This time, to me, was the golden opportunity for the United States to really move forward together and take on this problem by the horns (neverminding that it was just about as useful a war as that against drugs or crime or whatever intangible Enemy Of Goodness you wish to insert here), look into alternate ways of obtaining energy, and show the world how strong and resolute we could be when the time came ... but that time never arrived.

Instead of being asked to do anything that involved any kind of shared sacrifice or effort whatsoever, we were told to shop and spend. I realize that no politician anywhere wants to be the one to say "hey, you need to cut back on your gasoline consumption, America. How about it?" but this was the one unprecedented chance W. would have had to do exactly that and not face a firestorm of scorn or cries for his head on a platter. But, I suppose, this was never going to happen in a country utterly beholden to gargantuan "special interests" and lobbies.

Don't worry about this problem, W. said with a pat on our collective noggins, we're taking care of it. It is not of your concern. Go back to your lives. Take an airplane flight. Go shopping. Go to sleep. Let me sign this Patriot Act to protect you from this ever happening again. Oh, and God bless America.

Right from the instant the above became the default war plan as far as the American Public was concerned, little alarm bells started to ring in my head. I knew that, in a sense, W. was absolutely right to beseech everyone to not to stop the American economy on a dime (domestic consumer spending powers a surprisingly large portion of this country's growth), but this compounded with the idea that life as we know it was going to keep on chugging along as if nothing at all had happened somehow felt all wrong. This new war was going to be background noise while we pressed on with our existence, and it was going to go on for months, years, decades, depending on you talked to about it. I won't even mention what book this instantly reminded me of, but I know I wasn't the only one wondering months later if the new creepily-monikered
"Homeland Security Department" shouldn't have instead been called the "Ministry Of Peace."

I had forgiven W. for that godawful speech on the evening of the 11th, (since Rudolph Giuliani was doing a far better job of playing Head Cheese that day), but being told in effect that it was my patriotic duty to whip out my credit card and get a plasma TV or an SUV and who knows what else felt perverse and insultingly condescending (I won't even get into the additional tax cuts offered shortly afterward as well). It also, I believe, began to dissipate that aura of "we're all in this together," though the true political/ideological battle lines wouldn't begin to show up until a year later when the saber rattling and preparations for the invasion of Iraq (under the disguise of waiting for diplomacy) began in earnest. By that point, we had come full circle again, not only with each other in this country, but with the rest of the world as well. That sense of loss, almost moreso than the loss of life on that awful day, has become for me the most haunting aspect of September 11.

As hopelessly simplistic, childish, and dramatic as it sounds, I want my old country back.