Fixer's take

I feel the same way.

Since Facebook removed Jim Wright's post about 9/11 for 'violating community standards', I thought I'd say this.

This is the view from my wife's office window on the 44th Floor of the Merrill-Lynch building in the World Financial Center. She took it when they let them back in 6 weeks after 9/11, after they put the windows back in and got most of the debris out, to get any personal effects they left when they had to run.

We've mourned and buried the dead, memorialized them so many places and in so many ways. We've cried ourselves out a long time ago. We counted our blessings that our families were still intact and got closer to those friends who survived. Yet every year, the country has to rip off this scab.

Our grief at losing friends and loved ones, at losing so many police, fire, and civilians was taken and used to justify horrible things against innocent people. It was used to whip the country into a frenzy for revenge. At a time when the entire world was on our side, that goodwill was co-opted to go on missions of imperial conquest. All those who died and survived on September 11th were pawns to promote false patriotism and foment fear so we'd willingly abdicate our rights and our common sense to 'keep us safe'.

My wife and friends who survived that day can't watch the TV or look at Facebook today because it hurts them deeply. How do you think they feel every year on this day when they have to watch as their friends and family were murdered all damn day in constant repetition, having it analyzed and discussed to death, every goddamn year? How do you think they feel knowing that their grief enabled the things their nation has done in the name of freedom? How do you think they feel watching politicians compete to see who can wrap themselves the tightest and thickest with Old Glory.

I always say, Osama bin Laden declared victory on 9/12, America's problem is that we don't know we lost. We've given up rights, we live in fear, and just about everybody else in the world thinks we're a bunch of trigger-happy, ignorant war mongers. The 'War on Terror' was lost before the first boots hit the Afghan sand and every year, we go through the masochistic ritual of reliving our defeat.

I, and many of the people who were directly affected refuse to do it anymore.