Seven years ago, in the blinding bright light of a beautiful autumn morning in New York, our lives changed. In days that followed, I wrote an essay that I was particularly proud of. I sent it around to family and friends, and I’m hoping someone kept a copy, because I cannot find it today. But watch for it to appear in the near future - I hope. But here are my thoughts today - and a warning that we are losing our democracy, and those freedoms for which our President tells us "they" attacked us.
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Another anniversary. Another day of solemn remembrances, talk of patriotism, solidarity, and our struggle in the "War on Terror."
We cite 9/11 as a line of demarcation between the world as we knew it and the world as it has become. We have heard that we were blissfully unaware of the dangers that were stalking us, and on 9/11 our eyes were opened. But I wonder if our eyes weren’t so much opened as was our gaze diverted. Even if we are now safer from crashing planes and falling buildings than we were on 9/10/01, are we safer? Are we safer from crime? Are we safer from losing our homes? Are we safer from ill health, or the poverty that can come from a single diagnosis? Are we safer from contaminated food? From ineffective drugs? From all of those things besides terrorist attacks that might strike us, kill us, or make our lives less worth living?
Are we really safer?
As a nation, the hijacking of planes on 9/11 did not change our lives as much as did the subsequent hijacking of our democracy. The people in power took the opportunity to exploit the most stunning moment in many of our lives, in order to carry out plans that by then had been in place for at least 10 years (PNAC, anyone?). And they had accomplices, either willing or unwitting, in the loyal opposition which failed to stop them. Terrorists in planes will not be what brings this country down. We are doing their work for them by allowing our "leaders" to lead us into surrendering our freedoms.
My outrage has not dimmed over the past seven years. Sen. Obama’s simple refrain of “Enough!” speaks for me. But even with all the hope generated by his historic campaign, nothing will change unless we take control. And we can’t take control unless we can vote.
And whether most of us know it or not, we can’t vote.
Make some time to sit and Google (or Yahoo, or whatever) the following phrases. I've made it easy for you. Just use cut and paste:
• Premier Voting Systems Ohio
• Diebold Ohio deliver
• Diebold Jeff Dean
• Don Siegelman Rove Leura Canary
Don’t stop yet! It gets worse:
• unsolicited absentee ballot democrat McCain
• foreclosure voter purge McComb County
If after this, your hair does not stand on end, you are using too much “product.”
Never mind planes flying into buildings. Never mind Valerie Plame. Never mind being lied into war. Never mind Katrina. Never mind foreclosures, the banks failing, and all the other headlines we have suffered throughout this past seven-plus years of occupation by the Bush administration. This is IT! This is the BIG ENCHILADA! If we lose our vote, we lose everything. And whether we know it or not, we have lost our vote, and it happened long before 9/11.
We have been blinded for so long, by so many other scandals, that it takes horrific events on the scale of 9/11 to make us feel anything anymore. But it’s time to wake up. What do we do? Write to your representatives and demand investigations of this issue. Then call their offices and demand it again. Call the media and demand they cover these stories. Contact their advertisers if they don’t cover it, and tell them how upset you are. Contact their advertisers if they DO cover it, and tell them you’ll be in their store tomorrow. Check your voter registration at least a month before the election, and then again in two weeks. Yes, I have done all these things, and nothing has really changed - yet. But any revolution comes from the steady trickle of individual efforts, which finally turns into a tidal wave. Read your history. I dare you.
9/11 was awful. But it took our eyes off the ball. We don’t have much time left to change that.
Game on.
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