![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatI no longer like to talk about 9/11. It remains a psychological and emotional bruise or scar, while healed and faded, still there in the background.
Today we had 9/11 weather, crisp blue skies no clouds in sight. At least in the morning. It got cloudier as the day wore on. And 9/11 once again landed on that dreaded Tuesday. The paper had reports regarding it, but not quite as many as before. 9/11 to date is costing the city over a billion dollars. It cost 60 million to maintain the memorial. There's also the cost of supporting and aiding the rescue workers, their families, and survivors of 9/11 who are suffering from 50 different types of Cancer. One man, a firefighter, died at 44 from 9/11 related cancer. The toxins from the dust resulted in cancer.
In the paper today there was an article about a teacher who spent a year teaching his 6th grade class about 9/11 - after several students stated that it was an accident. Eleven years later...and the information has already become garbled. There are those who don't see much difference between the period before 9/11 and the period after - and I have to wonder are you blind to world affairs? To the economy? To the Wars? To the heightened security? Do you live in plastic bubble verse? And can I join you? Granted I live in NYC, and there's not a day that goes by that I am not reminded. Or a year. It gets better. It fades. The front page of the NY Times posted on the junk store window on my block has finally over time, turned brown, crumbled, and is barely even legible.
And the buildings they've built in the towers place are slowly reaching towards the sky. Even if they are having a tough time finding tenants to fill them. Security is still an issue, more so than ever before. We still have armed guards with machine guns standing at attention in various transportation hubs - wearing camoflauge attire - which fits the desert more than a city. And since 9/11, security has gotten increasingly more stringent. The Republican Party increasingly more strident...to the point that they are beginning to resemble the very villians they demonize. It's a scary thing when the RNC's take on women's healthcare is reminiscent of the Taliban.
I see the differences. Maybe I wouldn't if I were living in Iowa or Kansas or Missouri.
I don't know. But the WARS do affect us all and I doubt we would have ended up in either if 9/11 had never happened. Certainly would not have gone to Afghanistan - where we mistakenly believed Osma Bin Laden was living at the time.
I'm not sure I like the world since 9/11 very much. I preferred the prior one in some respects. But 9/11 turned my world inside out, well that and other events occuring at the same time which were not directly related. 9/11 is why I'm online. It changed my life.
But I also walked through the falling debris. And saw the towers smoke and fall more or less in person. And I sat in a train and have and do still work side-by-side with terrified people who saw even more than I did.
Now, I work for a government agency in a city that is almost crippled by the debt caused by the increasingly expensive security measures. My agency as well. We've become an industrialized military complex it seems - and 9/11 caused that.
Yes, on the face, it does not seem that many died. Only 3000, actually it was 2,988 or something like that in the paper this morning. But that does not count the thousand and counting rescue workers who are dying or have died of 9/11 related diseases. Nor does that
take into account the various men, women, and children that are casualties of not one but two wars. Or the vast majority of innocent and law-abiding muslims who have had their basic human rights infringed upon. OR the people detained and sadistically tortured in Guantanma Bay. Or the money spent on the memorial, the wars, the security, etc - that could have gone towards education, employment, housing, healthcare, etc.
And it wasn't just any old building that was hit. It was the WORLD trade center. Emphasis on WORLD. The center of the World financial markets. I've worked in not one, but two companies that had headquarters in that building. One was Societie Generale - a French Bank, and the other was Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield - a healthcare insurance company.
It also housed various world financial companies. A restaurant. And was the site of various festivals, including the Canadian/British one which was to occur that weekend. I know because I wanted to get Peter Gabriel tickets after work. In addition it had doctor's offices, floral shops, and was on top of a major subway hub.
And it was not the only building hit - the Pentagon was hit as well. This is the headquarters of the US Armed Forces or Joint Chief of Staff. And US airlines were used to do it. The attacks grounded planes around the world. It changed airline security around the world overnight. The world felt attacked on that day - various countries outside the US had citizens in The World Trade Center, had company's in that building. NYC is not Tulsa, OK or Detroit, or Kansas City or even LA. It is a world city - filled with people who have come from just about every country on the planet.
Which is why what happened that day can't be forgotten. Why it changed so many things.
There were so many variables at play. Up until 9/11 - the US really had not been directly attacked on its own soil - unless you count Pearl Harbor - but that was very different - we had a knowable enemy - one we could attack. Here, we did not.
So, yes, my world is different since 9/11. I wish it wasn't. But it is.
On a more positive note? Here's a picture I took last week showing how we've moved forward and that gives me hope:
Today we had 9/11 weather, crisp blue skies no clouds in sight. At least in the morning. It got cloudier as the day wore on. And 9/11 once again landed on that dreaded Tuesday. The paper had reports regarding it, but not quite as many as before. 9/11 to date is costing the city over a billion dollars. It cost 60 million to maintain the memorial. There's also the cost of supporting and aiding the rescue workers, their families, and survivors of 9/11 who are suffering from 50 different types of Cancer. One man, a firefighter, died at 44 from 9/11 related cancer. The toxins from the dust resulted in cancer.
In the paper today there was an article about a teacher who spent a year teaching his 6th grade class about 9/11 - after several students stated that it was an accident. Eleven years later...and the information has already become garbled. There are those who don't see much difference between the period before 9/11 and the period after - and I have to wonder are you blind to world affairs? To the economy? To the Wars? To the heightened security? Do you live in plastic bubble verse? And can I join you? Granted I live in NYC, and there's not a day that goes by that I am not reminded. Or a year. It gets better. It fades. The front page of the NY Times posted on the junk store window on my block has finally over time, turned brown, crumbled, and is barely even legible.
And the buildings they've built in the towers place are slowly reaching towards the sky. Even if they are having a tough time finding tenants to fill them. Security is still an issue, more so than ever before. We still have armed guards with machine guns standing at attention in various transportation hubs - wearing camoflauge attire - which fits the desert more than a city. And since 9/11, security has gotten increasingly more stringent. The Republican Party increasingly more strident...to the point that they are beginning to resemble the very villians they demonize. It's a scary thing when the RNC's take on women's healthcare is reminiscent of the Taliban.
I see the differences. Maybe I wouldn't if I were living in Iowa or Kansas or Missouri.
I don't know. But the WARS do affect us all and I doubt we would have ended up in either if 9/11 had never happened. Certainly would not have gone to Afghanistan - where we mistakenly believed Osma Bin Laden was living at the time.
I'm not sure I like the world since 9/11 very much. I preferred the prior one in some respects. But 9/11 turned my world inside out, well that and other events occuring at the same time which were not directly related. 9/11 is why I'm online. It changed my life.
But I also walked through the falling debris. And saw the towers smoke and fall more or less in person. And I sat in a train and have and do still work side-by-side with terrified people who saw even more than I did.
Now, I work for a government agency in a city that is almost crippled by the debt caused by the increasingly expensive security measures. My agency as well. We've become an industrialized military complex it seems - and 9/11 caused that.
Yes, on the face, it does not seem that many died. Only 3000, actually it was 2,988 or something like that in the paper this morning. But that does not count the thousand and counting rescue workers who are dying or have died of 9/11 related diseases. Nor does that
take into account the various men, women, and children that are casualties of not one but two wars. Or the vast majority of innocent and law-abiding muslims who have had their basic human rights infringed upon. OR the people detained and sadistically tortured in Guantanma Bay. Or the money spent on the memorial, the wars, the security, etc - that could have gone towards education, employment, housing, healthcare, etc.
And it wasn't just any old building that was hit. It was the WORLD trade center. Emphasis on WORLD. The center of the World financial markets. I've worked in not one, but two companies that had headquarters in that building. One was Societie Generale - a French Bank, and the other was Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield - a healthcare insurance company.
It also housed various world financial companies. A restaurant. And was the site of various festivals, including the Canadian/British one which was to occur that weekend. I know because I wanted to get Peter Gabriel tickets after work. In addition it had doctor's offices, floral shops, and was on top of a major subway hub.
And it was not the only building hit - the Pentagon was hit as well. This is the headquarters of the US Armed Forces or Joint Chief of Staff. And US airlines were used to do it. The attacks grounded planes around the world. It changed airline security around the world overnight. The world felt attacked on that day - various countries outside the US had citizens in The World Trade Center, had company's in that building. NYC is not Tulsa, OK or Detroit, or Kansas City or even LA. It is a world city - filled with people who have come from just about every country on the planet.
Which is why what happened that day can't be forgotten. Why it changed so many things.
There were so many variables at play. Up until 9/11 - the US really had not been directly attacked on its own soil - unless you count Pearl Harbor - but that was very different - we had a knowable enemy - one we could attack. Here, we did not.
So, yes, my world is different since 9/11. I wish it wasn't. But it is.
On a more positive note? Here's a picture I took last week showing how we've moved forward and that gives me hope:
no subject
Date: 2012-09-11 11:02 pm (UTC)That's why I hate that Homeland series so much.
I'm sorry for the trauma you suffered.
FWIW, Osama Bin Laden was living in Afghanistan at the time of 9/11.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-12 12:52 am (UTC)That bad, eh? I admittedly haven't seen it - it's on Showtime, which I can't get. Do have it in my netflix queue, but have mixed feelings. I didn't like 24 for similar reasons.
FWIW, Osama Bin Laden was living in Afghanistan at the time of 9/11.
I'm no longer certain. They said he was, but was he?