September 11th 2001, the day the world changed forever. Like the Kennedy assassination, it is the kind of day so pivotal that virtually everyone remembers where they were that day. I was 18 in 2001, had just graduated high school, in NY, and was working 3 jobs at the time. I was en route to one of my jobs when it happened. I was initially oblivious, but aware that something important was occurring as I was walking to my workplace and literally everyone was glued to the nearest TV, in an age before smartphones. There was a quiet sense of shock, and disbelief. After all, few witnessing this saw Pearl Harbor so this is a wholly new experience. We were all simultaneously learning aspects of what it means to be American. The answer was swift.
I turned 19 learning how kill people. I turned 20 actually killing people. In learning what it meant to be American I have made mistakes that, perhaps, are irredeemable. I got caught up in something I didn’t understand, a struggle at the very core of The United States of America: Hate. I did not join the Armed Services out of hatred of a race, a religion, a feeling of duty, or a need for revenge. I needed answers. What was presented to me, regarding 9/11, in the open source media did not feel right, and I had hoped if I became a part of the Intelligence Community I could find out more for myself. Additionally, working 3 dead-end jobs was not the path I wanted to walk forever. My life wasn’t going anywhere, so I took a path I knew would go somewhere. My dad was a career military man.
I, at the time, did not grasp that hatred comprises the identity of so many Americans. I did not understand that is what it means to be American. I did not understand we have so many people who become motivated by spite, and are easily fueled by anger. As I actually grew up, both in war and as my own man, everything I once thought my country stood for I now know that only applies to certain pockets of the populace. It is hard not to be burdened by the regular demonstrations of our own trying to brake us further, ethically barren, emotionally bitter, blinded to their own susceptibility to manipulation if not belligerently willing to bend the knee to go backwards in time, ’tis baffling to us who have become unwilling bystanders.
This hatred is, often, originated from and, permeated, amplified, echoed, distorted, and retransmitted through: straight white male Christians so loud that it ripples to ballot box reactions in other countries. These Reactionaries, combined with a minority scattering of others, form said struggle of the core of what it means to be American. Hate vs. Love. Me vs. Us. 2001, back when I was much younger, and exponentially dumber, was a much different world. September 11th 2011 was an event that helped bring the undercurrent of Reactionary Hatred to the surface once more. The same type of person that could walk out of a church and burn a cross on someone’s yard could now yell “SandN!**er” at someone with the church’s blessing. It was only going to get worse.
The seeds planted by FOX News, Talk Radio, and their ilk exploded. “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” Between Gerrymandering, voter suppression, and racism – doing nothing was never easier, evil ensured such. However, Apathy took hold and choked the life out of most what was good. Doing nothing is exactly what happened, and evil triumphed. Hatred triumphed, several times. We are living in a time of evil so obvious, they don’t even bother trying to hide themselves anymore. Those that benefit from evil now rally to evil’s cause, and choose to continue to take the easy wrong, instead of the hard right.
Some people, in many cases those who ally with evil, have decided those responsible for September 11th 2001 have committed an irredeemable mistake. Being we live in the age of the internet, trolls of all stripes may try to muddy the waters by asking rhetorical questions: who is really at fault, and who decides what is irredeemable? Although they may be Russian employees I still smile, because I ask myself the same questions, in earnest, about my own mistakes. I look at the life of people like the late Sen. John McCain, a man with whom I frequently disagree politically, but of whom I did not fail to lower my flag and pause to reflect upon his service and his choices in service and sacrifices made.
Sacrifice. That’s a tricky word nowadays. The Nike Ad recently featuring Colin Kaepernick talks about sacrifice, and well. Again, hateful Reactionaries remind us how much of America they are willing to sacrifice. This was an NFL athlete peacefully, quietly, protesting police (read: white authority) brutality of minorities. Police treatment of minorities was, is, and is likely going to continue to be a legitimate issue affecting people in communities across the country. However, racism is so American that when you protest it people think you’re protesting America itself. Reactionaries have resorted to burning Nike products, and threatening to boycott the product, all over one man wishing he and his kin be treated fairly by the authorities.
After WWII America was the de facto global authority. We were, in essence, the only major economy not reduced to rubble. The post-WWII time was, like it or not, the time of the straight white Christian man. It’s not hard to understand there are some of them, too many judging from the volume, that look around have decided they do not want anyone else to have what they do. They liked it when they were the only ones who had things and made decisions. It was ok for them to hate, because no one else could do anything about it. They owned the system and you couldn’t beat the system. It wasn’t Love vs. Hate, Me vs. Us. It was just them.
Times have changed, more people get more of what they have always had and they don’t like it. They stoke the fears of their own kind, from every angle they can think of: religious, economic, racial, etc. In the end it’s all just hate based control. It’s all hate. That’s what it means to be American, well, it was. Fortunately, there is an awful lot of the rest of us who aren’t like that. There are an awful lot of “Love” and “Us” types who drag them forward, kicking and screaming, step by step. It isn’t easy, and it is very expensive due to legal costs. However, I see the fights online – comment by comment. I see the court wins. I see the progress. Despite our terrible history, what it means to be American is to set an example of which the rest of the world can be proud. We have and can give others something to aspire to, even if we currently live in catastrophically dark and historically embarrassing times.
10 Sept 2018
Monk Anchorwind
I tried to condense a lot of thoughts into something short enough to comply with VA rules. I am uncertain if such is sufficient. V2 is coming.