It's About Time We Forgot 9/11...

No, I’m not kidding. Nor am I trying to be provocative. We need to forget about September 11, 2001. 

I don’t know about you, but I am sick and tired of seeing those planes hit the Twin Towers, year after year after year. 

In ten years, “remembering” 9/11 has produced two wars, massive debt, national paranoia, Islamophobia, legislative fiat to violate our civil liberties, and media hysterics. “Remembering” 9/11 isn’t about honoring those innocent lives that perished; it’s about flexing our emotionally and politically reactionary muscles. It’s about maintaining the pain. 

Our media and elected officials have used this “remembrance” in order to manipulate our heart-strings and exploit our fear. We can not allow them to continue to profit from our grief. It is time to forget 9/11. 

We don’t need to “remember” a tragedy in order to take care of business. For years it’s been argued that keeping 9/11 in mind should be a fundamental element of our foreign policy. As a result, we’ve heavily invested in wars overseas which at first seemed to give the American people an emotional fix, but quickly descended into full-blown affliction. The war rationale is now as transparent as Plexiglass. It's the cumulative result of politicians (and the media) exploiting the American public and “remembrance”. The fact is, we don’t need to "remember" 9/11 to maintain a safe homeland; to protect our borders, to ensure intelligence, to document our allies and enemies in the world. We don’t need to remember 9/11 to do what we need to do in order to secure our safety. “Remembering” serves to cloud our judgment; to conjure fear and anger and hasten our actions. It also makes for an easy card to play by ambitious politicians. And buffo ratings for media magnets when anything 9/11-related are plastered on our television sets. And believe you me, they’ll relate just about anything to 9/11. 

People are hysterical. “Remembering” 9/11 only serves to falsely vindicate their lunacy. The more they remember, the more they fear. The more they fear, the greater their hate. The greater their hate, the stupider they are. The stupider they are, the crazier they sound. The crazier they sound, the nuttier we look. Don’t believe me? Talk to Terry Jones…or the Sharia law obsessed…or the “Barack Obama is a Muslim” crowd…or the “Don’t build a Mosque” folks. 

We’re not remembering, we’re obsessing. If this nation were a person, we’d need therapy. 

Sure, we haven’t reached the levels of fear that defined our nation during the peak of the Cold War (McCarthyism and Red-baiting), and it’s hard to believe we will. But that still doesn’t mean there aren’t similarities between Red-scare paranoia and 9/11 obsession. One political candidate even called for a “loyalty oath” for Muslims wanting to work for the federal government. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Alger Hiss. 

I’ve been saying for years, why don’t we stop “remembering” 9/11, and start “reflecting” on our reaction to it? If we shift the focus, maybe then people will realize how foolish we’ve been. Instead of remembering the planes, Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon, let’s reflect on The Patriot Act, Iraq, Afghanistan, and homeland security. Let’s reflect on our collective soul as a nation. Let’s reflect on how fearful we are, how emotional we remain, how clouded and vengeful we’ve been. We elected people, who pledged to “remember” 9/11, what did we get out of that deal?! A raw deal. 

Honor the fallen. Mourn their loss. If, God forbid, you knew or loved someone who perished that day, say a prayer for their soul. I, no less than any individual standing next to me, respect the bravery displayed by those New York police and firefighters, and passengers on Flight 93. But in 2011, ten years later, it’s time to forget 9/11. 

Ten years after Pearl Harbor, there was but a blip in the media in remembrance. Why? America was steeped in war with Korea and had allied with Japan. In other words, we had a new mission and set of priorities. Ten years after 9/11, our enemy is the same, but our priorities should be different. Up to this point, we’ve been reacting to our national trauma…instead, for a change, let’s start reflecting on how to treat it.