Do You Feel Safer?
posted at 6:54 pm
on Sep. 11, 2007
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Sept. 11, 2001, was a day of confusion, of tragedy, of anger and most of all, of fear. I can bet that your heart was racing, your palms were sweaty—or cold. You didn’t want to go outside, you wanted to hear a comforting voice, to hold a hand, to know that your loved ones were safe.
And that level of fear is nothing compared to the New Yorkers who saw and heard and felt the attacks, the Washingtonians who shuttled their colleagues away from the Pentagon blast, the folks on Flight 93 who fought back. The memory of that fear has stayed with me.
So my question to you, this day, six years on, is this: Do you feel safer?
Do you feel safer now?
And if you don’t—and I don’t—ask yourself this other question: Why not?
Why, after 2,000 days, after trillions and trillions of dollars spent, after 4,000 military deaths in Iraq (and 680 in Afghanistan, and why don’t we know how many civilians?)—why don’t we feel safer?
And I’m not even talking safer than we did before 9/11, which should be our goal.
“9/11 changed everything!” they say, and sure it did, but lots of things change everything. The atomic bomb, the discovery of penicillin, calculus, the telegraph, the iPhone, fire. Things get shook up, they get figured out, they get repaired, they get better. I’m not even talking about better than before. I’m talking about better than after. I’m talking about better than the day Osama bin Laden was named as the leader behind the attacks.
Why, if according to today’s official White House statement about 9/11, ”Since September 11, 2001, The President’s Top Priority Has Been Protecting The American People From Attack,” don’t we feel safer?
Why can the country that could build the Panama Canal, create the Interstate Highway System, win World War II, tame the Wild West, abolish slavery (well, after dozens of other countries did, but still...), and invent rock and roll, why can this country not make people feel less afraid than they did six years ago?
Why? Today, while you’re thinking about the tragedy that occured six years ago, think also about fear, and remember that the best way to stop being afraid, is to stand up and face those who foster that fear.
