Of Course We Should Remember. But How?

9-11 once again. Unquestionably, it will remain to haunt our memories the same way December 7 and November 22 have: As a moment when all our lives changed forever, when we looked at the world in new and unsatisfying ways.

Like the other two, 9-11 has created a distortion of our history and how we should consider the terrible event against the backdrop of the rest of it. The reaction to it has marred the meaning of our nation--to the rest of the world and to ourselves. Consider, though we are 18 years separated from that day:

• The extraordinary rendition, a.k.a. torture, that we have justified to gain information from prisoners, contrary to anything we previously helped to put into place, such as the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Convention;
• The blurring of the definitions of crime and war so that we can claim either or both when it fits our purposes;
• What should be an embarrassing fact that defendants, or accused war criminals (See above--your choice), have not had a trial date scheduled for themselves until last month--18 years after the event--and will have to wait yet another year for the trials to begin, heaven knowing how long all those will take, being held without bond in the meantime;
• A continued, knee-jerk reaction against Muslims living in this country, nearly all of them wanting only to be left alone to gain from citizenship;
• An increasingly irrational position on Israel and the West Bank, serving only to aggravate tensions between it and its enemies, far and wide;
• The reduction in civil liberties and fear of utilizing the right of free speech on both ends of the political spectrum;
• The ridiculous, self-aggrandizing, completely unjustifiable, lie-based war in Iraq which served only to unleash instability in the Middle East that survives to this day;
• An explosion in presidential power relative to that of Congress, justified by re-definition of security issues by Bush-43 which is now being expanded by the incredibly irresponsible and reckless 45 (but also expanded by Obama, which cannot be overlooked); and, of course,
• The endless, quicksanded war in Afghanistan that seems to be necessary regardless of the opaque and gray results relative to its proposed purpose--to reduce the possibilities of foreign terrorism on our soil, itself a rather ridiculous notion since terrorists can hide anywhere they wish to, making the sublimation of any particular nation moot and nearly pointless, unless we wish to sublimate all of them.

This list is probably a short one, but I think it'll do for now. Against the backdrop of the horror and drama of that day, as we head deeper into the post 9-11 future, we must ask ourselves: Has all of this worked to our satisfaction? Have all these adjustments made us feel better? Look better? Be better? Are such questions, themselves, hopelessly moot so that we can only conclude that crap happens and we have to lurch on in spite of it, having no other choice?

In other words: Has 9-11 ruined us permanently? Have the terrorists won? Or can we still create the kind of future in which we stare this in the face and say: It will never be the same, true. Yet, it can be better than it was beforehand, when we were still basking in the glow of the end of the Cold War as the pride of our universe--never freer, never stronger, never less challengeable.

Then one tragedy, however enormous, has managed to undo us. Granted, the day featured incredible acts of heroism amidst the slaughter, led by the victims of Flight 93, who acted in a way that can only be described as supra-human, and the first responders at One and Two World Trade Center. In their honor, though, we cannot continue to

• unnecessarily divide ourselves; 
• unnecessarily ban immigrants from the freedom that we claim we still have; 
• continue to be held hostage by automatic weapons and their abusers;
• keep pretending that racism doesn't exist or isn't very serious;
• continue to drain and diminish our educational system; 
• backtrack over the gains we have made to make our environment safer for today and tomorrow; or to 
• act like other countries and peoples simply don't matter in policy decisions.

In other words, abandon the leadership that the world has always relied upon us to display and practice. It has been a temptation, true, to which we have succumbed far too often. But this inclination to withdraw and pretend that the rest of the world doesn't exist is kind of like the elephant in the room that thinks it's hiding in the corner. The corner's not large enough to envelop it and even if it were, its tracks are unmistakeable.

Let's see if we can return to our former position. Let's see if, while commemorating those who perished, we can pivot upon their sacrifice and dedicate ourselves to creating the kind of country they'd miss if they knew about it. At the moment, it isn't. It's our fault and our opportunity.

Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark