I had left my job teaching medical school and was now Professor Emeritus. I decided to try teaching algebra in high school and had a job in Gloucester Virginia. That morning the Tee Vee came on and we witnessed the second plane crashing into the tower. A student who looked like he was of Middle Eastern heritage cried out
OMG Osama Bin laden!
I was not even up on who that was, I'm ashamed to admit. This kid hit it on the nose.
The country has changed so much since then. It began with the election theft in 2000 but this seems like it was a turning point. The long march to fascism had begun again it seems. Read on below for more.
Just a reminder as of 2011:9/11 to now: Ways we have changed
The decade after the 9/11 attacks reshaped many facets of life in America. Some changes were temporary — an immediate response out of concern for our safety — while some proved to be more lasting transformations in American life.
It is not hard to make a case that our reaction to the event made it more of a success for the attackers.
9/11 and a Measure of Bin Laden's Success
There are problems in equating US government spending on wars to what might have been done with those resources in the private economy - but again, in terms of broad benchmarks in a time of constraint and very harsh offsets, I think it is illustrative to consider whether the collective costs of Afghanistan and Iraq - costs and obligations which will continue for decades given the benefits and health support that deployed military will receive - have been part of America's job deficit misery.
Bin Laden is gone, and I'm glad - but one of the challenges we need to deal with at some point, perhaps after the 10th Anniversary of 9/11, is why we so easily fell into the groove of spending at the levels he wanted to trigger.
It is impossible to measure changes in the collective psyche of a natioin, but they are impressive.
Editorial: Success and excess mark the decade since 9/11
Ten years ago this Sunday, the United States was a fearful nation, its sense of security shattered by a surprise attack on America even more deadly and shocking than the one on Pearl Harbor 60 years earlier. In a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken on the afternoon and evening of 9/11, nearly three of five people were worried they or someone in their families would become a victim of terrorism.
So here we are a paralyzed nation. Our government is in the hands of domestic terrorists who have effectively destroyed it. Were Bin Laden to be alive to witness our demise he would be proud.
Meanwhile we are being sucked in deeper to a conflict we have no business being involved in. The domestic terrorists are poised to take over the Senate in November. That will further destroy the country.
We are poisoning ourselves and the world and calmly letting that happen. The planet and its many life forms are in peril. We are like a drug addict who is in the depths of self destruction and still in the denial stage. No further attacks are necessary. One seems to have been enough. I mourn for this Nation. It was dealt a fatal blow on that day.