9-11, Its Aftermath and Where Are We Going

It has been ten years and not much has changed. I am not so sure that I want to write anything about it. There already is a lot of attention to the tenth anniversary and I am not certain that is healthy. I wasn’t personally affected, only inconvenienced and then only mildly. I’m not even sure that I was the one inconvenienced. The guy got here to give his estimate for the roof. He was the one inconvenienced. Of course, he was late for the appointment, but he called to explain. He’d been in Port Huron, a border town and there were roadblocks up everywhere. As it turned out, that was an overreaction. At the time, it seemed reasonable. People all over the country were shocked, angry and probably a tiny bit scared if we are honest.

For me the main thing was the silence overhead. My home sits inside a triangle formed by Detroit Metropolitan Airport, Detroit City Airport and the Oakland County Airport, which doesn’t include the tiny airport down Maple by the Wal-Mart. Planes and helicopters are always overhead. That week there was no hum of aircraft overhead and that made it so quiet. It was eerie. Other than that, life was normal around here.

The president called for people to behave normally. I did. I contracted on the day to have my roof re-shingled and replaced where necessary. I was sorry those people died and that the other people in the area suffered trauma but I couldn’t see how not getting my roof dealt with would help anything. So I went ahead and got the roof taken care of. I got on with my life, not because the president urged people to do so, but because there was nothing else that I could do.

The media made it sound like the entire country was panicking, but I think that was just hype. We were shocked, yes, and angry and a little scared, but that was only the first day. After that, most of us who were thousands of miles away from the attack sites went back to our daily lives. It sounds callous, but it was what it was.

It’s been ten years and we still have Wall Street. We’ve been through other things, not as shocking but devastated more people. I refer to the near-depression that hasn’t yet let go of us, despite what the economists say. Nobody ever used the D-word, the authorities say it wasn’t as bad as the Great Depression and maybe it wasn’t, but only because of the reforms put in place after that happened. We finally got bin Laden and there was great celebration over that, but in the end, nothing changed. I didn’t really expect that it would. Religious fanatics are religious fanatics and the death of one man is not going to change anything. He wasn’t the Messiah the Jewish faith is waiting for, or the one the Christians believe has already come. I’m not sure where the Muslims stand on the Messiah; I’ll admit ignorance on their faith. I will state that I doubt it really teaches that they should kill anyone who doesn’t follow Islam. That kind of teaching is fanaticism. Islam doesn’t have the monopoly on that form of insanity. That type of fanaticism is a cross-faith lunacy.

Those attacks were not isolated. There were other attacks, both at the time and since, that killed people. They are symptoms of a problem that no one is addressing, likely because no one quite knows how to solve the real problem. There may not be a solution. Religion is not the problem, not really. The problem is that the human race is quickly out growing its habitat. We are competing for resources and that is the issue. Unfortunately, we don’t focus on that problem. We are only treating the symptoms and letting the disease go on, unchecked. That’s the real reason behind the 9-11 attacks and we could see more, if we don’t address the real problem.

About pebblepup

I am not one who is comfortable talking about myself but here goes. I enjoy writing, family history, and reading. I decided to do this blog because I wanted to try something new. I decided to make it a weekly blog because I wasn't sure that I could keep up with a daily one, and monthly seemed like I was writing a magazine. I think I did ok with my choices. You'll notice that there are not a lot of graphics on my site. That's because there are graphics plastered everywhere on the Internet and those sites sometimes take forever to load. This blog is a place where you can kick back, relax and be ready to be amused. At least I hope I willbamuse you. This blog is on a variety of subjects from my ficitional cat agency, the FFL, which is monthly, to instructional blogs to editorials, which are my opinions only. I admit that I don't know everything and could be wrong -- I frequently am. Now, stop reading about me and read what I have to say!