11 Years since the 11th - What's Happened in America since?

11 years ago today, 11 years on the 11^th, the only attack on mainland America by a foreign power since the war of 1812 was carried out not by Russia, not by Iran or Iraq or Afghanistan but instead by a couple disgruntled Saudis bankrolled by a member of a family friendly with the Bushes and specifically funded by our addiction to oil. This isn’t going to be some finger-pointing post but those are the simple facts. Certainly not gonna beat that dead horse of “Bush knew we were gonna get attacked and did nothing” or debate whether the government secretly set it up or whether Saddam Hussein had WMD’s that inspired Osama Bin Laden or the temperature at which thermite burns.

I just wanted to talk a little about what’s happened since. How has America changed since?

Directly afterwards America came together as it hadn’t in decades. Republican, Democrat, banker, farmer, we were all united against one enemy, those who would threaten our way of life. The goodwill was intoxicating. We went about our lives as if we hadn’t been shaken out of the suffocating comfort that is life for most people in America. We bought things, the American way and certainly that showed those terrorist bastards a thing or two. Fire fighter and cops risked and sacrificed their lives and their health and for that earned the title America’s heroes.

Muslim extremists were electrified by this victory. America quickly responded by routing the Taliban in, like, 4 weeks, when attention was turned to Iraq, not only allowing Afghanistan to backslide into the shitstorm it still is but also made Islamic extremists feel brazen, brave – Terrorist plots rose to a frightening number, everything from shoe bombs to London public transportation. Madrid. And all along we went along fighting Iraq, a war that from this post-game perspective looks like little more than the black sheep tryin’ to make papa proud by finishing his war. But hey, it stabilized them and now we have an – ally(?) in the middle-east. But the thing is, the terrorists aren’t a nation, they can’t be fought in any conventional sense. They're loyal to an ideal, not a capital, and as such it took changing theapproach to warfare to finally bring down the man who launched the heinous 9/11 attacks.

But that’s not the thought I want to leave you with.

On September 11, 2001, a terrorist strike motivated us to increased activity, to unity, to bouncing back and holding hands and working together to show America as the strong, beautiful nation it is if only to prove to the terrorists they didn’t win.

And it’s sad to think that now, 11 years later, America is more divided across party lines than ever; that the unscrupulous acts of Americans at companies like Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and many other securities dealers, debt swappers, hedge funders, and corporate raiders caused much more havoc than those Saudi terrorists ever could. Because the terrorists destroyed our buildings but we destroyed our own lifeblood, our middle class and our economy.

So today, let us remember what happened when we were under attack, when we had to pull together. Remember what made this country great. And let us remember that the terrorists killed several thousand people but our own banks killed our way of life. 

Now we need to go forward to pledge one thing – no matter what happens in the election, and no matter what corner of the economy we work in, we will pull together to honor all who’ve come before us and try to pull this nation off the brink of implosion. Because if we don’t come together soon, the terrorists win.

Ryan