9/11: Enough Already

I have had it with 9/11. This week the city of New York released tapes of 911 calls made from the World Trade Center. Two films are due to be released this year, one about Flight 93 ("Let's Roll") and the other about firefighters.

Idealizing American dead only serves to diminish the dead in other countries. I recall being terrified and grief stricken on that awful day, but I'm not going to fetishize what I felt. To do so makes me think that my life is more valuable than another's. As much as I love being alive, I have to say that I don't have more of a right to stay that way than anyone else in the world.

Those are brave words coming from a New Yorker. Osama's warnings are meant for me, my family and my neighbors. I'm the one with a bulls eye on my head.

Having said that, I still say no to 9/11 memorials. The city and state of New York are about to waste millions of tax payer dollars to bail out a developer, all in the name of building something, anything, at the site known as ground zero. What a waste.

What business would move to the site of two terror attacks? The answer of course if no one will. The government will be the primary tenant, all so that we can say that the terrorists didn't win.

Well they did win. They killed nearly 3,000 people, and they taught us they would kick ass. That means they won. Period. Get over it.

We aren't the losers just because of Osama either. 9/11 was used to justify the occupation of Iraq. It empowered the awful neo-cons who now want to attack Iran and make America even more of a mass murderer.

It is never hard to get Americans to kill people somewhere in the world, but 9/11 made it all too easy. Yes, we lost on September 11, 2001. The families of the dead lost most of all. If we think of anyone we should think of them, and then we should move on. Further displays of public grief only empower the killers to keep killing.