9/11--again

I don’t have much to contribute to today’s discussion about 9/11 that probably hasn't already been discussed in great detail elsewhere. At a base level, however, each anniversary has struck me as a bit more unseemly than the last. We seem to struggle with just how to recall the profound loss that occurred that day. Seven years out, it’s a day that defies our conventional notions of ceremony and memorial.

Part of the problem is that I have little patience for the notion that September 11 now occupies a special place on the calendar where partisanship is put aside by all of us for the good of the nation. To the contrary, remembrances of 9/11 tend to be highly partisan—pushing either a certain kind of politics or Jesus or a destructive form of nationalism that probably leaves the country more apt to terrorist attacks in the future.

And, as noted elsewhere, the Republicans have effectively turned 9/11 into a brand, using it to question the patriotism of their political opponents and to bolster their reputation as the only party capable of taking a firm hand with the nation’s enemies. Democrats, naturally, are no better, seeing an opportunity to try to upgrade their own image as being just as tough as those other guys.

It didn’t seem right to me to see Barack Obama and John McCain today standing at the ground zero site, looking so serious and grave, each of them hoping to gain just a few percentage points of authenticity in the eyes of undecided voters.

We should ban elected officials from the place altogether. If we were to really honor 9/11, we would turn these ceremonies over to fire fighters and police officers, administrative assistants, janitors, assistant directors, laborers, childcare workers, teaching assistants. In short, the sort of people who actually lost their lives on September 11, 2001.

Driving home today, an announcer on WKLH promised that the radio station was going to be playing music this week that would really capture the spirit of the country coming together. This spirit, I was also told, had been sponsored by a financial services firm and a mortgage company.

I wish I had more faith, but I just can’t escape the feeling that in the not too distant future, Americans will have dealt with 9/11 by simply turning it into just another day to get a 25% discount on a pair of jeans.

Anyway. I saw this at Crooks and Liars:

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