Growing up, we always thought that terrorism was a tool that was only used in foreign countries, utilized by crazed fanatics so hungry for power and dominance that they would go to these lengths to get it. September 11th will always be known as the day America felt the harsh hand of terrorism. Everyone has their 9-11 story. Where you were, what you were doing, what you felt the second you heard or saw what was happening in New York. The surreal feeling was widespread enough that everyone can relate.
Now ask yourself, where were you when the Columbine shootings happened? What were you doing when the Olympic bomb went off in Atlanta? What did your stomach feel like on 4-19-95? (Look it up). Americans are devastated by horrific acts of violence all the time, we witness and lose ambitious college students every other month in a new university shooting. The reason we don't sit and dwell on such acts everyday is because we are humans, we move on, no matter how horrific or incredibly hard it is to do so.
Living in Los Angeles, after the Twin Towers went down in '01, many people here feared for their own lives, downtown LA was shut down; everyone just watched and waited for an answer. Almost 7 years later, executives on the 50th floor of a skyscraper don't look out every morning wondering if a jumbo jet is headed their way. There's also an outside chance that the people of New York City have gone back to work in these last several years as well.
Since we're so bold to move on, why are we still listening to idiotic television ads, rhetoric-laced speeches, and believing in an Administration that advocates a policy of never moving on? Americans have to listen to President Bush and many of his fellow fear mongering Republicans tell us that in order for us to ever feel safe, we have to torture other humans, we have to allow him to break our laws and listen to our telephone conversations, and we have to kill and hate civilians that remind us of the people that carried out 9-11.
Shouldn't we get offended when they tell us that our children are going to die if we don't do everything he tells us to do? Our president told us over and over again that the members of Congress that were against a bill that continues to void even more of your rights, were putting the country in danger. If you really thought your kids would die at midnight on February 16th, when the FISA bill for eavesdropping expired, would you leave the house that morning to go to work?
We don't really believe that we are about to die if President Bush doesn't get his way. We aren't rushing home from the office hoping our spouse hasn't been shot in the head in the living room. The parking structure at work doesn't really have explosives wired to it, set to go off right before rush hour starts. The only reason we continue to "believe" we are in danger from this unknown source is because our very own Administration is using the intimidation and coercion portion of the blueprint for terrorism now that the masterminds have carried out the violent part. How long will we be terrorized before we finally move on and leave George W. Bush and anyone else that utilizes it behind the way he's left Osama bin Laden behind? Remember that guy?
posted by yturks 
