As another year passes, I successfully avoided reliving the trauma of 9/11. CNN tried to show me the burning buildings and run a "recap" of what happened on that fateful day. Luckily, I was able to get out of earshot.
The truth is that, as much as the events of 9/11 ought to be recalled for the profound sacrifice and human tragedy that they engendered, they have also become a touchstone for a profoundly politicized and misconceptualized "war on terror".
TREASURE, TOO
And what is missing from so many of the missives, given today by political luminaries on both sides of the isle, is that Americans are still paying the price for that day. $12 billion dollars a month, with cumlative totals to likely to top $20-$25,000 for every household (or $9-10,000 per capita).
The GOP raises taxes all the time, by spending money. They just don't collect them.
READINESS QUOTIENT
And it is hard-to-say whether the nation as a whole is more prepared now than they were seven years ago for the challenge of global terror, despite being much poorer.
To be sure, we have specialists and technocrats and a cogniscenti who are now more able to grasp the dimensions of the real threat and even debate soundly the merits of alternative approaches.
But, within the nation at large, I'd say that the jury is out on whether the central, moral challenge of terrorism could be or has been aptly met. We continue to have poor leadership on the issue, clouded as it is in the militaristic morass that the present Administration served up to deal with it primarily and by their party, who now feel obligated to defend that sordid history (at least until it is "over").
The truth is that, as much as the events of 9/11 ought to be recalled for the profound sacrifice and human tragedy that they engendered, they have also become a touchstone for a profoundly politicized and misconceptualized "war on terror".
TREASURE, TOO
And what is missing from so many of the missives, given today by political luminaries on both sides of the isle, is that Americans are still paying the price for that day. $12 billion dollars a month, with cumlative totals to likely to top $20-$25,000 for every household (or $9-10,000 per capita).
The GOP raises taxes all the time, by spending money. They just don't collect them.
READINESS QUOTIENT
And it is hard-to-say whether the nation as a whole is more prepared now than they were seven years ago for the challenge of global terror, despite being much poorer.
To be sure, we have specialists and technocrats and a cogniscenti who are now more able to grasp the dimensions of the real threat and even debate soundly the merits of alternative approaches.
But, within the nation at large, I'd say that the jury is out on whether the central, moral challenge of terrorism could be or has been aptly met. We continue to have poor leadership on the issue, clouded as it is in the militaristic morass that the present Administration served up to deal with it primarily and by their party, who now feel obligated to defend that sordid history (at least until it is "over").
