Millennium Apart
July 4, 1976
I was 11 years old. The Bicentennial was a great thing to experience as an 11 year old. What I remember is not only a celebration of National pride, but a celebration of the things 'America stands for'.
We celebrated the two hundredth birthday of the country of freedom of religion and expression, press and assembly. We celebrated the success of a nation birthed in amazing concepts like due process of the law, a representative government, separation of church and state, and a nation by the people and for the people. Concepts that to an American 11 year old in 1976 seemed obvious and eternal, (even if history books made it clear that such concepts were novel and untried in the world at the time of our country's birth) yet well worth cheering about.
Not to mention the fireworks, red white and blue everywhere, and the music - the 1812 Overture and works by John Philip Sousa. It was a wonderful, heady time to be an American child.
Even today, as the cynical adult in me now sees the hokiness and self congratulatory indulgence of it all, part of me is forever the 11 year old - proud to the core of her heritage and the seemingly certain promise of the future that heritage would usher in. I am so lucky to have been an 11 year old child for the Bicentennial.
September 11, 2001
I can say nothing that is not being said today by others, and being said better. But I do want to say this.
First: Something that has bothered me since that day. I hate it that it is referred to as 9/11 and spoken of as "nine eleven". It seems to somehow diminish the events of that day. It feels disrespectful to the blow we took, the physical blow, the loss of life and the blow to the American psyche. Maybe it's silly, Maybe it's "just" semantics, but I just keep remembering FDR's declaration of war speech after Pearl Harbor: "Yesterday, December 7, 1941-a date which will live in infamy..." When you hear or read his speech it is so clear what he was trying to get accross: One very specific day out of all the countless, faceless other mundane days.
It should be: September not 9. Eleventh not 11. 2001 not an any or every year. One. Specific. Day. Emphasis. Gravitas: September, 11, 2001.
(And don't even get me started on the people who say 'nine one one'). Obviously my objection to 9/11 is of no consequence, the phrase is now ingrained in the public psyche. But I just want to go on the record as saying it seems disrespectful and cheap.
Second: What the HELL are we (the American public and 'entertainment' industry) doing- using it as a entertainment fodder for motion pictures and tv?!? Maybe, just maybe something made 20 years from now, say a documentary, but even that I'm not so sure about. But just 5 (count them, one, two, three, four, five) years on?!? As FICTION? DRAMATIZATION? DOCUDRAMA?
Are these bizarre attempts to turn the events of September 11, 2001 into entertainment somehow a function of trying to heal, move on? Psychology students who are versed in grieving - please fill me in. Cause I don't get it.
I. Think. It. Is. Disrespectful. And. Cheap.
Third: As if the level of disrespect and cheapness were not high enough, now I hear about the upcoming propaganda piece 'Path to 9-11'. A politically charged historical fiction piece. A piece of entertainment (if it were a documentary, the makers would call it that, but no, the call it a 'docu-drama' - a fancy word for a work of FICTION based upon real events) titled with the minimalist '9-11' identifier, with a clear politically based message in mind (it's the democrats' fault).
Talk. About. Disrespectful. And. Cheap.
September 11, 2006
I'm not sure why these two days are locked together in my mind right now, I guess it is because I fear that September 11, 2001 was the last day of the country of my childhood - the country of July 4, 1976. The last day of the country of freedom of religion and expression, press and assembly, and the country of due process of law. My country, the one that stood for those values, has been dying ever since - it's lifeblood going down the tubes with every liberty lost and due process ignored for the sake of 'safety'. Those high minded concepts that seemed eternal to my 11 year old self, soon to be just a memory.
As awful as what happened on September 11, 2001 was, it didn't have to go this way. We lost our country when the terrorists performed those horrible inhuman acts on our country and our people. But its not that the terrorists won, no it's that our government gave in by default.
I can't even imagine what it will be like for the children who were 11 years old on September 11, 2001. I feel sorry for them.