At the time of the attacks, I had been living in this country for just under 18 months having moved to Boston from Ottawa the previous year.
On the day of the attacks, it was the fourth day of a new job I had started working for a non-profit vocational rehabilitation agency in Lynn, Massachusetts, a few miles north of Boston.
As it happened, the organization was having a company picnic at their headquarters in Beverly about another 10 miles north. It was during the drive from Lynn to Beverly that we learned what had happened listening to Peter Jennings on the radio. Under the circumstances, it was far from a festive mood belying a beautiful sunny afternoon.
The picnic was cut short. I spent some time walking around the shore trying to make sense of things taking a little comfort at the sight of a beautiful woman tanning on the beach apparently without a care in the world.
That evening, I walked from Boston to Cambridge up Mass Avenue to attend the open mike at Club Passim in Harvard Square and a read a poem. The crowd was sparse. But I wanted to be out and about. I wanted to live my life. I wasn't denying what had happened. Just the opposite. What had happened was all the more reason to exercise my freedom.
But it was at Club Passim where I would get rumblings of conspiracy theories of the act being an inside job accompanied by the pillorying of President Bush. It left a bad taste in my mouth.
At the time, I still identified as a democratic socialist. But I was so turned off by the anti-American and anti-Israel rhetoric that my politics turned rightward. By 2003, I was writing for conservative websites and by the end of the decade, I had begun writing for The American Spectator.
Then just over a decade ago, along came Donald Trump who claimed he saw thousands of Muslims cheering on the attacks. And we elected Trump President. I wanted no part of Trump and The American Spectator didn't want anyone who wasn't all aboard the Trump Train. So, I parted ways with them and have never regretted the decision.
After all, Trump is still lying about 9/11. Scarcely 72 hours ago, Trump claimed he was at Ground Zero and was escorted away by two firemen because they thought the building would collapse. Despite the lie, there are no doubt millions of Americans who will take him at his word. Because we elected him President again. You can indeed fool some of the people all of the time.
While my political perspective has moved leftward over the past decade, it will never return to the democratic socialism I espoused in my teens and twenties. For people like Minnesota Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar the attacks of September 11, 2001 were nothing more than "some people did something". 9/11 is something to be minimized. Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is happy to speak alongside 9/11 conspiracy theorists. Then there are deleted tweets such as this one:
Today, I mourn the 3K lives, 6K injuries, & infrastructural devastation in NYC, perpetuated ignorantly in the name of my faith. Tomorrow, I'll mourn ~1M lives, millions of injuries, & infrastructural devastation in 3 countries, perpetuated ignorantly in the name of my country.
El-Sayed is essentially saying that those who served in the U.S. military are morally equivalent to al-Qaeda. This I cannot abide or accept.
The fact that El-Sayed is prepared to share a stage with 9/11 conspiracy theorists means he is working to absolve al Qaeda for their actions. He and those who support him are no better than someone like Trump who lies writ large about Muslims while engaging in stolen valor.
To borrow a phrase from Stealers' Wheel there are "clowns to the left me, jokers to the right". Simply put, I am surrounded by morons. As I get older, I am more inclined to trust my own counsel than accept the words of charlatans and demagogues. In so doing, I accept the fact that we haven't learned much and will probably never truly understand the consequences of the events of September 11, 2001. Frankly, many of us don't want to learn or understand.
I shudder to think how our knowledge and understanding will further diminish on the 50th anniversary of the darkest day in American history come September 11, 2051. That is assuming I am still inhaling and exhaling five days before my 79th birthday.
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