25 Years

Today is the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington. It is being remembered throughout the land in various ways. At least some of the scum in charge of this country are remembering it the old fashioned way - with bigotry and ignorance. But haters gotta hate, after all. The rest of us, mostly, seem to be treating it with dignity and respect.

I suppose in a way it's become just another memorial - that's not a bad thing. Get past the political strife and talk about the victims, the heroes, our ability to come together again. I used to write about it every year - usually to lament our failures in the aftermath. How we let bad actors use it as an excuse to wage useless wars; how we accepted a vastly increased police state and security apparatus. That's all still true, I suppose - it's not hard to see the line from 9/11 and the Patriot Act to Flock cameras and ICE. It's all true, yes, but it's been a long time - we have had plenty of chances to change things, and it's not just what happened to the trade towers that brought us to the bad things we have today. Trump and his regime are the result of other failures - of doubling down on racism, sexism, homophobia to create a genuinely fascist movement. The security state and endless wars are in the mix, but they might not be as primary as they seemed to be back in 2006, say.

So here we are. 25 years. The last time I posted anything on the anniversary was on the 20th Anniversary 5 years ago - blame general lack of posting, yes, but it's also become less salient to everyday life. And I have said more or less everything I might have to say about it. I did all the political raving long ago, and even if it is still true and relevant, it is not something I need to repeat the time. I wrote more about my own experiences in 2021, watching it all from Boston, not knowing what was going to happen next. I don't have much to add to that. Maybe something about how everyone tries to find a connection to a big horrible event like this, as if it doesn't seem real unless you can imagine yourself part of it. That's an odd trait, but not a bad one, really. Human beings need to feel part of things - we need to take on some part of other people's pain. We empathize in spite of ourselves, even if it takes on some strange forms. Human beings are not all bad, in the end.

So these days, we remember the victims, we remember the heroes. Even our own sense of pain and trauma might be fading somewhat - we've talked about that, we can move on. It's becoming more impersonal, but also, I think, more human, We are thinking more about other people - about the ones who suffered directly, about the ones who acted. We think about the aftermath more in terms of how the people there suffered - Mamdani's release of records of the event, including information about the ongoing health risks from he attacks, is part of this. We make it into a more human scaled event.

I think that is for the best. It was a horrible day; it ushered in a period of horror; it justified some very bad things. It was, for a while, a focal point for political battles in the country. Now? the politics has moved on, I think - we don't have to worry about it as much.

I don't have to worry about it as much, anyway. Politics in 2026 is pretty awful, but the causes and effects are elsewhere. Today is a good day to remember the lost, remember the heroes, embrace our fellow Americans and try to live our lives.