Thomas Friedman: 9/11 Is Over
"I will not vote for any candidate running on 9/11. We don’t need another president of 9/11. We need a president for 9/12. I will only vote for the 9/12 candidate.What does that mean? This: 9/11 has made us stupid. I honor, and weep for, all those murdered on that day. But our reaction to 9/11 — mine included — has knocked America completely out of balance, and it is time to get things right again."
To be honest, I don't even recognize America's greatness anymore. The American dream is so mired in greed and pop-culture that it's become such a bastard. The people "we" look up to are often the most trashy and vile people around. We've completely forgotten about the poor and less fortunate, maybe because you can't see someone knocked to the ground by life from the windows of your oversized Hummer. We treat people as if they're some super-human threat to national security; that a false-sense of security forces us to remove our shoes or be unable to carry a backpack on a ferry.
America is still great, but many of the reasons it once was so wonderful are now dead; replaced by corporate monoliths, greed and selfishness, and a culture that is willing to whore out all that it comes in contact with. We watch crap on tv, we buy crap from crappy corporations, we consume utterly vile manufactured crap, and we don't really give a crap.
It's just sad, really.
Comments
9/11 is a fading memory as 12/7 is or Pearl Harbor Day. It is sad that we are doomed to repeat history but that is the meaning of the old testament book written by Soloman so many years ago that life is meaningless. It gives one pause to wonder about global warmings impact as Al Gore postulates - the rivers run into the oceans, but the oceans never fill. It is the same yesterday as it is today. If America was soo bad, why are we flooded with legal as well as illegal immigrants. Thinkaboutit. At the end of life, did you make a difference? Naw, the earth would have turned without you.
Posted by: Herb Wright at October 2, 2007 10:22 AM
Good thoughts. We're covering the first chapters of Genesis this season in my church. This is something I wrote down from a sermon on Genesis 5 two days ago:
The earth, and we along with it, will be saved not by the overachieving and violent ambition of Cain's family line, but by the humble, simple, and unsophisticated way of life of Seth and his descendents---a people whose only accomplishment worth writing about is that they prayed and lived their lives in such a way that they produced someone about whom they can say, "She walked with God," or "His life was characterized by an uncommon intimacy with the maker."
Posted by: James at October 2, 2007 03:37 PM