The short of it is, 9/11 to me marks a day when I felt betrayal by my fellow Americans. The majority of reactions to the attacks were ones that did not inspire feelings of patriotism or unity in me. While there were cases of people showing the highest level of human behavior, such as those who risked their health and lives by going into the buildings and rubble to attempt to save others, what I remember most from 9/11 was the worst examples of human behavior. I remember people commenting on how “we should nuke the towel heads” and “bomb Afghanistan back into the stone age.” I remember going to an open mike the following day where my former husband mocked middle eastern/ arabic names. On 9/11, I was furious at the reactions I had already been hearing. I aimlessly drove, ending up at a convenience store run by a man who I knew was going to be suffering the ignorance that blasted Muslims after the attacks.

Then the flags went up. Even preschoolers understood that what was happening was the peer pressure/gang mentality that teachers always tried to get us to stand against during junior high. “You’re with us, or you’re against us. Now tie a damn flag on your car.”

I did not believe this was appropriate then, and it still is not. Sept. 11th showed what happens when people ignore their ability to use reasoning and intellect. It showed what life is like when people are driven purely by emotion and desires for revenge. This is not something to be proud of.

As the planes hit the towers and the Pentagon–let’s not forget the Pentagon, which was not evacuated despite the clear and present dangers–the wheels of exploitation started to turn. How can we exploit the fear that people have? How can we exploit their thirst for blood? Television stations did not air commercials for days because by rolling the same footage over and over, they were airing one larger commercial for politicians–they were selling us war.

I’m waiting for the lessons of 9/11 to start showing themselves, but I should probably exhale. This summer, 3/4 of a family was tortured and murdered in Cheshire. Instead of using the justice system for a reasonable course of action, the broader media published gruesome and unnecessary-for-the-public details, which hinders the possibility of a fair trial. Today the Courant ran more of this tripe. They do not declare bias up front, but go ahead and practice advocacy journalism. They print tripe and call it news. And the people of Connecticut are not responding with any more reason. I hear, coming from both politicians and regular folks, calls for GPS tracking systems, death penalty (including people who want a “hanging” and a firing squad), and a three-strikes law, even though none of these things are necessarily deterrents to criminals. Even though none of those things would bring back the dead. Even though our prisons are overcrowded and those bothering to look at why that might be the case are routinely marginalized. Every year I have students talk about how CT is a “blue state” or “too liberal.” Where are these so-called liberals at? Or are we now fully crossed over to Clinton-style liberalism, which is really just the same as the Right, but with abortion rights?

I’m not optimistic about where “middle America” is right now. That it’s taken SIX years for the average person to start even questioning the government’s response to 9/11 says something about our level of fear, unwillingness to seek out information and facts, or the nation’s sheer stupidity.

There is an event tonight about “Patriotic Dissent.” On Sunday, the annual Hope Out Loud festival exemplified just that. And while I’m feeling surly, nobody “died for our right to protest.” That right is actually written into the Constitution. If our right to protest and speak out has ever been threatened, it’s right now, by our own government.