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You’ll All Pay #6

© Joe Conat 2002

That’s what I woke up to today. Every station, running interminable 9/11 remembrance ceremonies with the pompous slogan “The Day America Changed” plastered over a stars and stripes motif.

I almost puked.

Looking around, I don’t see how America has “changed” at all. From the toppling of governments to the ill-advised and seemingly pointless bloodlust against Iraq down to the common man-on-the-street, America looks pretty much the same as it did a year ago, two years ago, a decade ago.

I don’t care how many celebrities you get to rattle off the litany of the dead, how many military brass you get to say things like “heroes” or “martyrs for freedom”, the plain fact is that today is pretty much like any other day and “Patriot Day” is, on its first inception, well on its way to being a media-inflated useless farce.

America hasn’t changed. Despite the commercials to the contrary, I no longer see Old Glory waving proudly from car antennas, front porches or apartment balconies. Our own flag fell off the balcony and it took me three days to notice. The “sense of unity” politicians and media mouthpieces prattle mindlessly about isn’t evident in the guy who threatens to punch me out at Fly Away because my luggage had the audacity to be unloaded before his, or in the jerk-off at 7-11 arguing with the making-minimum-wage clerk over the price of a Big Gulp.

Do you think Dauntless Dickhead at Fly Away would’ve been less obnoxious if I’d turned to him and said “Hey, man…we’re both Americans. Hate is the enemy we should fight, not each other.” No. No, sorry. He might back off because he thought I was insane, but there would’ve been no national-identity camaraderie prompting him to clasp me to his breast in brotherhood and weep.

The killing of thousands at the hands of madmen doesn’t stop the fuckwit in the BMW from cutting me off on the 134 while babbling into his cellphone and reading a paper…all at 70 mph. I don’t think the guy who breezed through the stop sign this morning was doing it because if he was another thirty seconds late to his meeting “the terrorists have already won”.

We’re still just as self-centered, self-involved and selfish as we ever were. We don’t really care about starving kids in Afghanistan. They’ve got a new government now, everything will be fine. I’ll give my coffee money to Sally Struthers and go about feeling like I’ve made a significant change in the world…plus, hey, tax write-off.

We don’t care about the struggle between Palestine and Israel. It’s not us getting the shit kicked out of us every day, it’s a bunch of swarthy fuckers across the world. Fuck ‘em, right? I’ve only got a few minutes to grab a bagel before work, I don’t have the time.

We’ve bullied the world for sixty years, we’ve interfered and then left without follow-up, we’ve played dirty tricks and based our foreign policy on our needs, the needs to fill our faces with Doritos and drive across the street to pick up a six of Pabst, rather than what was right.

And now we have the audacity to act self-righteous and hurt and say “What’d we ever do to you?”

Don’t get me wrong, kids. I still think America’s the greatest nation in the history of the world, and I don’t think that flying 767s into buildings is a viable means of expressing your viewpoints by any stretch of the imagination, but let’s not get caught up in maudlin yet self-congratulatory delusion. We ain’t perfect. We’ve fucked up. We’re gonna pay somehow.

But let’s, perhaps, and this is just off the top of my head, wacky idea I know…let’s choose how we pay. And let’s make a difference in the world.

Let’s try and end the hypocrisy, both nationally and on a personal, individual level. You wanna end terrorism? Okay, stop fucking around. Catch the fuckers, already. Don’t mess around with Iraq…no, don’t start, don’t gimme that “But…” Get your priorities straight. A year ago we stated an intention to go after terrorists globally, to get these guys and show the world that terrorism is not a means by which you can air your grievances. What happened to that?

Maybe I’m overly naïve, but it seems to this humble observer that Stan Lee had it right with Spider-Man: “With great power comes great responsibility”. (Okay, yeah, I know he wasn’t the first to say it, sheesh…) And since America is the richest nation, with the mightiest military force ever…well, dudes, that’s power so we’ve got the responsibility. What do we do with it?

I’m not too clear on that, I must admit. But I’ve got some ideas on what we shouldn’t do with it.

Do not tromp into countries, lay waste to their way of life and leave. When the Russians invaded Afghanistan we “helped” them stave off the “Commie bastards” and then did nothing to follow up. Result? The Taliban and years later a nice, rocky, cave-riddled haven for guys who hate us.

Do not assume everybody wants to be like us. The world is full of rich and well-established cultures dating back tens of thousands of years. Our infant “culture” is not the be-all and end-all of human attainment simply because we like it. I mean, sure, I dig on having a BK down the street and Buffy on the teevee, but that’s not everyone’s thang, you know? Leave it alone.

I think the thing that truly galls me about the “celebrations” today is that they don’t mean anything. Hillary Clinton tossing roses at Ground Zero doesn’t honor anyone. No, sorry. Sorry, it doesn’t. It’s an empty, and probably politically motivated gesture that, in the end, accomplishes nothing. You want to turn this ridiculous “holiday” into something that actually honors our fallen? Okay, let’s start a new tradition, a tradition that won’t necessarily devolve into beers over a barbecue and a sale at Mervyn’s when we would usually be working.

How about on 9/11, we lend the United Nations the service and might of our military and ask the world “Where do you want us to keep the peace?”

How about on 9/11 we invite national leaders with a beef to talk it out, and guarantee they won’t leave until something’s been resolved?

How about on 9/11 we airlift food and medicine to places that truly need it?

How about on 9/11 we make a conscientious definite effort to improve the world?

L’il Bush mouthing ill-spoken platitudes and staring blearily into the television lights doesn’t help the human condition. Some operatic chick in an Air Force uniform singing a truly horrendous Celine-Dion-esque saccharine ode to heroism hasn’t brought peace. And a hunk of granite with the words “To the first citizen heroes of the twenty-first century, The Passengers and Crew of Flight 93 ‘Let’s Roll’” (no shit. “Let’s Roll”. Sounds like a memorial to frat party beer run gone tragically awry) doesn’t assuage the hatred and bring reason to the world. Fuck all that shit, in my opinion. Honoring the dead isn’t a moment of silence…honoring the dead is making sure that more won’t die like they did. I don’t know, maybe I’m crazy.

Fine, erect your monuments and leave your flowers and spare a moment or two of thought for those who lost their lives because a crazy-as-a-shithouse-rat motherfucker’s got a wild hair up his ass. I can accept that, understand it, even take some solace from it myself. But I’m afraid that that’s all we’re going to do. Then we’ll meander back to our Simpsons reruns and nachos and let the truly moronic papa’s boy in the Oval Office make the situation worse.

But if we do, America hasn’t changed. And, though I can state with conviction that the terrorists haven’t won…they haven’t lost, either. They haven’t done a thing.

But they’ll keep trying until they do.

Los Angeles, CA

–9/11/02

“You’ll All Pay” is written by Joe Conat. You can tell him to shut up at conat@martyandgroovechicken.com. He won’t listen, but what the hell, right?