You missed out Christian Fundamentalists…

I don’t know how to respond to your post as I have no idea where you’re coming from. You’ve obviously had a rough five years. I hope the scars that were created during that time start to heal. It seems we all need healing, really.

rob -

I don’t claim to be a centrist, nor have I ever had the need to make myself feel like a centrist, liberal, or a conservative. That was a perplexing thing for you to say.

It makes me sad that that people see and use 9/11 as a political issue. We’ve really lost our way.

“For many generations, it’s the day that changed everything.” just does not make sense.

“For many generations to come, it will be the day that changed everything.”

I agree, in exactly the same way as was said of Pearl Harbour, Dresden, Coventry and Hiroshima.

Monica, I am so glad that you said “19 men”, rather than “Islam” or a similar aggregation.

I want to think of a positive; something that can still emerge from the ashes of 9/11. Memories in brick and steel and concrete and death are not the greatest memorials that can be fashioned. The memory of the lives that are cut short should be the greatest mover.

I hope, perhaps against all hope, that there will be a lesson learned.

That lesson is the realisation that not one of us on this planet is immune nor protected from the actions of others; no matter who they might be or what action they might take; no matter what justification or rationale might be given; no matter how right we might be told they are, or how wrong.

That lesson is the realisation that every action we take – as individuals, as families, as nations – will impact in some small way on the lives of everyone else on this planet; for good or for not; miniscule or global.

There are consequences to every action.

I also read your post earlier where you blamed both parties for turning 911 into a “polictical wedge issue”. I don’t find that credible. That may make you feel centrist, but it doen’t make it true.

And if you think I’m being harsh I’m tired of spending the last five years being called an “appeaser” or an “enabler” or a “terrorist-lover” or “un-american” by a party whose support of Bush and his failed policies does not preclude kicking half of our citizens in the teeth everytime we open our mouths. And the worst part is we are always right and they are the ones always lying. Their only response is to attack fellow Americans – it’s all they’ve got since they certainly haven’t gone after the real killers. (”You know, I just don’t think about him much…He’s just not that important.” Bush on Bin Laden, 2002)

So you don’t think about how 19 men boarded planes and committed mass murder? You only think of Bush and partisan politics? That’s truly sad.

I hope all are doing as well as they can today. I know it’s a rough one.

But most importantly, I’ll never forget the sense of pain I felt once the conservatives stole this day from us, and turned it into a wrath of ungodliness that my children and grandchildren will pay forever more…