The Day We All Became "Folks"
It was a beautiful sunny morning. I arose early and looked outside anticipating a gorgeous day with a powder blue sky. The previous day's headlines were consumed with the faltering economy, plunging stock market and vast fiscal corruption and mismanagement at the Pentagon, but today I was focused on the weather and getting outside for some needed activity instead of brooding inside my apartment. That is until I clicked on CNN News and was stunned to hear a small plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I watched the fire burn from my safe apartment and wondered how the NYC firemen would reach that height to extinguish the fire. I worried about the people inside the skyscraper and the other citizens who were tasked to rescue them and put out the fire. The was some banter on the news about whether the crash was terrorism and within a minute or two on camera, a huge jet crashes into the opposite twin tower engulfing it in flames. In the infinite wisdom of the newscaster both crashes could now be ascribed to terrorism. I was seized and captivated by the horror and the pathetic helplessness of that day. Word soon followed that the Pentagon was also struck by a plane. Then false rumors started of bombings of the Washington mall and other locations. There was no guidance or instruction by government as how to proceed. One's mind became cluttered and overwhelmed by the magnitude and the horrific price in blood exacted by supposedly a few men on each plane with box cutters. It was so surreal how facts came pouring in and could not be processed. How did they know the identities of the hijackers so fast and that they were working for Osama Bin Laden? Wouldn't it have been wise to remove these men before the planes took off if such information was known prior? Illogical connections abounded that paled before the sight of both towers imploding into their footprints. I personally mourned for my fellow citizens who perished in the attack. I could not watch television because of the disgusting replays of people falling to their deaths after jumping and the video of the planes hitting the towers again and again. I had to do something and volunteered to hand out gear for first responders, much of which was food and medical. The men and women who came back from the disaster scene were mainly looking for new boots, not medical gear. You either made it out of the building or you perished in them. Nevertheless, it felt good to be able to help in some small way rather than just be depressed. I believe everyone was waiting for a response from President Bush and we feared what sort of global conflagration was about to erupt. I personally assumed the speech would be something like Franklin Roosevelt's after the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor.
When President Bush had finally reached his secured bunker after zigzagging across the country in his doomsday plane, he delivered this lackluster response to the terrorist attack that had killed and injured thousands of American citizens.
Folks? These were terrorists that killed almost three thousand people. Since that speech, a number of irrational moves were made by a government tasked with killing a fly with a sledge hammer. Most of the hijackers on the plane were of Saudi Arabian nationality, yet no action was taken against Saudi Arabia other than to allow their nationals to fly out of the country including members of Bin Laden's family swiftly and with minimal if any interrogation. Afghanistan was invaded to bring about the capture or killing of Bin Laden. Iraq was bombed and occupied on the pretext of clandestine involvement and then on supposed attempt to procure nuclear technology. Torture became official American policy and abuse was covered up. Meanwhile there was little to no dissent about a government running amok. Official government surveillance on American citizens increased and censorship became the regular policy in business, education and politics. And everywhere I went I kept hearing that word Bush used to describe the terrorists, "folks." I heard it on television all the time when used in the place of the word "citizen." Now just like the terrorists, we all had become what is defined as an "enemy combatant" in military jargon. We were considered guilty until proven innocent. It was ok to stop and frisk us, shoot to kill us if we had a shiny and possibly threatening object, electro torture us, detain us by means of choke hold, assassinate us by government decree or confiscate our money or possessions due to suspicion of some crime or even the thought of a potential crime. I remember the old movies and how the police used to shout, "Stop! Put your hands up! And drop the gun slowly..." Now the police will blast you for anything from a cellphone in your pocket to goofing around with a toy gun in Walmart. We are not citizens anymore. We are "folks." We are not even entitled to our own borders anymore because our so called government is letting "folks" from every country in the world walk right across into the United States unimpeded while we do not get the same right to just step into Canada or Mexico and claim government benefits or asylum. But as "folks" we are supposed to just grin and bear it, not take action like the freedom and justice loving Americans we were told we were in the past. Somehow we lost the rights and our heritage. Now old statues are being hauled away because they represent our sordid history. So we forget what being a citizen is and how one should be treated. And we just allow that to happen as well. We became "folks" along the way.
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