I will always remember my shocked amazement as I stood in the office of the Politics Department at
Whitman College, watching as television news repeated over and over the image of the
first World Trade Center tower in flames after being struck by an
airliner.  And then, the images of
a second airliner hitting the second tower, indicating this was no accident or
act by a single crazed person. 
Later the image of the buildings collapse was unforgettably seared into my mind.  At that time we
were all Americans first, and the political, cultural, and religious
distinctions with which we usually identified sank into the background.

As I watched the impact I could
almost feel the curtains of flame and destruction that enveloped both
passengers and those who were in their offices that fateful day.

It takes disasters and crimes of
enormous destructiveness to remind us of the larger contexts within which we
live.  When we are reminded,
usually forcibly so, we have an opportunity to grow in wisdom, insight, and
spiritual discernment.  Some people
and cultures do so, and others do not. 
Germany is an example of the first.

Unfortunately the United States
is not.  We learned nothing as a
culture, although many Americans did. 
For a few brief days there was a chance we could learn from this event
to withdraw some from interfering in others’ lands, reduce our reliance on oil
and the huge military apparatus needed to bring it here reliably, as well as
deal with those who attacked us. 
But for most Americans it seems any chance to learn was erased by a presidential directive
to “go shopping” and attend to purely private concerns leaving any larger
context in the hands of incompetents and worse. Larger contexts were obscured by the most narrowly private.

As a culture we now wallow in self-righteousness and antagonism towards others whether they were “old
Europe” and especially the French under the Bush administration, or today’s vicious Islamophobia.  Everyone is to blame
for our difficulties and suffering but us. We are the innocent, surrounded by innumerable enemies.  How many today remember the
thousands of Muslims who stood in the streets of Iran, candles lit, in a living
memorial honoring the victims of those crimes?  The literally world-wide outpouring of support and
sympathy? 

Those old enough to remember and who do not or who make light of it failed in their opportunity to grasp a deeper
humanity.  Instead they settled for the old stale stuff of sectarianism and chauvinism
dressed up as virtue and morality, like a chimpanzee wearing a tuxedo.

I am afraid it will take far
worse to cure many Americans of their national egotism, and the universe will eventually provide
that opportunity.  In our cultural conceit we are living a lie, and deep down many of us know it.  A culture living a lie and blinding itself to reality is a culture headed for disaster.  

We are all
nodes in a web of life and awareness that extends through out this planet, and
for all I know, throughout everything that is. Suffering is a means by which many of us are reminded of this truth.  Those who refuse to learn set the stage for more suffering to come, both those whom they mistreat and oppress, and eventually their own.

I believe it is appropriate that
we remember the victims of that day, but as a country we have lost all right to
feel any national pride or patriotism in how we responded to that terrible
event. Too many Americans followed the wishes and lies of small and vicious men,
committing bigger crimes than the one to which we were subjected. The shades of
100,000 dead Iraqis, men women and children who did nothing to us and whose
government was innocent of involvement, should be memorialized with as much
seriousness as those who died in New York, Washington, and in the Pennsylvania
countryside.  And instead they will
be forgotten or belittled as “collateral damage” in all or nearly all the
speeches and memorials that will occur today.  A day that could have been one of unity in remembrance should now be one of unity in remembrance and shame.