Safety
This, I think, is the day I want to remember. It's September 10th, and if I squint, I can remember what it felt like, not to fear terrorists, but to fear my government's use of them to further its agenda. That, indeed, is an agenda, not that which is ascribed to gays, to feminists, to Muslims. On September 10th, 2001, I could not believe my country would take the murders of 2, 798 Americans and use it cynically to tell lies, to seize power, to further a religious agenda. Without the murders of 9/11, I doubt they would have tried so blatantly and so successfully.

Do you fear terrorists? Or are you told to fear? We live in a climate of fear now, yet the fact is, the major attacks of the past five years have all been on foreign soil, not here in America. Terrorism is a fact of life. On September 11th, to be brutally honest, the US for the first time experienced what other nations have long endured: terrorism on our soil, terrorism that succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of the terrorists.

The point is simple: they will not try that soon, so why can't we learn to live again? They look upon this country and gloat, because they have had so much of an effect on it. Not the least of which is the misbegotten war on Iraq, which Bush has admitted did not have anything to do with 9/11. Where, then, are the reparations, the acknowledgements, the ceasefire? We were told four years ago that Iraq had conspired with terrorists. We went to war with a country that had nothing to do with this tragedy---and in so doing, inflicted a tragedy upon them. Is this the way one honors one's dead?

The victims of September 11th were young and old, black, white, Jewish, Xtian, and Muslim. One of the guys on United 93, the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania, was a gay Jewish man---on his way to the wedding of a friend of his, a Muslim.

Americans who happen to be Muslims---or just look like them---now have to cope with bigotry and suspicion from the sort of poeple who usually cry, "But you can't hate all men!" at feminists. They don't apply their own standards. How many Muslims are there in the world, and how many participated in 9/11? How many more mourned the dead, lit candles, and said their own prayers for their own dead, their own hopes, their own fears? We have transferred our fears to others, made others suffer with us. Is this truly how we should honor those victims?

Almost three thousand people died that day, and thousands more have died since. The way to honor them is not to kill more, but to live more, to try more, to remember who we are and what we believe in, not what we are told we should fear. Lies, propaganda, deception----these are not the appropriate memorials to the dead, both here and on foreign soil. There has been much talk about honoring the dead, betraying the troops, and letting the terrorists win. The minute our fear let us follow our leaders blindly into war, then the terrorists did win over us, because they frightened us enough to abandon our goals.

So tonight is the anniversary of the last day we were the people who had no fear, and I hope tomorrow is the first day where people stand up and recognize that courage is not made up of lack of fear, but of the presence of it----and of hope, persistance, and fortitude. We are the mutts of the world, made up of every religion, every faith, every color, every flaw and every strength, and now is the time to draw on all those things and recognize that for all our differences, we have in common some important things; our humanity, and our belief in democracy. We might be scared, but we cannot allow ourselves to be led as we have been. We might be frightened, suspicious, and confused, but those things can be alleviated if we only reach inside and remember who we once were.

So, tonight, I'm not thinking of war and death and tragedy. I'm thinking of the past five years, and remember Mom and my long-gone little house in Minneapolis, of the crazy drug addict room mate, of the evenings spent on the porch, and the days spent working long hours with crazy coworkers. I'm going to think of the internet and the friends I've met there---and even the occasional enemy, if they're entertaining enough. I'm going to think of Babylon and Rania, of the long golden fields of Iraqi sunflowers, of the women in bright dresses waving at us shyly from behind high gates. I'm going to think not of nightmares, but of dreams, and not of war, but of the simple peace of midnight, when the clock will turn and I will think, not just of the 2,798 deaths that day, but of the others who have since died and who must be mourned and remembered. This is indeed what the terrorists done. Tomorrow, though, we need to begin thinking about what we are, and what we can do, and what we must do. This is how you fight a war on terrorism: with the desire to stop others from suffering what one has.

Thus far, we have failed.