Visiting NYC on 9/11

This city is full of ghosts…

…immortalized in literature and art that has been created here, the imaginations of men in the buildings they made, songs written in NYC, songs about NYC, and countless stories, movies, and TV tales set on these streets.

…not to mention so much of our nation’s history that has occurred here, from inception to today.

I love this place.

Auspiciously, my visit was on Sept 11, the 21st anniversary of the attack.

As we approached ground zero, we heard street preachers on soapboxes declaring the gospel of 9/11 being an inside job.

Another display was maintained by a guy in a poorly fitting suit, slicked back hair, and lots of gold bling around his neck. One piece of that bling was a crystal – he was a spiritual salesman. I could see that 6 days a week, he makes his hustle selling used late model Mercedes Benzes at Louie’s Fine European Pre-Owned Autos… but on the seventh day, he, too, shares information about Building 7 with all who will listen.

There are two reflecting pools that are in the exact places of the original towers that fell. As I stepped up to the edge of one, It was immediately clear that I was standing on a mass grave, a sacred place.

Water falls from one ledge, into a lower level, and then finally into a smaller square pit in the center that appears bottomless. The falling water evokes the falling of the towers and a constant flow of tears for a wound that will never heal.

The place is sacred and peaceful, yet – the ether still reverberates with the screams of horror for those who foresaw their fate, and the shockwave of suffering that emanates from thousands of lives being snuffed out in a fraction of a second upon impact.

We say “Never Forget”, but never forget what, exactly?

That 2,996 people’s lives were taken in a moment? 

That our nation’s most cherished monuments of financial and military dominance were defiled?

Never forget that disturbing phrase of the powerbrokers,

“Never let a good crisis go to waste”,

And never forget that the US government has not let it go to waste.

Never forget your Constitutional Rights that have been eroded year by year, in the name of “fighting terror” and “keeping you safe”, all beginning with The Patriot Act, and continuing to this day.

Never forget the blood that has been spilled waging wars, destroying the lives of even more innocent people, enriching the shareholders of the defense contractors that make up the Military Industrial Complex…. because, 9/11.

Never forget that life is all too short, and that you never know when you are doing something for the final time.

Never forget.