[PLUG-TALK] Where I was on 9/11/2001

[Paul Heinlein]

On Sat, 11 Sep 2021, Keith Lofstrom wrote:

> I learned about the Twin Towers attack in a motel room in Sunnyvale.

I was on the rowing machine in the gym on the first floor of the US 
Bank tower in downtown PDX. The room had four smallish TV sets mounted 
on the front wall; from my vantage point, I could make out the images 
but not any text. I don't wear headphones while rowing, so I had no 
audio either.

One of the four TVs cut to one of the towers on fire, and I thought it 
was bad, but bad in a normal sort of way. Over the next several 
minutes, the networks showing on the other TVs gradually cut to the 
towers. At some point, a second plume of smoke appeared on the 
screens.

It wasn't until I got to the locker room that the other early-morning 
regulars told me what happened. I wasn't able to read anything about 
it until I got to the office.

I had a sick feeling in my stomach all day long. I remember staring at 
doorframes and out the windows a lot.

My own assessment is that America had the chance to meet the challenge 
with strength, but in general we responded more with fear. Over time, 
fear morphed into recrimination, and the fear thereof, which in part 
resulted in the travesty that has been the so-called War on Terror.

The toll on civil liberties, the costs paid by the increasingly small 
minority of American families that enlist in the military, the 
expensive increase in DHS bureaucracy, the hatred experienced by 
non-white Americans, and our acceptance of the abject congressional 
refusal to do its job and set sane strictures on military 
interventions overseas -- these are but a few legacies of our fearful 
response.

-- 
Paul Heinlein
heinlein at madboa.com
45.38° N, 122.59° W