Well everyone else is. And this is supposed to be a way for me to look back and get perspective.

Five years ago today I was lifting at the gym. As I looked over to the cardio area I could see the joggers and elliptictal-ers chattering with one another as the watched the overhead televisions—unprecedented at that time of the morning when folks are very serious and focused.

I wandered back to view the TV and saw the first tower on fire on some random cable money channel. Weird. As we stood around and watched for another 30 minutes the TV announcers started their initial round of random speculation: It’s a bomb, electrical fire, alien microwave beams, etc etc. Then one of them said “we just heard it might have been a plane”… humm.
I grabbed my shit and headed home where I flipped my own TV on. Over the course of the next several hours I saw a plane crash into the second tower. I saw people falling from the top of the tower. I saw a scorched hole in the side of the pentagon. I saw the tower fall. I heard about a plane crash in Pennsylvania. I heard the airports close down.

And I waited for the bombs to fall.

The next day I went to work. As we sat around the office not getting anything done, the booms started—so loud the windows shook and the cement floor vibrated. My stomach clenched and bile rose in my mouth. I was instantly terrified. It was happening. The terrorists were had come for the financial jewel of the western United States. We were going to die as they wiped out the Transamerica Pyramid, the Bank of America building, and the Golden Gate Bridge.

In 2001 San Francisco was doing major earthquake retrofitting to freeways. Like us, the construction crews had decided to go back to work—mainly consisting of pile driving. The booms were just the sound of folks getting back to work. The booms started and stopped all day until my nerves were frayed and I went home. I curled up on my sofa and turned on the TV, switching between CNN, MSNBC, ABC News, Fox News. I don’t think I turned it off for a month. I saw Rudy Giuliani take control. I saw Bush become relevant. I saw “journalists” speculate wildly about every terror scenario under the sun. I saw Bin Laden and Al Qaida, I saw a terror alert system that ranged from green to red. So easy to understand how bad things were when it was red all the time. My panic level only dropped at night when I dropped off to sleep.

Sustained exposure to their 24 hour sociopathic manipulation of my emotions for their ratings gave me a new perspective. In a single instant I visualized the scope of deceit in the main stream media. While there was diversity in reporting at first, the speed at which they focused in on The Party Approved Message Of The Day was terrifying. The media was colluding with government to ensure that the entire United States heard a unified message of panic.

• March of 2003, Bin Laden was still at large in Afghanistan, but for some reason the President declared war on Iraq.
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• April, I saw Jessica Lynch get rescued (This was later proven a hoax—her captors had left her in the care of a hospital where she was resting prior to her “rescue”).
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• May, I saw a statue of Saddam Hussein get pulled down in a public square in Baghdad (I would learn a year later that this was staged by the army. With video footage to prove it.)
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• Later that same month I saw Bush stand on an aircraft carrier and declare “Mission Accomplished” (with a ridiculous banner to prove it.), then the lies about WMDs
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• Then there was the secret visit to Baghdad to have fake turkey with the troops—he was caught staging that incident just days after the fact.
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• December, the economy was as dark as anyone could imagine it being, and the president appeared to be incompetent, lying, or both. No one wanted to leave their homes much less spend non-existent money on Christmas presents.

Thank goodness Saddam Hussein was captured just in time to provide a much needed boost to holiday sales.

In 2004 the Iraqi Civil War was full tilt boogie. Suicide bombings happen hourly. Folks from any country that support the United States are captured and beheaded in tapes sent to Al Jazeera.

Allegations and graphic photos demonstrating a shocking array of torture techniques perpetrated on Iraqi prisoners of war by United States military are surfaced by the NYT. THey had shamefully held these back for a year, but that didn’t stop the entire Bush administration from crying TRAITORS! In September, the UN declares the war in Iraq illegal.

In November of 2004, Bush was reelected. No one was surprised. Less than a week later, he bombed the fuck out of Fallujah to try to stop the Civil war he still denied was happening. He used mustard and nerve gas that melts flesh from children’s dead bodies.

I can’t even write about this anymore. I had intended to write a semi funny/poignant anecdote about nearly shitting my pants because of construction work on September 12, and instead I gave myself an insta-ulcer.

I’ll close by saying that I remember and honor the folks that died in the attacks on the Twin Towers on September 11 2001. I remember and honor the police and firemen who died as a result of that day. I remember and honor our dead soldiers who died fighting a useless and trumped up War on Terror, and I honor those who are still there. They shouldn’t be there. They don’t deserve that.

Who wants to bet that Osama bin Laden will be found somewhere around September of 2008?