It’s been two years since that fateful day, and I still don’t know how to feel about it. On the one hand it would be insensitive to try and forget it and try and move on; on the other, we have to move on. Thus we are stuck, and in light of this situation, I’m not entirely sure what I’m supposed to think or say.

Big events like this are subjects that you feel you just can’t ignore on your blog, but at the same time there’s something inside of me that wants to say, moving on is the best thing we can do. You can’t fight fire with fire, and my general policy for fighting battles of any kind, is that sometimes it’s better to accept a little loss if it means maintaining your dignity and not stooping down to fight your enemy on their level. When you fight them on their level, they’re going to beat the crap out of you because you’re working on their terms, and when you decided stoop down you’ve given victory to the enemy. Why? Because you’ve embodied the qualities that made them your enemy in the first place.

I remember exactly where I was when I learned about the attack. The principal came on the intercom and told the teachers to turn their televisions on. She used the word pandemonium in a way that I wouldn’t have, and my first thought was, she has to be kidding right? It was mere moments after the second plane hit. I was in English class. We watched the television in the room for several moments after the buildings collapsed, and then we turned the television off and got back to work.

When class let out, the whole school clustered around the television in the lunch room. Everyone was quiet. Because of my schedule that year, I got out of school early, and spent the rest of the day doing the things I normally did. But it wasn’t a normal day.

I remember that my estimate of the death count was fairly accurate, and even then I remember criticizing the tendency towards reactionary patriotism. I remember being cynical.

Last year I said remember the five thousand who died in 2001, but also remember Victor Jara and the people who died in Chile in 1974.

So remember them all, and even though this sounds remarkably like the spewing of individuals whom I find abhorrent: fight for justice, fight for liberty, fight for equality, and fight for freedom, and don’t let anyone’s death be in vain. It’s a good set of goals as long as they’re applied correctly.