September 11th is a day that will live in infamy. And by that, I'm not just talking about the Islamic terrorist attacks that occurred that day.
Because despite the horrific nature of the attacks and the thousands of innocent people who died, that wasn't the worst part. We have perservered through everything the fundamentalist Muslims have thrown at us... so far. But what we haven't survived is what came AFTER the attacks that day.
That being the start of the federal surveillance state, which began with the so called "Patriot Act". The beginning of the era of fear, which continues to this day.
I admit that at the beginning, when I was still naive enough to have at least some trust in both our federal government and the mainstream media, that I was supportive of the act. We were assured that the only ones being targeted by the act were "overseas terrorists", whose phone conversations were being monitored. Maybe that's how it started. But with the word "terrorist" being tossed around so loosely nowadays, including parents who are concerned about their children being indoctrinated in their schools, it makes me wonder who else is being monitored by our own government. But I digress.
But in short, it's our fear of death that's the reason we tolerate all this, all under the illusion that we're being "kept safe". The worst part is that this is all routine now. People forget about how relaxed our security used to be before the attacks.
When it comes to the "war on terror", the fundamentalist Muslims have already won that war. It isn't how many of us they kill that matter to them, it's altering our lives in ways so that we constantly live in fear. That's the real goal... and they've succeeded.
And it all started on September 11th, 2001.