Remembering 9/11 on 9/12

I couldn't write about it yesterday, for some reason. On the community site I often visit, I couldn't change my online graphic ID to three American flags yesterday, like so many others did. I couldn't publicly recite exactly what I was doing five years ago (though I definitely remember) to various audiences throughout the day, like so many others did yesterday. I could barely acknowldge any of it yesterday.

It's begun to feel just a bit too much like a Hallmark Day, in my opinion, kind of like what's happened to Pearl Harbor Day. Maybe it's just the Berkeley kid in me, but I believe that, while the raw horror and devastation of that gut-wrenching day brought this country together -- I have never felt so patriotic as in the moments and days surrounding 9/11-- what we have done since that day in the name of "patriotism" (yes, this time in quotes) and how we have dishonored that raw, true and genuine patriotic protectiveness, has been just about unforgiveable. On that day, people all over the world felt our pain and offered their true, heart-felt condolences... but for some disconnected reason, we (as in, our governement... as in our president) felt the need to invade a small country that was, as far as we know, uninvolved in 9/11. Our compassionate friends around the world now looked at us -- and many of us looked at eachother -- baffled and disappointed in what in what we were doing.

And now, five years later and still very much a patriot, I continue to be baffled and disappointed in our actions since that terrible day in September, 2001.