I don’t get 9/11. That’s not to say I don’t understand much of the events that led up to it, the how and why it happened. I simply don’t understand the sentimental patriotic uproar that followed.

I was in New York City on September 10, 2001. We were playing a show in Brooklyn that night. Like all my visits to New York, I made a point of visiting my good friend from Mississippi, John. We were driving into Manhattan across the Brooklyn Bridge and saw the World Trade Center. We started talking about the attempted bombing in 1993 which had intended to blow the foundation out of one tower, knocking it into the other. We both remarked that the towers must be indestructible.

The show ended up going late, we considered staying in Brooklyn, but at the last minute I decided to make the drive back to Providence and go to my awful job the next day. I got two hours of sleep, went to work and found out that the towers were, in fact, destructible.

The reaction on the east coast was nothing short of reprehensible. Mass mobilization of military units into downtown Providence to protect the Raytheon headquarters downtown. Drunken fools chanting “USA” harassing people who appeared “Arab.” The televised arrest of a Sikh man from the Commuter Rail for having a turban and carrying a “deadly weapon.”

The worst, though, was watching the shock on people’s faces as though their own homes had been attacked. For New Yorkers, this reaction would be entirely justified. Outside of New York, I’m not sure why the reaction would be anything other than concern. This same reaction among the so-called counter culture types was also very surprising. Call me shallow.

My passport is blue and it’s quite convenient for travel and wage earning. I believe in the US as a political ideology (constitutional representative democracy) and am quite proud to be an American because we do lots of cool and good things. Though I’m empathetic with the victims, it’s hard for me to get teary eyed at the thought of an attack by an international terrorist group known to be searching for big targets.

Americans weren’t fazed when the Kenyan and Tanzanian embassies were attacked in 1998, perhaps because few Americans died. The majority of the victims (Kenyans) were guilty of nothing more than earning a pay check and were sadly caught in America’s international problems.

Mostly, Americans, who viewed 9/11 as an act of war, are oblivious to the ongoing economic war against the poor and marginalized that occurs within their own borders every single day.

In contrast to vile, socialist enclaves such as a Canada, the age of death of an American is directly correlated with his or her annual income. Minorities die earlier. Indigenous peoples are among the unhealthiest in the entire country. Our decentralized and localized education “system” ensures that the poor have few opportunities for advancement. The slow death of the union insures that wages are low and benefits non-existent.

Though the two issues (9/11 and the US’s structural issues) are unrelated (and this post is way off in space), I would ask those reflecting sadly on 9/11, take the time to reflect on what needs to be fixed in the United States. If there is a tear to be shed, it’s for more than 3,000 people who fell victim to a international band of murderous thugs who profited politically from the act. It’s for the millions who fall victim every day to a multitude of equally dangerous and self-interested groups.