Why are Americans so ridiculously paranoid? There are examples every day of how we hypersensitive we are, like a kid afraid of the dark. College football coaches don't want prop planes flying overhead (the ones that carry the banners) because they are actually afraid someone will take over the planes and crash them into the stadium. We have "terrorist" watches around the neighborhood, asking people to spy on their peers, being ever vigilant for "suspicious activity."
In our private lives, we load ourselves down with guns, car alarms, security systems, self-defense seminars, insurance for everything we own, and pension plans richer than some small countries. Not a day goes by when you don't hear of some elderly person being taken advantage of on the local news. We spend all of our time shopping for more things, and then spend even more time protecting it. We exist through the things that we purchase -- we are defined by our materials, and we covet what we do not have. Personal crime would not exist were it not for this simple fact.
So is it exaggerated materialism which brought on September 11th? Were the events of the day merely a manifestation of our own unabashed desire to have everything we could possibly want? Is our paranoia about the world around us just a way of "protecting our stuff"?
Sure, in some ways it's more than that. We value ourselves and our loved ones. But we are willing to sacrifice them for our way of life, through war against nobody in particular. We love having everything that we want to, from fast food to fast cars. There is no end in sight as we are a country that gets fatter and richer every day, at the expense of the rest of the world.
It would indeed be gloomy if this were the end of the argument. However, there are many things that are going right in the country. Americans are finally seeing how desperate the world HIV/AIDS situation is, and how much the USA can help out. The rapid development of fuel cells and the infrastructure beneath them will not only reduce our dependence upon oil, but will clean up the earth. It seems that our government is finally starting to see that Israel and Palestine are just two sides of the same old, battered coin and that supporting Israel is simply racism. We didn't send a delegate to the summit in Johannesburg, but anti-American demonstrations are getting more and more press.
We are finally realizing just how other-worldly our lives are as Americans. Maybe this incredible sense of paranoia is just a product of people being reticent to admit it, trying to stay a victim of tragedy for as long as possible. We have to take the last step, and just wake up.
So this 9/11, let's not harken back to a year ago, but instead concentrate on becoming a part of the world again, with our arms open wide. Let's realize that belligerence only spawns hatred, and that paranoia only creates isolation. The newly crowned "Patriot Day" should be a day for realizing our humble place in the world.
Only a few weeks later, I'll be finding mine.
