In many ways these are very exciting times in America. Throughout the Clinton administration, it always felt like everyone was asleep; success and money and nightclubs and getting laid and other sundry silly, yuppie things (brand-named) seemed to be on everyone’s minds and so if we happened to bomb a bunch of people every once in a while (Bosnia) or get our asses whupped a little being where we shouldn’t be (Somalia), no one seemed to really care. It was an era “about nothing” (Seinfeld). And then the big bad George Bush administration came in with a bang, the bang of a soft coup (“hanging chads”) and a stacked Supreme Court that said, “one of us!” while the rest of America, still softened by that seemingly easy ride of the Clinton administration said, well, o.k.

And then the worst: 9/11. A dark, strange day. Nothing seemed really out in the open, did it?, although the New York Times had the whole, circuitous story and even pictures of the hijackers within days (yeah, how’d they do that? since the names of the alleged hijackers don’t even appear on any airline manifest…). And then very quickly after that, the Bush administration used or shall we say abused the memory of 9/11 to re-shape this country, its foreign policy, and the world, into something we could hardly recognize, something we "never imagined we would be": invaders, torturers. They thought we’d go along with that, too, quietly, because after all, don’t you remember what happened on that day? Again and again, they reminded us, as if we needed reminding. We were there.

But we didn’t go along with it—did we? Well, yes we did, for a while. Some of us, some of them who still claim it’s right and good that we should kick terrorist ass no matter who the terrorists might actually be, like a dog barking in the night, let’s show ‘em our teeth. And then there were others who chose to think and reclaim civilization. It’s going to be a long fight. Pray for stamina.