Visiting "ground zero" made me sad.
I was at the WTC site a few months ago. It made me sad, but for all the wrong reasons. The streets were full of men in dark black flak vests, some carrying high-power weapons. Every street corner had a camera looking down on it. There was literally a portable police "control tower" elevated two stories above the sidewalk, watching everybody. Crossing the street was controlled by men with guns.
Can someone tell me how ANY of this show of force would have stopped the planes on 9/11/2001? I thought that is what our gazillion-dollar military is for. I'm sorry, some dude on the street corner with a pistol couldn't have shot down those big planes moving at 400mph.
Millions of Americans can't get health care in this country, and we have to stop funding education and helping the unemployed and can't rebuild our infrastructure... but Congress can make us pony up billions in tax dollars for the "defense" industry which allowed guys to let planes fly down the Hudson River unnoticed. Oh, wait...most of them are protecting people in Afghanistan, not here.
I'd been to the WTC before, and knew a guy at Cantor Fitzgerald who died in the crash. This was the first time I'd been back. But our trip to the site was surreal. A total war zone, but full of Disney-esque tourists. Oh, and we couldn't even get into the memorial...you have to schedule a visit and go on a group tour. It made me sad. As I said, for all the wrong reasons I expected to be sad.
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