Seven Years Later It Is Time To Make A Choice

Seven years ago today my Mom called me early in the morning. I was living in Tucson at the time and she was home in Los Angeles. Calls that came before seven always scared me from her, because the ring usually foretold bad news. This time though, she told me to turn on the television and she was crying. Needless to say, I watched the news all day long, sometimes with friends but mostly by myself. I just couldn't believe what I saw on television. The horrific nature of it all was overwhelming and to a degree hard to fathom far away from Ground Zero at the edge of the Sonoran Desert. Then I watched what our President and his minions did with our national tragedy and global goodwill. Now look at where we are.

This morning I am sitting in City Hall Park, a few stops on the 6 train from where I have been living for nearly three years. It is relatively quiet in here save for the beautiful fountain that graces the center of the park. Every few minutes a fire truck passes by, no doubt on its way to the memorial for those that lost their lives just a few blocks from here.

When I lived two thousand miles away I saw New York through a tourist's eyes and marveled at the city but I was too busy with Tucsonan politics to deal or even have much interest in the minutae of the vast web that NYC politicians and bureaucrats weave over and around the city. I have gotten to know some of it since I moved here and while parts are good, there are a lot of things that need to be fixed. The Deutsche Bank still stands as a stark reminder that corruption and incompetence has played a major role in the clean up of the area. Hundreds of FDNY firefighters lost their lives because of the terrorists, but last year another two died because of substandard conditions and negligence by FDNY's very own inspectors. That just isn't right, yet even after that tragedy last August, problems still remain. Seven years later, we must not only remember, but take action as well.

While New York must take care of the clean up and reconstruction of the area, our Federal government must act to make sure we prevent future attacks and not only seek out the terrorists that helped commit that heinous act, but stop giving them reasons to recruit more from wanting to do us harm.

This year we must make a choice between two men that want to take our country in two different directions. To decide, we must not only look at "experience" but more importantly we must examine their judgment. Shortly after the buildings collapsed, John McCain called for war with Iraq. George Bush gave him that wish and simultaneously kissed our international cooperation goodbye.

When the propaganda was spread by the right that we must invade Iraq (under false pretenses) few spoke out against them. The traditional media happily beat the war drum for the Republican-dominated government. One of those few though, was Barack Obama. He was against the war from before we started it and he is still against it and most importantly wants to end it. There is no difference more clear between him and McCain. One wants to get out as quickly as possible and the other wants to stay there for a hundred years.

So as I sit here in park, enjoying the people, the landscaping and the array of buildings that surround me, I realize that my view has changed in seven years. Not that I was for the war and now I'm against it...I've always been against the war and was part of the ten percent that disapproved of George Bush immediately following the attacks. No, what has changed is my perspective because of my location. As a relatively new New Yorker, I see what needs to be changed here in the city and what needs to get done, but I could tell you from anywhere in the world that we can not have four or eight more years of the same destructive policies that George Bush has used to run our nation into the ground.