9/11/2006 - A Sad Day

September 11th was a very sad day for me. Yes, because of the memory of what happened. But more what happened in the YMCA Jacuzzi that evening. A lovely young Santa Barbara High School student was studying flash cards for a government class. We began conversing about current affairs. I asked her why she thought the US was fighting in Iraq. She replied, “because they had weapons of mass destruction.” When I pointed out to her that the various official sources of proof that they didn’t, she retorted, “well, they were going to attack us.” When I cited the recent Senate Intelligence Phase 2 and CIA report disproving this, she responded, “well, Saddam was behind 911.” When I reminded her that even President Bush has recently admitted that there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and the 911 attacks, she was truly befuddled. I realized what a thorough job of bamboozling and brainwashing the various officials of this administration and the media have done on our poor kids. Lies are now the truth, and the truth is a lie. How twisted things have become in the name of freedom and democracy. How frightening and Orwellian. I thought back to when I was her age and my blood boiled to realize that I never thought things would ever get like this in our beloved country. September 11th was indeed a sad day for me.