According to this, “Two-thirds of Americans think about 9/11 less than once a day, marking a sharp decline in preoccupation with the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to a new poll.”
Of course, that means that one third of us still do.
It’s tough for me not to– I have a window in my apartment that looks to lower Manhattan. I look at the skyline, I see the hole. And I may always see it.
In a way, I hope that I do keep thinking about it. It should be a reminder of the stakes we all play for now– the stakes we were always playing for, but forgot about.
“This is a country made up of people with hard jobs that they’re terrified of losing. The roots of freedom are of little or no interest to them at the moment. We are a nation afraid to go out at night. We’re a society that has assigned low priority to education and has looked the other way while our public schools have been decimated. We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious men to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, friend, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: Making you afraid of it and telling you who’s to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections. You gather a group of middle-aged, middle-class, middle- income voters who remember with longing an easier time, and you talk to them about family and American values and personal character… This is a time for serious men, Bob, and your fifteen minutes are up. My name’s Andrew Shepherd, and I am the President.”
–Aaron Sorkin, The American President