Pre-game theatrics included an American flag as big as the football field and a teary eyed fire department pipe and drum band playing Amazing Grace. Curious George, president during the attacks and former governor of Texas, flipped the coin
Dallas won the toss, someone asked if Halliburton had made the coin. Somewhere in the shadows Dick Cheney worked the strings if only his heart machine was the real thing.
On opposing sidelines stood twin brothers ready to battle; Rex (latin for king) Ryan, the head coach for the Jets and Buddy (Texan for redneck) Ryan, the defensive coordinator for the Cowboys. A country group whose name glorifies pre-civil war America sang the national fight song.
Who knows if the NFL or maybe NBC had the forethought to manufacture such irony and drama, my guess is it was intentional. What good is an emotional anniversary if not for economic exploitation.
Anniversaries, after all, help us take stock in where we were and how far we've come. The consensus l0-years after 9/11 is that everyone but AQ has lost and lost big.
Our economy (think money), what politicians, pundits and populace care most about, will never again support the weight of the permanently unemployable. A fact not entirely caused by our over reaction to 9/11, but certainly hastened by it. Now, more than ever, a small group of Uber Rich owns congress and the White House creating a fading facade of dysfunctional democracy out of touch and indifferent to the working class majority it once represented. The Home Depot illusion of the American Dream is gone. Long live Burger King.
Meanwhile our minuscule militaristic minority, less than 1 percent of the sane population, has been more than happy to fight our misguided wars of profit for the last decade. Collecting countries like Upper Deck trading cards; Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia - watch out Mexico, you're next in the gold foil pack. Never have such a clueless few killed so many for a population that cared so little.
When this gullible gaggle returns broken in mind and body they are mostly seen as a menace; weak and unworthy of the 99 percent that can never understand them. If the 99 percent can't exploit the steady pay check of the one percent, what good are they? Increasingly the one percent end up in the unemployment line, homeless shelter, rehab center, and prison. Lepers surrounded by chain link and razor wire. What will we do with all these crazies when the wars end? What will Wall Street do without blood to ink their balance sheets?
To use pop culture to define our times; I am a product of American substandard public education so what else would I user, there is a scene in the movie Gladiator where the senators (Roman senators were much like ours today - filthy rich, egotistical, and sex offenders...date raping their constituents without remorse. This is all according to Wikipedia of course so it could be totally wrong), anyway, in the scene in Gladiator a senator accuses the new Emperor of hosting violent bloody gladiator games in the Coliseum to distract the mob (read citizens) from hunger, poverty, and endless war. Sound familiar? I wonder if the Romans had a flag as big as ours? In the end Maximum, played by Russell Crow, slays the corrupt half-crazed Emperor and saves Rome. Today I'd put my unemployment check on the multi-nationals, Madison Avenue spin doctors and the Department of Homeland Security. Crow wouldn’t have a chance, DHS cameras and biometrics would vector SWAT teams in on him like the Praetorian Guard on crack. He would be executed by lethal injection after a trial by a military tribunal and his body placed in an unmarked grave. Long live spooky government agencies with no accountability.
On this l0-year anniversary of 9/11 the gods and emperors were rewarded for their efforts. Flags were waved, tears and blood were shed, and Cheney saw his shadow cast by the stadium lights signaling 10 more years of war.
History often repeats itself, and it did this night as well.
The Jets, like a decade ago, managed to bring down America’s team. Tony Romo, the cocky Cowboy quarterback, under constant pressure, let the bubble burst and lost a 14 point surplus in the forth quarter. The death blow was delivered by a last minute improbable 50-yard field goal by a disenfranchised kicker who the year before had played for the diminished Dallas dynasty.
Somehow DHS and TSA missed the insurgent kicker at the airport, better increase their budget and full body cavity checks.
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