As a New Yorker, I thought I was already numb to the political exploitation of 9/11 but this video "tribute" enraged me to the point of actual tears. Yes, I perfectly well remember when the planes hit, when the towers fell, when we heard that the Pentagon got hit too and the next day when the smoke was still visible for miles.

I was in Manhattan when it occurred because I was a high school student who who attended school in Manhattan in 2000. It was a typical day and we were all suffering through a morning class while trying to wake up when we hear commotion in the hallway. It was small at first and our teacher goes outside only to come back inside and announce that planes have hit the WTC. I remember vividly that the first thing I blurted out was, "What about the people on the planes?" I was answered only with a troubled and grave look by my teacher and I came upon the realization that it was a stupid question because they had died. Then, what seemed like seconds later, 2 female classmates come in just crying because they had watched the live CNN broadcast in the A/V room and had seen the first tower fall. Another one of my classmates had a pager and tended to follow up on his sports news with pager alerts. Now, he was receiving minute by minute news alerts about the status of the emergency. That was how our class received the news. There was no way we could even hold a normal school day. We all heard about the Pentagon attack, the subways being closed and the plane that was downed that was possibly aimed at the White House. And one thing I remember that fills me with rage is my classmate's periodic updates about where Bush was.

Like most New Yorkers, before 9/11 we had expected Bush to at least know enough to leave things alone so that a real President could actually do something. And now, everyone was hoping that he'd at least pull through enough. Instead, I heard bullshit about how Air Force One was now flying to PA. It was flying to TX now. It was flying to VA now. The excuse was to keep the President of the United States from terrorists because of the failed plane hit. But we all by now knew that when the towers collapsed, those first responders who weren't fucking scared of being attacked and were only concerned with rescuing those in need of help were the ones who paid with their lives. Not the "Commander-in-Chief" who was too fucking scared of imaginary terrorists and was flying around the country instead of doing what he should have been doing. Instead, he let Giuliani do his dirty work for him.

How lucky for Bush that both Giuliani and Pataki were Republicans. Because when he finally appeared, Bush got to become the figurehead of America that he wanted to be without doing any work. Easy peasy. All his success needed was the deaths of 3000 Americans who have had the tragedy of their deaths exploited for politics and used as a justification for more deaths and they still have not been avenged in any sense of the word.

I still remember the aftermath of that day. We didn't know how we were going to get home. People walked home-- there were stories of at least 1,000 people walking across the Brooklyn Bridge. The MTA pulled through with trying to make transportation smooth with shuttles or transfers for sections that were closed off. Even though there was the threat that Penn Station could be bombed next, we New Yorkers still took the fucking subway home. I remember choosing to take the subway home despite that threat because I wanted my family. I didn't want to breathe the noxious air. I was still forced to take a shuttle to make a transfer and I remember coming out of that subway station that it was too reminiscent of those disaster movies that take place in urban environments. The panic in the air was so visceral that I shiver whenever I think of it. The stench of the smoke filled the air in every borough for days. I couldn't help but wonder if I was breathing in the last essence of what used to be a human being. Everywhere that used to be full of color and activity was muted. I am not fucking kidding. When someone laughed weakly, we all laughed with tears in our voices. We didn't dare cry in public because we knew we would make everyone else cry too. We had too much pride as New Yorkers to let them see us cry.

And this is what we get. It is nearly 7 years later and seeing the Republicans so visibly and crassly rip open our wounds. I am just trembling and weeping with the rage of it. To remind us of our impotence as Bush took advantage of our traumatized confusion in a world gone mad only to have us wake up from a world we don't even recognize. It might not have been a perfect world before 9/11 but 9/11 should not be an excuse for why the world needs to be the way it is now.

I am sorry to subject everyone to my rant. Even though I didn't lose friends or relatives in the attack and I can't imagine what those people went through, I can not believe their audacity in such a "tribute" as it was more of an insult. That is all.