by Jose Astorga

Created on: November 29, 2009

September 11, 2001 was an act of war perpetrated by animals as a consequence of political and historical actions initiated by civilized animals as a result of the need for power and control.

God had nothing to do with it. Allah had nothing to do with it. Jesus had nothing to do with it. Muhammad had nothing to do with it.

September 11, 2001 was a savage attack on civilians no more brutal or cowardly than many of the savage acts perpetrated on innocent humans throughout history in the name of religion or politics.

We've been at war ever since 2001, except most Americans don't realize it. And while our soldiers are hungry, tired and cold our illustrious leaders host fancy cozy dinners honoring prime ministers of other countries. While our soldiers are coming home dead or permanently scarred we spend billions and billions of dollars on subsidizing crooked business leaders and politicians, sporting venues, singing shows and dancing shows. No, fun does not and should not stop but post September 11 humans continue to sadly possess a very faulty priorities gene.

I search long and hard while fighting back crimson tears of anger and sadness. I search deep within my mind and my heart desperately seeking to arrive at some understanding as to the how's and why's of all the pain and suffering in the world. And I repeatedly come up empty and with only one question.

Where are all the gods?

Some will say have faith. But I say tell that to the women raped and tortured in the Congo, to victims of the Holocaust, to Native Americans, to American history slaves, to Nick Berg whose beheading I watched silently and tearfully.

So many religions and so many faiths and still we judge, hate, torture and kill each other. We live in a world of greed and selfishness and pain. We live in a world blinded by ideology and man's innate need to explain and justify away life through some deity. We live in a world that is searching for heroes and a non-existent ultimate truth. We live in a world where men call each other spics, niggers, whops, krauts and whatever other name ignorance conceives and those same men stamp the names of men whose race they attack on the back of their favorites sports team's jersey a desperate and insecure search for heroes; a desperate and insecure need to idolize.

On September 11, 2001 the earth stopped turning in silent reverence for all human suffering. Americans were frozen in an icy glazier that superimposed history on the present and into the future.

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