Every September 11th the event gets more distant. The stories have another layer of dust on them and there's a new generation of kids who weren't born yet when the event happened. It's Pearl Harbour for those born in the 50's. Viet Nam for the Iraq War generation and so on. No amount of vivid description can make it a fully living breathing event for those who weren't there. Reading the Time Magazine issue from the aftermath I'm struck by the near-universal gung-ho patriotism and the hints of bloodlust. One letter writer (a woman) advocated bombing Afghanistan, Iraq, and a few other countries until they were dust. She almost got her wish. From the reactions then and even now, it's clear that the US was a naive victim not having experienced many attacks from invaders on its soil. Moving to the city a year later it was strange how little of that spirit of solidarity had lasted. Partisan politics picked right up where it had left off as did unfettered capitalism and rampant domestic gun violence. The victims of those phenomena had few allies to enlist.