PATRIOT Day

Maybe I have been out of the loop for some time, forgetting official holidays and anniversaries of major world events. However, I was more than surprised to see on a calendar, the date September 11th highlighted in red, with the words reading Patriot Day (US). Apparently, 9/11 is now an official national holiday. Something about this seems a bit twisted to me, considering that most holidays are created to celebrate some momentous person or event. Think about Martin Luther King, Jr. He has his own holiday, but it's on his birthday rather than on the dreadful day he was assassinated. Also, we do not celebrate the assassination of JFK or Pearl Harbor by declaring it a holiday, rather we remember it in a more quiet, and respectful way.

It appears utterly incomprehensible why we would create a day of celebration over one of the greatest tragedies in our nations history! But, the way our politicians and so called 'national leaders' act, I am not surprised that maybe they would want to celebrate such a horrific event. It has allowed them to bring about countless invasions of sovereign nations abroad, and an ever increasing domestic spying network at home. Most eerily, this holiday, Patriot Day, shares its name with the now infamous U.S.A. PATRIOT Act, which negates many of the amendments in the Bill of Rights. And then, people like Giuliani get up and cry the biggest crocodile tears, all the while they do not even support welfare for 9/11 First Responders.

Perhaps we should commemorate this event in a more sombre and thoughtful mindset, and use it as a platform for advocating on behalf of the survivors and police officers who risked everything and now face an amalgam of respiratory illnesses, and for some, death. A more appropriate title may be Remembrance Day.