10 years a long time. Of course we’ve been engaged in perpetual war since then, so it’s even longer for the men and women who are keeping America “free” by being sent to occupy other countries. I find myself often asking if things are really as different now as they seem, or if it’s just that I’ve had the wool removed from my eyes. I am not sure of the answer to that. But regardless, the world that we find ourselves in now is, to put it bluntly, horrible. And, in very blatant ways, the terrorists won.

We now live in a world where the act of getting on an airplane is considered criminal enough that we forfeit our rights against involuntary search and seizure. Big ole trigger warning on the link, btw.

We live in a world of extraordinary rendition, though I am not sure we haven’t been doing things like that for a long time.

We live in a world where a Democratic (ha!) President renews and expands all the horrors of the Patriot Act.  And the rabid Obots ignore and ignore and ignore. Assassinating American citizens in the way we’ve always assassinated non-Americans is now considered solid anti-terrorism policy.

We live in a world where the cruelty done to the poorest and weakest of us by that same Democratic President and the Republicans who help him, make the Republican Revolution of 1995 look like a fucking cakewalk.

The list could go on and on. But the biggest take away is we now live in a world of unending fear. Fear of violence from the state. Fear of abject poverty. Fear or religious zealots (both Christian and Muslim and and and and and). All fear, all the time.

That’s how the terrorists won.