Lock the doors. Pull down the shades. Bring in the exorcist, stat.

As I write this, my humble abode is being transformed into a puppet-occupied den of anti-democratic sin. Yes, my kids are watching the Muppets, with some newly-discovered zeal since the theatrical release of the film by the same name.

That is only part of the agenda, of course. Upon finishing and chowing down on some premium Borscht and Beluga, the plan is a mixture of Marxian performance art, Che Guevara hat fitting & then the coupe de grace (that's right, I used the language of the land of non-freedom fries!), finger painting images of Fidel Castro throughout the house in cigar-ash.

I know, I exaggerate. Slightly. But as the supremely hypocritical again begin what seems like a yearly ritual of complaining that kids' movies or tv shows are detrimental to their emotional or physical health (think of the children!), it is hard to respond with much other than contempt.

This time it is the right-wing Media Research Center going for the gold, with their Vice President For Business And Culture (redundant, judging by his belief system) Dan Gainor, making television appearances just freaking out about how "Hollywood, the left, the media, they hate the oil industry. They hate corporate America."

Gainor also throws Cars 2 (released recently) into the witch's brew of corporate-hating cacophony endangering our children, and then somehow moves onto railing about Syriana and There Will Be Blood--which presumably he screens for his kids just before the good stuff starts on Cinemax after midnight.

What is rather unfortunate about Mr. Gainor's argument--besides almost everything--is that Cars II and The Muppets were both released by The Disney Company.

See that word company, as in corporation, or in The Media Research Center's world, "an organization that enjoys all the benefits of being a person but none of the liabilities?" Yup, that kind of makes it hard for them to "hate corporate America." But, hey, let's not let facts get in the way of a good story.

This sentiment is consistent, however, with a long line of cultural and political hypocrisy served up by those on the Right. Whether it was the Late Reverend Jerry Falwell's cruelly criticizing that innocent and lovable Teletubby, Tinky Winky. Or Dr. James Dobson's crusade against that yellow sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea, for not openly and loudly declaring his lust for Sandy Cheeks or another of her gender.

The key thing to keep in mind, however, is that its the very same people who constantly bellyache about how kids might be brainwashed by making an oil baron not so cuddly in a movie, who through vocal support or their vote, deprive children of health care. It is these same pearl-clutchers who deny financial aid to the 15 million children living in poverty, or just keep the environment in which they live buried in a Miss-Piggy-sized stew of toxins.

Because, you know, while your kid is gasping for air and looking for a sawdust snack, it's definitely the Swedish Chef you want to watch out for. My God, that Scandinavian culinary maestro must be a Socialist!

This is not to say our culture hasn't become a mess--it sure has. And that parents such as myself are not concerned about some of the things we see on television. We are.

But it is not movies like The Muppets that those of us in the reason-based community fear, but the values of selfish, rampant consumerism and corporatism pushed by organizations, like say, the Media Research Center. Groups that try and teach our children that there is no value in respect and virtue for its own sake. That everything is to be judged by its dollar value, and not its contribution to society.

This is what endangers our children, as it has increasingly, since the economic counterrevolution back in the 1980s. Ironically enough, conservatives used to get this. It might be why none other than Herbert Hoover once said "The only trouble with capitalism is capitalists - they are too damn greedy."

While even I wouldn't go that far, too-big-to-fail corporations and their hand maidens in Congress (and the conservative echo chamber) most certainly pose a far greater danger to our children than a green frog-like puppet.

This column was originally published at Al Jazeera English

Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney--the perfect dynamic duo for our times, if not end times. A Batman and Robin for the 1 percent. Defenders of truth, justice, and a Gulag Archipelago filled with child janitors and the fandango of the foreclosed.

If you're rooting for President Obama, or just plain enjoy the guilty pleasure of watching a Real Housewives of the Neo-Confederacy, your dream contest has arrived. Even before the news cameras and nation's attention trek north to the frostbitten fields of Iowa, these two should provide constant amusement as they do battle over who's had the most swift conversion to the principles of the tea party.

While they may be very different, they're also one in the same. Romney's a patrician's patrician, a guy who naturally grows khakis as a sort of protective exoskeleton and makes John Kerry seem like Jack Hanna. Gingrich grew up in more humble circumstances, a "historian" whose second wife (I think, allow me to consult my calculator) told Esquire a year ago that her former husband "always wanted to be somebody" and didn't feel a need to privately live up to the principles he espoused publicly (I smell sitcom!).

Romney is handsome with his hair dry-iced to his scalp. Gingrich, well, let's just leave it at this: go back and watch some old 80's episodes of Jake and the Fatman.

The similarities, however, once you get past the surface, are striking. Both started off as Rockefeller, or moderate, Republicans, and moved expeditiously right to stay in tune with the base of an increasingly radicalized party. Both have no patience for government assistance, even though they've grown wealthy via the tried and true path of Washington political welfare--where your father's name or former position in Congress takes the place of a dollar and a dream.

Gingrich cut a television ad with Nancy Pelosi warning that we had to address climate change, a scientific phenomenon that Romney believed included "human contribution." Meanwhile, Romney passed the pre-cursor to "Obamacare" (you may remember Tim Pawlenty's lone memorable phrase from his 2.5 weeks as a GOP Presidential candidate, when he referred to "Obamneycare") and Gingrich, as recently as a few years ago, was "earning" the whopping $37 million given by Big Health Care to his "Center for Health Transformation" by advocating for the very same individual health care mandate that can be found in Romney and Obama's health care laws.

As I bet you've guessed by now, Romney has disavowed his own health care legislation as nationally relevant (and climate change as real), and Gingrich goes all Jason Bourne when it comes time to discuss his climate-change ad with Pelosi (ditto his advocacy for the "individual mandate"). They'd have you discover any solutions to these two crucial issues by attending the dinosaur exhibit at The Creation Museum or a board meeting at the Chamber of Commerce. In fact, a current Democratic National Committee advertisement hitting Romney and a Ron Paul web ad savaging Gingrich for their ever-changing ideologies are almost interchangeable.

What they most possess in common, however, is personal. They may literally be the two least popular men in their party. In a recent piece by Charles Pierce for Esquire, he reminded us that "one of the few insights worthy of anyone's time in that horrible Game Change book was the fact that, by the end of the 2008 presidential cycle, all of the other Republican candidates had come to despise Willard." Willard being Romney's real first name, even though he (yes, really) denied it during a recent debate.

Gingrich, similarly, since his sudden rise in the polls past apparent Barry White stand-in Herman Cain, has been torn to shreds by a who's who of conservatives--from Joe Scarborough to tea-party favorite Rep. Allen West, George Will to Rep. Paul Ryan.

Forget having a beer with these guys, most Republicans (and not just elites, as evidenced by Romney's inability to surpass 25 percent in polling of the Republican primary electorate) seem to think finding something likeable about either man to require a spelunking expedition into their souls to search for hidden treasure.

Of course, the big winner in all this is President Obama, who with unemployment at 9 percent and a foreclosure crisis still unfolding, should be all but finished in next year's election. But he must be thanking his lucky stars for the tea party and its chosen Republican representatives, who threaten to make him a two-term President, much as a bevy of B-listers did for another incumbent who had no business being reelected in 2004.

This column was first published at Al Jazeera English

In May of 2009, as President Barack Obama prepared to replace retiring Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court, he let something terrible slip--something that could threaten the very fabric of our civilization! He would try and pick a new judge for our highest court that possessed "empathy," or the ability to identify “with people’s hopes and struggles” when making decisions that would intimately affect their lives.

In other words, slightly different than how Justice Clarence Thomas does it, which generally involves applying lessons learned from all-expenses covered, first-class corporate speaking gigs and serial viewing of the wacky antics of Long Dong Silver.

Predictably, right wingers from Senator Orrin Hatch to former Republican National Committee Chair (and lobbyist for every destructive interest in existence) Ed Gillespie were just beside themselves, hissy-fitting at the outrageous notion that someone who actually cares about people might become a sitting justice on the High Court.

It is this degradation of American culture since the Reagan Years--on steroids in our current Citizens United Era as corporations have become people (and were almost granted zygote status in Mississippi!)--that says the only healthy emotions are the ones that highlight one's personal greed and lack of compassion for others. This is the cultural sickness that has been on full display for all its misanthropy this past week.

The most egregious example occurred in University Park, Pennsylvania, with the growing and nausea-inducing scandal engulfing Penn State University. No, our culture didn't create the pedophilia of former Penn State Defensive Coordinator Jerry Sandusky. Sadly, this has been with us since the dawn of time.

But the greed of a big college football program and the fortune and fame it creates allowed it to go on for years. This certainly played a defining role to decisions made by everyone from an assistant coach who witnessed Sandusky's anally raping a 10-year old in the shower to the lack of action by the university's president to the post-2002 Rick-Perry-memory hole of the sainted (now) former coach Joe Paterno.

All of them spent at least a decade, perhaps closer to 15 years, covering up the behavior of a serial-child rapist. One who used their reputations and facilities to both locate his victims and commit his crimes.

For these men in positions of power, "greed was good," a lesson learned by the lunkheaded Penn State students who chose to "riot" Wednesday evening upon news of Paterno's firing by the Penn State University Board by turning over a car, breaking windows and performing other acts of mass stupidity. For them, being able to party hardy post-victory and continue the cult of Paterno was more important than the lives of potential peers violently victimized by a beast.

The personal responsibility touted by these protectors, and in particular Joe Paterno--rock-ribbed Republican friend of the Bushs and former Pennsylvania Senator turned presidential candidate Rick Santorum--was no match for the avarice their politics and personal-belief system would seem to espouse. The Pennsvlvania right winger, who sponsored the Republican-registered Sandusky for the Congressional Angels in Adoption" award, based on the non-profit he founded to provide care for foster children (see: target them), was still defending Paterno, last we heard.

So in case you're scoring at home, to Santorum being gay is terrible, because homosexuality is just like "pedophilia." But if the person performing or covering up child rape is a friend, pedophilia's a-ok. So does that mean Santorum supports gay rights--as long as the non-straight in question is a friend of his?

This has been a another edition of Deep Thoughts with Rick Santorum.

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So what do you do when financial analysts are warning that housing prices are headed for a "triple dip", the second largest Swiss Bank (Credit Suisse) announces it's piling 1,500 additional job cuts - many from the US - on top of its previously announced 2,000 (after a 12 per cent increase in profits this past quarter) and the federal government just sued one of the nation's largest privately held mortgage brokers (Allied Home Mortgage) for a decade of "fraudulent lending practices that forced thousands of Americans to lose their homes."

Seriously, could the economic Big Brains who think it's a good idea to take money out of people's pockets via spending cuts, while rejecting increased spending on our nation's crashing infrastructure, try punching "Japan" and "lost decade" into the Google machine? Or perhaps just admit their relationship to understood economics is like Kim Kardashian's marriage - shallow, somewhat entertaining, but ultimately embarrassing.

These right-wing members of Congress and inhabitants of the "pro-market," think-tank-welfare world, with their flip reaction the ongoing economic crisis, have begun to remind me of an exchange between John Travolta (trying to steal and sell nuclear weapons) and Christian Slater (trying to stop him) in the movie Broken Arrow. Slater's character says to Travolta's: "You're out of your mind," to which Travolta replies - while wearing a spooky Herman Cain-esque, I-just-gave-a-massage-to-my-secretary smile - "Yeah, ain't it cool."

Apparently, the only stimulant conservatives favour is whatever Rick Perry was mainlining during his speech in New Hampshire the other night.

Infrastructure work creates jobs

What's so maddening, however, is that the answer is quite clear to sane people and non-shills-long-term infrastructure projects that, in the near term, provide jobs, and further out will provide ... jobs. And increased productivity. Ever hear of those train things or the internet? Yeah, well, people are more productive when they're faster and stuff.

Part of what's so frustrating is that not only was President Obama's stimulus bill too small by half, which top economists predicted before it passed (but yay, Susan Collins liked it!). But the administration didn't even defend it, which took something the Congressional Budget Office says saved up to 3.6 million jobs - and allowed it to be demonized by politically expedient grifters playing games.

These very same economists who were right about the stimulus are now clamouring for more infrastructure spending. Paul Krugman, who has been banging this drum for a while, pointed out in a recent piece how the very same crowd that flips out over any government spending on, for lack of a better phrase, people who can't afford his and hers dancing water fountains from Neiman Marcus as a stocking-stuffer, continually push for spending for defence contractors without a worry in the world about the budget. Why? Because these hypocritical dunderheads say "such cuts would destroy jobs."

So obviously the deficit hysteria is simply that, a pretend crisis to hide an ideology gunning for its greatest achievement to be reintroducing the elderly to the joys of the appetising and eminently satisfying Purina dinner.

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Although when it comes to the specific date of our mass death, Harold Camping might as well be talking Chinese nuclear development with Herman Cain, it seems a little bit harder to doubt his general prognostication of doom in the weeks after 56 exotic animals were released into the countryside by the owner of a "private zoo" in Ohio.

Just before he shot himself to death.

If you don't know the whole story by now, to quickly summarize: In a scene that Director Emeritus of the Columbus, Ohio Zoo and television personality Jack Hanna compared to "Noah's Ark", endangered Bengal tigers, grizzly bears, monkeys, and a variety of other animals - 49 in all - were killed en masse by law enforcement.

Make no mistake - this happened because Ohio is one of a handful of states that does not regulate the sale and ownership of exotic animals, and it has been purposefully made that way. Tea Party-sympathiser-cum-Governor John Kasich, upon his election to that office, began his assault on government by letting an executive order expire that had provided actual restrictions concerning who could own and sell these animals in the Buckeye State.

To Kasich, this kind of crazy Hobbesianism would "hurt small business", which presumably includes the particular lunatic who had done jail time for illegal possession of firearms and was cited multiple times for animal abuse - but still had his Animal Farm up and running in Ohio - until he granted his boarders amnesty. Because of the anti-regulation zealots who have taken control of our political culture and institutions, this was the profile of someone still fit to continue to lord over a coterie of dangerous and endangered species, in his own little Jurassic Park.

As Darth Vader would say, "Impressive. Most impressive."

Now if you were to ask the Don King of pizza, Herman Cain, I'm sure he'd have a simple plan to solve this problem, which would probably include a number of 9s and the assumption that Zanesville, Ohio is somewhere in the vicinity of Chiang Mai. But for those of us with a beyond-Perry intellect, the story is as simple as it is sadly quotidian. What led to the death of these exotic animals is the same insanity that crashed Wall Street and allows drug companies to lie to people while killing them: the mass deregulation of America.

If you think the animals have run wild in eastern Ohio, then take a look at what a-not-quite-as-evolved species did on Wall Street, resulting in thousands of zookeepers finally showing up to occupy this land those on "The Street" thought was theirs to defile and despoil.

From the 1980s onward, when we started to "get government of our backs", as Ronnie liked to say, we created a mess that now has awoken 99 per cent of the people who generally can't spare the pocket change for a $10,000 Tiffany towel rod. The apogee of this idiocy was the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which in 1999 repealed one of the great accomplishments of the New Deal, the Glass-Steagall legislation separating commercial and investment banks.

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Whether it's the bronze bull encountered by those occupying Wall Street, the fixation with a Chris Christie presidency not to be, or the ex post facto transformation of Ronald Reagan into Kratos by middle-aged Republican Congresspersons who practically start to giggle and spontaneously pulsate just upon hearing his name, there is one thing you can expect to encounter a lot of on the right side of the political spectrum these days: Golden Calves.

Sure, that Bible thing conservatives claim to have read and revere strictly admonishes those who take to idolatry. But then again, it also doesn't wish death upon 30-year-olds because they lack health insurance or a poorly conceived bowl-cut by a former Speaker of the House who's running just about even with the hantavirus in Republican presidential polling.

So even the Bible is fallible.

These Golden Calf conservatives have taken impulses that have been long ascendant on the Right, and way-too-present in American culture overall, and transformed their entire belief system into the Cirque de Soleil of idol worship. These days their leaders bow down before personality, mythology, ideology, theology and an unregulated market economy. These are revered in much the same manner anti-gay Republicans seem to hold a particular passion for the most quickly available RentBoy, or Kelsey Grammar does divorce court.

If you think I exaggerate, ponder what has brought the extreme right to public ecstasy over the last few months, and the right's obsessions in general, and tell me core members of the tea party brigade aren't addicted to symbol over substance. Think about it ... Rick Perry. Paul Ryan's unworkable budget plan. Chris Christie. Guns. The Constitution (at least their mistaken reading of it). Socialism. Bigger guns. Wall Street. American Exceptionalism. Really, really big guns.

This tendency to idolise people and objects makes it all the more amusing when loudmouth right-wing preachers start in with all the "cult" talk about Mitt Romney's Mormonism. So let me get this straight, Romney's version of Christianity is cultish, while those who handle snakes, speak in tongues and ask their arena-based parishioners for their very last dime, so they can erect Mammon-on-Earth, are not?

When one lacks practical, reasonable answers to the myriad problems this country is facing, from a continued economic debacle to ongoing civil liberties abuses at home and abroad to who Carly Simon's singing about in "You're So Vain," the only thing left to do is turn to symbolism. For those on the Right that means trusting Jesus will just work things out for them, or Reagan needs to be on the $10 bill, or obsessing over the Founding Fathers, you know, such as John Quincy Adams, Alan Cumming and Darth Plagueis The Wise.

This is not to say some Democrats have not fallen into this same trap. Again, grasping at symbols, especially charismatic individuals, is encoded in human DNA. There are those who would stick with President Obama were he to break every campaign promise he made during the 2008 election (so far I am gonna guestimate about 82 percent). But overall, education and civic engagement tend to lessen this tendency. Hence, it is not only a much more interesting, but foreboding phenomenon on the right.

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Once again this past few weeks, the ongoing education debate in the United States occupied the headlines, bylines and cable news scrolls. NBC launched its second annual "Education Nation Summit", billed as a way "to engage the country in a solutions-focused conversation about the state of education in America".

Meanwhile, President Obama, approaching warp speed on the campaign trail to try to convince us he's actually the transformational guy from 2008 - as opposed to the chary chap we've found running our country since - made a fresh pitch in his weekly radio address for his version of education reform. Obama tied it to the economic future of our country, and discussed waivers to allow states to opt out of provisions of his predecessor's much-maligned legislation, the No Child Left Behind Act.

Of course, the problem is that we're not having an honest conversation about education in the US, because many of the broader trends degrading our overall political culture are also at work with this issue. Although some people really want to improve the system for our children, there are also those who see our schools as a way to bring about their vision of a 21st-century America - which sometimes looks a lot like 1984.

This whole cast of characters will seem familiar - much like that coffee stain you just can't get out of the carpet, or overacting in a Nicolas Cage movie.

First, there is the science-despising Christian Right, who think school is for fairy tales and the teachings of the unimpeachable sources at their weekly snake handling. If their Bible said that gravity didn't exist, it wouldn't. If you walked off a building and fell straight to the pavement a la "The Happening", it would be your fault for a three-martini lunch you had in April of 1996, or for being married as many times as Rush Limbaugh.

Don't fool yourself into thinking these people don't have a lot of influence. If you don't believe me, see "Texas Board of Education" and "textbooks".

So is it any wonder, then, that in December 2010 the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development released a study showing the US ranking 17th in the world in science and 25th in maths?

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To fully comprehend the sad spectacle that has become American politics since the 1980s, you need not peruse the politics section of major periodicals. Or the opinion, news or business pages of illustrious publications.

No, lately you’d be best served by heading on over to the obituary section.

For example, this past week, a legislative giant from an earlier and more evolved Republican Party - that is to say, one in which dazzling audiences with tales of cantering saddleback on the family T-Rex was not considered “reaching out to the base” - former Senator Charles Percy, passed away. This sad news has come not long after the passing of another Republican legend, former Oregon Senator Mark Hatfield.

These men were both of the Rockefeller, or old Establishment wing of the Republican Party, a robust and scientifically literate (hint) group that followed in the tradition of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight D Eisenhower. Therefore, the importance and symbolism of their passing, for so many reasons, cannot be overstated.

It is the disappearance of their perspective and purpose that is one of the major reasons why our politics is where it is today - somewhere on the spectrum between corporate performance art and collective shame. Namely, the Bachmannization of the GOP, its influence in wrecking Washington culture and corrupting the current Republican Establishment, and its overall deleterious effect on the American middle class since the early 1980s.

This history of accomplishment by these moderate to liberal Republicans and their now near-complete extinction also leads the more naivete among the Democratic Party - see 1600 Pennsvlvania Avenue - to believe there are still deals to be made with this current crop of Koch-infected androids, a group which considers George W. Bush to be a near-Maoist for having supported pro-business immigration reform, appointing Ben Bernanke to the Fed and wanting to ban those on terror watch lists from buying assault weapons.

Dirty hippie!

Essentially, the face of the GOP has gone from Mark Hatfield and Charles Percy to David Vitter and Tom Coburn, which would explain why a once-respected profession has lately morphed into something more closely resembling the oldest one.

It may be hard for those who either were not alive (which includes me) or have not studied what the times were like to understand how different our legislating process and political culture was when men like Percy strode the halls of the Capitol like a colossus.

It was a time when there were scores of Republicans who were more progressive on civil rights, war & peace and even social programmes than some Democrats. Percy supported legislation to stimulate the production of low-cost housing for the poor. He joined Senator Hubert Humphrey in creating an "Alliance To Save Energy" because of the OPEC oil embargo.

Hatfield, meanwhile, one of the first military servicemen to enter Hiroshima after the dropping of the atomic bomb, opposed Vietnam and the first Gulf War and offered his view of national security thusly:

"Every president other than Eisenhower has been seduced by the military concept that that is our sole measurement of our national security and the more bombs we build, the more secure we are."

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Vampire movies and television programs may be all the rage right now, but not one of them has anything on a good old-fashioned audience of Republican debate watchers.

In a rather shocking - yet sadly, not surprising - display of the bloodlust and viciousness usually reserved for members of law enforcement pulling over a driving-while-soused Mel Gibson, the so-called "party of life" has seen its most ardent adherents at the past few GOP debates belching out blood-curdling cheers in favor of untimely death and boos for soldiers serving-while-gay. All of which tells you a little something about who these theoretical human beings are, and what they stand for - and it has does not have much to do with traditional small government conservatism.

In a recent debate on MSNBC, as it was being pointed out that Rick Perry rivals Kublai Khan in his propensity for stopping people's ability to breathe, Perry was roundly cheered by the crowd for his record-breaking string of executions in Texas. Debate attendees yelped like it was a home run in the World Series or a successful moon mission, a sickening display whether one supports the death penalty or not (which I do in limited circumstances).

Much like wolves hovering over a slab of meat or performance art directed by the Marquis de Sade, the activist tea party Republican base seemed to delight in the suffering of others. They were Teddy Roosevelt ... if he were buried in a pet cemetery for the past 90 years.

But even that was nothing like what happened during the Tea/CNN debate the evening of September 12, when the topic of discussion was who would pay to keep a 30-year-old alive who lacked health insurance and had been in a terrible motorcycle accident. As Congressman Ron Paul was busy equating the death of this hypothetical easy rider with the "freedom" enjoyed by Americans, the crowd began to lustily cheer and yell "yeah" to the question of whether this accident victim should be allowed to die.

Think about that for a second. Weren't these the guys and gals who blew a gasket over the prospect of allowing the severely brain-damaged Terry Schiavo to rest in peace a few years back, and attacked her husband as some sort of ghoul for wanting his wife to die with dignity? Yet, somehow these days, bringing a little more Torquemada to their decision-making regarding who lives and who dies, seems to have become the new-new-conservatism.

It is a conservatism of ... how shall we put it ... death panels!

To his credit, even Governor Perry said he was taken back by this reaction. But let's think about that for a second - a guy who puts people to death like it's a bodily function was taken aback by the visible thrill provided to the GOP base by the thought of letting someone die. Honestly, when Rick Perry is the voice of reason on an issue, one wonders who might satisfy these gremlins.

I hear Baby Doc Duvalier is looking for a job.

Just for the sake of variety, instead of cheering for death at the most recent GOP debate on Fox, the crowd decide to shake things up--get jiggy with it, if you will--and move on from cheering death to booing those risking their lives in Iraq in our military. In this case it was a gay soldier, which is going to make it really difficult when they have to redo the magnets on the back of their mini-vans to say "Support Our Troops..You Know, If Their Dating Preference Happens To Be Those Of The Opposite Sex."

I think the Republicans have a word for Democrats who would boo our soldiers serving abroad--hmm, I can't seem to recall exactly what it is, but I think it starts with a "t" and rhymes with "season."

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On September 11th, 2001, on what was a perfect morning -- right up until the very moment a Boeing 767-223-ER slammed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center -- I stood on the corner of Delancey and Ridge Streets in downtown Manhattan.

I was working on an election campaign – it was primary day in New York – and little did I realize that politics, culture and our entire trajectory as a nation was about to change forever. I had been alerted to the first crash by a friend calling my cell phone, but it was as I was staring at the gaping hole in this New York City landmark, in horror, shock set in as I saw a second plane approaching.

I can see it all in slow motion these days – the airplane seemed to glide in almost effortlessly, and as I and others around stood unable to move, a loud explosion echoed through the canyons of lower Manhattan as a fireball erupted that almost seemed to reach where I was standing. It was, for lack of a better term, surreal.

For me, the journey forward from that day would be a difficult one. I was born and raised in Manhattan and was young enough that I couldn’t remember the city without those two awe-inspiring landmarks. It is what I would use to figure out where I was going whenever I came up from the subway system.

I had to process the knowledge that I had been in the North Tower only 16 hours before the attack. Because I had been delivering campaign literature to a volunteer who lived in the neighborhood and thought to myself, “I haven’t been in the Twin Towers for a while.”

What sticks with me most, though, is that after seeing the second plane hit, a lanky, salt-and-pepper-bearded man standing next to me who was holding his bike at his side, saying, “this is terrible; we’re going to be at war tomorrow.”

He wasn’t far off the mark. He only underestimated the wars.

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