“FOR everyone who never gave up on me.
“For every American and every citizen of Germany, France, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, Russia, The Netherlands, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Israel, Iraq, India, Portugal [sic], Greece, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Poland, Belgium, Mexico, Panama, Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Argentina, Brazil — and every other country — who stood up after 9/11 and said ‘We do not accept this!’ — and who stayed the course.
“For every generation following mine from whom my generation and the ones before it have stolen so cruelly. For all life on this planet.
“For every American government official, especially those from the State Department, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Defense who has resigned as a matter of conscience and principle since 9/11.
“For every street cop, brick agent, and Air Force officer or enlisted person who did their damndest to prevent 9/11 and who fought for what was right — especially the ones who paid a price for it.
“For every non-American press organization that pushed a well-understood envelope to its limits and beyond.
“For Cynthia McCinney, Barbara Lee, Ron Paul, and Paul Wellstone. You are not Democrats or Republicans. You are Americans.
“For Ellen and Louis Neil Mariani.
“For John O’Neill.
“For every person who has died in the violence unleashed by 9/11, and for the ones who have yet to join them.
“For a 27-year-old honest LAPD cop who thought he was acting like any other cop would act, only to have his life taken away, and who was stupid enough to think that he had an obligation — as a matter of honor — to speak of what he had seen; long before he found out that it was a little bigger than he thought at first. The first bite was the hardest. You are free now. Get on with your life.
“And for my ex-wife Mary who on September 11, 2001, sat for so many painful hours in her Battery Park apartment trapped in front of a living TV screen she could not turn off sending out e-mails from Hell reading, ‘My God, they’re jumping …. I can see them when they hit …. Another plane just hit …. The buildings are coming down.
“‘I don’t know where to go.’
“May God grant all of you peace, a smile, and a good night’s sleep.”
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The above is from page v of Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil, by Michael C. Rupert (New Society Publishers, 2004). It is his dedication before the beginning of the 675-page book, one of the earliest and best to come out about the atrocities of Sept. 11, 2001. Rupert died in 2014 at the age of 62.