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# Santa Monicans reflect on changes since 9-11
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/santa-monicans-reflect-on-changes-since-9-11/
- Published: 2002-09-06T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T00:43:12.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Business, Downtown, #archive-import

Here are your responses to this week’s Q-Line question: “How do you believe America has changed since Sept. 11, if it has changed at all?” ■ “Americans have definitely become more security conscious since 9-11\. For example, I have a part-time job with a local company, and it’s very hard to get inside the building, and I have to wear ID inside the building at all times. I also have more problems for a publication that I freelance for. To get into the shows in downtown Los Angeles, I had to show my driver’s license along with a copy of an article I wrote. 9-11 also did not help the U.S. economy. A year later, we are stuck in one of the longest, meanest bear markets on record.” ■ “I think that we’ve become more of a police state. If you can’t even bring a pair of nail clippers on an airplane without being considered a terrorist, I think we have become a reactive country rather than a proactive country. I think this country has become paranoid. I also don’t believe that we were given all the facts about 9-11\. I think our government knew about it. I recently tried to get on an aircraft with a six-inch crescent wrench on my key ring, which they would not allow because they considered it to be a weapon. If a crescent wrench can be a weapon, then we are all headed for disaster.” ■ “People, in general, have certainly come together emotionally since 9-11\. Unfortunately, this renewed patriotism has not translated into a reappraisal of American foreign policy. The highest levels of our government is inhabited by oil men who have made their fortunes helping the Arab nations bring their oil to market.” ■ “The terrorists got us right where they wanted us. They made us paranoid and fighting among ourselves. They also hurt us financially and symbolically. We’ll never get over it, and they know it. They hit us at our weakest spot, our most vulnerable area — our own airline industry. Hopefully we aren’t going to continue being vulnerable and we pay attention to where our other weak spots are. Just like in any war or game, you always go for the enemy’s weak spot.” ■ “It’s funny. Funny only because we Americans are so pathetic, especially in L.A. Only for a few days after the attacks did people respect others and were nice to each other. Then it was business as usual, honking the horns at each other, being nasty to one another and being completely self-absorbed. All it’s about is making money. That’s why they hate us so much.” ■ “It hasn’t changed anything. We are (jerks) to each other. We’ll never wake up. We’re all completely wrapped up into ourselves as a society. Just wait until our world crumbles around us in another five years when our taxes have put us out on the street and we are defending ourselves against crazies in little countries we’ve never heard of.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 6, 2002.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/090602.pdf?ref=smdp.com)