Thoughts on 9-11

I did not want to write this yesterday because September 11 was my dad's birthday.

The attack on the World Trade Center was clearly a terrible crime which slaughtered more than 3,000 people. The US response to it was an even worse crime against humanity, and the number of its victims is still uncounted and may never be counted. The US response, which was carpet bombing of Afghanistan and then a fullscale invasion which continues today and then the invasion of Iraq, which had zero connection to the attack, is unmeasured, totally inappropriate, immoral, unwise, stupid, and a whole list of other adjectives. It involved unnumbered war crimes sanctioned by the highest political leadership in the United States, who continue to be unprosecuted because of the stupidity and weakness of the current administration, which continues many of the same crimes. US interests, as defined by the US government (not by me), are bound to lose in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq is expected to descend into another fierce civil war soon, and one or another group of extremist warlords will end up in power in Afghanistan. One side effect of all this is the long-term destruction of the US economy, compounded by irresponsible tax cuts for corporations and the rich and many other policies implemented by finance capital. We wonder at the suicide of lemmings diving over cliffs, but our society, led by finance capitalists, is making a similar plunge to destroy ourselves.

Everything connects together: insane wars, global warming, export of good jobs, the destruction of manufacturing in the USA, the selling of American democracy to lobbyists and big money, and a long list that I don't need to enumerate. The hallmark of our species has always been our ability to change our environment to enhance our prospects for survival. Whether we are losing that ability will be shown by how we handle these crises. To date, things do not look very good.