America survived the tenth anniversary of 911 with heartfelt reminiscence of a shocking loss accompanied by the usual propaganda about what the terrorist attack allegedly meant which worked to obscure what it actually brought about:
A program of endless war, destruction of nations, loss of life far beyond that day’s tragedy and a political economic dementia that threatens to consume humanity in its madness.
The mass murdering over-reaction to a murderous criminal attack has been used to bring about what the terrorists of 911 wanted; an over extension of the empire in costly wars that would ultimately sap its strength. But the fundamentalist attackers were minor in their impact compared to the fundamentalist rulers of corporate capital and Zion. They have sent the nation and much of the world spiraling into wars and a debt crisis that threatens further international calamities worse than any conceived by terrorists.
The past ten years of trillion dollar warfare has seen the slaughter of more than twice the number of Americans who died on 911 but more than three hundred times the number of foreigners, almost none of them even remotely related to the events of that day. Devastated nations, massive death tolls and millions of refugees among people who never did anything to harm America are beginning to impact in ever more dangerous ways. In the words of Malcolm X, the chickens are indeed coming home to roost.
As a direct result of paying for homicidal madness, the economic inequality gap among Americans and other citizens in the west is growing at a faster pace than ever. Recent figures show that more than 15% of Americans - 46 million people - are living in poverty. There are more poor people with less money than ever before as upper income groups greatly expand their wealth while actually decreasing in number. We are becoming a nation of a few billionaires, quite a few millionaires, more members of an upper middle class, and a shrinking group formerly called the middle class which is actually a fast growing majority of working and poor people who once had jobs and security but are rapidly losing both. This is inherent in the system of private profit at public loss no matter how many speeches a president makes or how little they mean, and the path of global capital would be the same with or without the events of 911. But that system has grown much worse since then and Osama bin Laden would be happy to see things going exactly as he wished.
The 911 terrorists were driven by hatred of American power for its support of tyrants in the Arab world, and especially for its treatment of the Palestinian people. That has been almost unmentioned in all the hypocritical bigotry around 911 and we suffer to this moment from the control of American politics by fundamentalists of capital and their joined-at-the-wallet Zionist compatriots. Their zealous protection of the apartheid Israeli Jewish state, against all logic and morality, is under new stress including an attempt to give Palestine a seat at the U.N.
While that body’s Security Council is a relic of the western dominated past, its General Assembly may offer some hope for the future. But whatever the short term brings, a vetoed attempt to realize the morally bankrupt two state solution will make it more possible for a long term one state democracy of all the people of Palestine. Fanatics who see a pogrom or holocaust in such a democratic outcome are too crazed to notice that a less than four percent Jewish population has led to enormous Jewish/Zionist power in America and Europe, even without support from many Jews in those places. How can they possibly think that a Jewish majority in Palestine, or even a “minority” of forty percent - with financial and business control - can suddenly vanish in some fabled overnight slaughter? But whatever the ridiculous old nightmares may portend, the newer dreams of democracy will be realized or there may be no homeland for anyone at all in Palestine. Or many other places as well.
The present attempted destruction of Libya is a last gasp effort by the west to stifle the emerging movements toward democracy by retaking overt control of Africa . This euro-controlled attempt at recolonization has killed thousands already and caused another sectarian un-civil war, with a puppet regime of “rebels” composed of groups having no more in common than opposing the former regime. But while the Libyan people will suffer more pain, in the long run the western powers, whether masked as NATO – financed almost totally by the USA – or being forced to bring in U.S. troops in a final death wish, will further weaken the empire.
Along with the material poverty that grows as private banking and minority wealth attempt to grasp even more power, there is a poverty of spirit at the core of a crumbling western system of public domination that benefits minorities at the ultimate cost of most of civilization and the natural environment itself.
The economics of seemingly endless recession, the politics of seemingly endless colonial wars and the anti-democratic rule of minorities are actually nearing an end. Whether humanity can bring about a democratic solution to our problems through organization that crosses national, ethnic and religious lines is a question not for the future but for this moment. If the global democratic urge doesn’t continue and succeed soon, there may not be much of a future for anyone, including those currently feasting on the profits of waste and warfare.
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