As the world came together in our grief and shock in the weeks after 9/11 did we forge an era of cooperation among the nations of the world? Did the attack on North American soil help us to understand life for those in other nations under attack? Did we remember that just as 3,000 innocent people died needlessly in New York City, tens of thousands of children die needlessly from hunger in a single day? Have we learned that each human life is important, that everybody is someone’s child, or spouse or parent? Have we tried to understand the powerless, the poor and the downtrodden?
Sadly, we have cheapened the memory of those who suffered by using their suffering for selfish reasons. Since 9/11 we have strived to increase Western military and economic superiority. We allow our civil liberties to be eroded in the name of security. Our respect for human dignity has been proven a lie as we have become the perpetrators of torture and humiliation in places like Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.
Perhaps nothing change on 9/11 but the words we use to justify our crimes. Perhaps 9/11 has become little more than the subject of docudramas that promote a single political view. Perhaps the lessons of 9/11 have been lost on us.
Quoted in full from Political Cycles because I couldn't have said it better no matter how hard I tried.
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3 comments:
Hi Red Jenny,
Thank you for linking to and including my post. It is gratifying to know that others feel the same way.
Cycles,
I appreciated your comment in response to mine on AlterNet today. I confess that the interview with Ehrenreich on AlterNet re: "Bait and Switched" turned me off to it. Your comments about it, however, indicate there is a lot more to it, which I am glad to hear. I have been critical of her comments on occasion, but I have a fundamental confidence in her skills and approach.
My roots date back to Philip Slater's "Pursuit of Loneliness" written around 1970 under the influence of Herbert Marcuse. That was an attitude changing moment for me. It opened my eyes to the "individualism" you mentioned, which I had bought into via the competitive schooling I was used to.
I was bothered just recently to read online a current evaluation of Marxism that declared even distinguishing it from Soviet communism did not improve its helpfulness. On the way, Marcuse was dismissed as antiquated, along with a handful of other once big names. Yes, Marcuse has long ago lost the celebrity he managed in the 1970s, but it's not because we've improved on him; we've never come close to taking him seriously.
I have some philosophical problems with what I've read and know of Marx (that's not a whole lot), but as a descriptive economist, he is foundational. Life determined by the "means of production" is in evidence to me everywhere I look.
Hey Sojourner, thanks for the comments. I haven't read his stuff in a while, but I found that Marcuse had a lot of very important things to say and shouldn't be dismissed so easily as he often is. And as to Marx, well, he wrote a really long time ago and the world was different then. However, as you say, he is foundational and I think that to understand the world today it is crucial to understand Marx, the various marxisms, and "post-marxism". It is as important as understanding colonialism, capitalism, neo-liberalism etc... anyways, I could babble on about this forever... Thanks again, your comments are typically quite astute.
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