I write this on the eve of 9-11-2002. Tomorrow my fellow citizens will find many ways to express their feelings about the tragic events whose anniversary they commemorate. I choose to write. I choose to write about what appears to me the decidedly counter-productive solutions we have chosen to a problem which may not have a civilized solution. Yes, I have suggestions, but I doubt that most of the people of this country are ready to try them. I'll even admit where they are weak. But maybe voicing a minority opinion will help the majority find defects in their own thinking and approaches and allow them to at least partially rectify them.
The events of a year ago were the product of hate. Pure, simple, evil hate. Hate covered up with the rhetoric of religion, but hate nonetheless. Hate begets hate. And so many people in this country found new objects for the hate that lay dormant more than a year ago. They induged that hate and stoked it. And our political leaders, anxious to rectify the error in popular opinion that left the nation divided on who should lead it, put that hatred to use.
It's hard to build political strength on something as evil as hate, so we had to immediately rename it. We called it patriotism. We called it a new bond of togetherness. We called it the will to make the world safe for liberty. Some even called it a newfound devotion to God. But whatever we called it, it remained hate and it will have the same negative consequences as the hate of ultra-right cults.
Example: In the name of protecting the homeland we used aerial bombing to work the soil of Afghanistan and proceeded to plant and cultivate the seeds that would yeild a crop of thousands and maybe tens of thousands of new terrorists. In selfishly protecting ourselves we have guaranteed that our children will grow up in a world where they are widely reviled and considered legitimate targets of ever more shocking types of terrorist attacks.
Globalism is an inevitable result of the technologies we have developed and implemented over the last 150 years. It cannot be stopped. The only thing today's political leaders can change is the shape of the new, less-divided world. The world's sole remaining super-power has taken many steps to be sure that that new world looks a lot like itself. From the viewpoint of a United States citizen who believes that American democracy is a gift God chose to withhold from the world until 226 years ago, that's a very magnanimous gesture. For others, who believe the promise of this country's founding documents has gone largely unrealized, the imposition of this country's status quo is quite frightening.
I have, in the past, expressed the opinion that the creation of the nation of Israel was a colossal mistake. The world's Jews had, for the most part, settled in various parts of Europe, the United States, and other parts of the world. There they established unique sub-cultures and became integral parts of the economies of their adopted homes. One might hold the tactics of one Adolph Hitler in the highest disdain and disprespect, but mass resettlement on top of such a horrendous attempt at genocide doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. But there were some very vocal activists who lusted for a Jewish nation, and the fundamentalist Christians of the United States (and other countries) with their mistaken belief that a literal nation of Israel must exist before the end of the world, agreed to make it happen.
So now the majority of the world's citizens who aren't part of the Judeo-Christian religious tradition, find that the economic might of the Jews, tied to the technological might of the New World Europeans has established a hegemony of global control that cannot be defeated by normal means. It may be possible that some of these Muslims are still fighting the Crusades, but I personally doubt that. Instead they are frightened by the economic and political juggernaut which considers the politically and especially religiously corrupt leaders of Saudi Arabia a valuable ally.
The economic might of the Jews has its basis in a twisted application of the laws given them by Moses. The Christian right of the United States has a lot to say about the evils of homosexuality. They have two or three Bible texts to back them up. But they have nothing to say about the evils of loaning at interest, a practice that is condemned in the Bible far more times than homosexuality. In this they tip their hand that their movement is NOT about following God but is about acquiring political power.
The Jews don't charge interest when they loan to one another, but their laws didn't say anything about charging interest when loaning to Gentiles, and they have made huge fortunes by thus sticking it to the rest of the world. In the dark ages the Christian church enforced this Biblical injunction on the collection of interest. [Note: Some modern translations try to soften the impact of this God-given command by inserting the word "excessive." But a look at the book of Nehemiah indicates what is considered "excessive." It's one percent!]
The Protestant reformation led to a relaxation of Bible interpretation, and most Protestants, in their lust for profit, quickly ignored this restriction. The result was that large amounts of capital became available for potentially lucrative projects, and the industrial revolution wasn't far behind. This became part of a culture that had already redefined the concept of land ownership, establishing the "landed" classes.
Over the past few years the trend in the United States, led in part by some of our former enemies, such as the Japanese, has been to consolidation of wealth and of the control of ownership. Fewer and fewer people control more and more of the world's means for producing wealth. An example would be the broadcasting industry. Years ago most radio and television stations were owned locally, with the exception of a few stations in the larger cities. The Federal Communcations Commission encouraged diversity of ownership by limiting the number of stations that could be owned by just one individual or company.
Then came the Reagan revolution. Sold to the public as a chance to cut taxes (with disastrous effects on the national debt) and get the government off their backs, this right-wing giveaway took from the poor to give to the rich in many ways. The deregulation of the broadcasting industry has meant that a few large national corporations now control most of the stations in all but the smallest markets. The diversity of voices has declined markedly, and the drive for profits has led to shallower news coverage and the popularity of ultra right-wing commentators.
This major effort on the part of the new privileged classes almost didn't bear fruit. It took an act of the Supreme Court (the wisdom of their decision will be debated for centuries, no doubt) to secure the victory of the right. And this was against an opponent so "center" that he would have been right of center in the past.
We now know that the attacks of a year ago were being planned long before George W. Bush won the 2000 election. So we cannot construe them as a response to the foreign policy of the current administration. But seeing that from the viewpoint of the non-privileged religions and peoples of the world helps to illustrate why they so ardently hate us and everything we stand for.
Mr. Bush lost little time taking down the work of the previous administration that the right wing found most galling. Anything that tended to limit the ability to make big profits was suspect. The Kyoto agreements -- gone. Limited growth of the military -- out the window. America's committment to consult with allies and the United Nations before acting -- history. And Bush's unilateralism continues virtually unchecked.
This nation seems willing to do almost anything to see to it that the new world created by globalism carry all the aspects of capitalism that make the consolidation of wealth and ownership even greater. If the right wing has its way more and more of the whole world will be owned and controlled by fewer and fewer privileged persons. One wonders how these people get the little people of this country to vote for them. What they do is twist the truth. They claim to be about personal liberty. But those liberties, in actual practice, apply only to those whose consciences are so dead that they consider stealing perfectly acceptable so long as you take only a little bit from a each of a lot of people.
When such a threatening approach is being spearheaded by a country with the economic, political, and military might to make it happen whether the world likes it or not, it is not at all surprising that at least some of the world's outsiders would take drastic action in an almost hopeless attempt to stop it. I do not say this to justify their actions. Murder is wrong. But if it's wrong for them it's wrong for us, too!!!!!
Seen in this light, their choice of the World Trade Center for an attack is so blazingly obvious that we should have seen it coming. And seen in that light, this nation's response to the attacks has been carefully orchestrated to "rub it in." We're making them madder. We've stuck our stick in a hornets' nest and we keep on stirring about. The response, when it comes and as ineffective as it will likely be, will be unprecedented in its vehemence, unparalleled in its viciousness, and incomprehensible in its sheer lunacy.
"Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a [nation] soweth, that shall [it] also reap." The coming harvest may not be avoidable. But we might just, for once, quit cultivating it so carefully.
(Bible reference from Galatians 6:7)