Today we saw visions of the towers that we had been reluctant to view before. On one station I heard the actual news reports broadcast that day.
We saw the tales of heroism and sacrifice. I learned some things I had not known before. After the towers fell, people were trapped in Manhattan. Then the call went out for all boats to help evacuate people. There were more people evacuated than were evacuated from Dunkirk. A half a million people were evacuated in nine hours by a vast collection of boats that responded. All British school children read about Dunkik but few Americans know this tale of bravery.
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/arti...Thousands of firemen, police, and paramedics rushed into the towers to help and 343 were lost when the towers collapsed. Today the death toll increases as those who helped die of cancer from what they breathed that day. After 9/11 we celebrated these men and women for the heroes they are, but now we begrudge them cancer treatment and even demonize and attack our public servants.
After the attack, the world was in solidarity with us. Nearly every nation condemned the attacks and signs saying "We Are All Americans" went up all over the world. There were even candle light vigils held in Terhan.
http://groups.colgate.edu/aarislam/respo...Almost every nation was willing to help America bring the terrorists to justice. There was one Kenyan student who witnessed the collapse. He went back to his country and described the terror to his tribesmen. These tribesmen lived in what we would consider abject poverty but they decided to give their most precious possessions – 14 cattle, to help America recover.
Likewise all Americans were unified in their support of the president and willing to sacrifice much to help the nation.
This was a time of incredible bravery and a time of immense sorrow. But what came after is almost sadder.
President Bush squandered this universal support and willingness to draw together and sacrifice. President Bush asked us to go out shopping. He then went to war and for the first time in history we did not raise taxes to support the war. Bush actually gave tax breaks mainly to the rich, and we went from a nation that had $128 billion surpluses to a nation with immense debt. He only asked 1% of the country - mostly the nation's poor to go to war.
Then Bush began to take advantage of the disaster for ideological purposes. They used disaster capitalism to pursue a radical agenda. In the neo-conservative manifesto, The Project for a New American Century, this radical agenda was laid out, but it warned that without another Pearl Harbor it would be nearly impossible to achieve their agenda. Bush used 9/11 as another Pearl Harbor to pursue that radical agenda.
http://www.crisispapers.org/Editorials/P...Bush pushed through the Patriot Act which gave him unprecedented powers and took away many of our liberties, and began to demonize anyone that criticized him.
When he abandoned the pursuit of Osama Bin Laden and instead invaded Iraq, He squandered the international support that came after 9/11. Iraq was a nation that had nothing to do with terrorism, had not attacked us, had no weapons of mass destruction and was not a threat to us or it's neighbors. While we had international and UN support for the attacks on Afghanistan, the Iraqi invasion was clearly illegal, and this attack divided the world and Americans.
I can only imagine what our world would be like now if Al Gore had won the election and we had pursued a reasonable response to the attacks. We could have kept a balanced budget, retained the full support of all of the American people and of the entire world, and after a speedy capture of Bin Laden we would have been able to concentrate on improving the nation and the world.
http://www.justwartheory.com/wars.htmlInstead Bush squandered America support at home and abroad. He doubled the size of the military, started two wars, gave all of his rich buddies tax breaks, while putting it all on the credit card which doubled the national debt. Bush sent all of our jobs overseas with globalization, Then his deregulation of Wall Street totally destroyed the nation's economy.
http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2009...70% of our economy is driven by consumer confidence and the Republicans have done everything they can to destroy that confidence. The artificial debt limit crisis reduced confidence more than 9/11 did. The Republicans are willing to destroy the nation to achieve their most important goal – removing Obama from office.
Seeing the dedication of the memorial and the resolve of the American people when they remember this tragedy. One hopes once again for the unity of purpose and the support of the president that followed 9/11 to tackle this latest economic crisis. The president has crafted a good plan to help our nation's unemployed and to spur our companies to start hiring again. In less contentious times the people of the nation and both parties would support this plan, putting the good of the nation before political ideology.
Instead the right wing has marshaled it's huge propaganda machine to oppose anything proposed by our president and commander in chief. All but 13 of the Republicans have vowed to continue the class warfare that pits the richest 5% of the nation against the rest, by refusing to ask the rich to pay their fair share or to share in the sacrifice and the suffering of the rest of the nation.
Tonight The Tea Party Debate will take place. The Republican candidates are united only in their universal hatred of the president and support of the same failed economic policies that destroyed the economy in the first place. One of the main questions they should all be asked, is whether they would be willing to do what is right for the nation and not just what the most radical minority wants.