We are not going to excerpt Gil Smart’s courageous article about 9/11 that appears in the Sunday News. It is so cohesive and so profound that “Fulfilling the prophecy” must be experienced in its entirety.
Through his readings and studies and by including the thoughts of others in his columns, Smart has come a long way as a columnist. This one is world class and deserves to be syndicated.
The tragic consequences of an accident of history, the flawed “butterfly ballot” in Palm Spring County, Florida which made George W. Bush president, becomes more apparent over the decade. Had Al Gore dealt with 9/11, the United States might still be the envy of the world, rather than to be pitied.
Think of it: No nation building in Afghanistan, no Iraq War, no huge deficits, and trillions of dollars available for modernizing our economy, infrastructure, education and the well being of our society.
The destruction of the World Trades Building led to slightly under 3000 deaths. During the same year, 42,196 people died from motor vehicle accidents in the USA. This is not meant to minimize the tragedy or to suggest that the invasion of Afghanistan and improvement to nationwide security were mistakes. But we reacted emotionally and excessively, thus magnifying the damage done to us hundreds of times over.
Through our own folly, the collapse of the World Trade buildings was followed in rapid succession by the collapse of the American economy. Barack Obama was elected president with an agenda to help restore our nation but ideological and political obstructionism has thwarted him at every turn.
“We have met the enemy and he is us.” … Walt Kelly in “Pogo.”
It is quite a good column, what I disagree with is your introduction to it. Would things have been all that different with Gore? This speech Gore gave before the Iraq invasion, after his “loss” to Bush to the Council on Foreign Relations shows his endorsement of the Bush War on Terror including support for the Iraq War before it began and even going further, urging an attack on Iran. So, we may have had the same mistaken war policy. Gore always was a hawk, even going back to Vietnam.
What we would have needed to get through 9/11 without destroying ourselves is a president capable of taking the country through self-reflection. Why did they attack us? Honest answers would have focused on backlash to American empire which now includes more than 1,100 military bases and outposts around the world often in places they are not wanted, with a particular emphasis on what General Alexander Haig called our “unsinkable battle ship in the Middle East” — Israel. There is no evidence in Gore’s history, nor in his speech to the Council on Foreign Relations that he would have been able to take the country through that self-reflection. War blindness, sadly, still is likely to have been the mistaken response by the largest empire in world history — an empire that still cannot even discuss that it is in empire in the public domain.
No doubt there would have been some differences between Bush and Gore (even tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum are spelled differently) but on the central issue of war which had led to much of the U.S. downfall, not much — and sadly, probably not as much on many issues as we would hope, imagine or have needed as a nation.
KZ
Please. You’re confusing ideological purity with common sense. Gore, for all his faults, was not a C-student surrounded by zombies like Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. Gore might well have gone after Osama in Afghanistan but once the Taliban had been ousted that would have been the end of it. He would not have invaded Iraq on the national credit card, our economy wouldn’t be going under, and there is a very real possibility that we would have had a rational energy policy that was not driven by Texas Oilmen.
While you’re contemplating another Third Party Movement, please reflect on the fact that Obama, for all his faults, is not an Evangelical Libertarian madman who wants Social Security to be limited to corporations and the fabulously wealthy—while sending what’s left of the middle class to Mexico.
There are real consequences to the magical thinking of the left. In 1968, I was one of those Democrats so angered by the repression in Chicago that I voted for Richard Nixon. I sure showed Humphrey, didn’t I ?
I understand your anger with Obama for not supporting Single Payer, etc. But if he had we still wouldn’t have Single Payer. At that moment it was flat-out impossible. Symbolic gestures are a good idea sometimes but they’re only symbolic. They don’t count when the votes are cast.
Obama’s current catering to business and Wall Street is his only option in the face of the Citizens United decision, which unleashed the Koch Brothers to pour unlimited cash into this election cycle. They gave us the Tea Party—what a great idea—and unless the Democrats can match them $ for $, they will almost certainly give us Rick Perry.
No matter what you think of Obama, a successful Third Party candidate in 2012 will be another symbolic gesture that will not “Wake Up America.” It will ensure the triumph of an oligarchic theocracy.
If we on the Left had given Obama the street support he needed—tens of thousands marching on Washington like they did for FDR—then we might have Single Payer. But we expected this lone black dude to handle the whole thing while we sat on our hands.
I’m working the other side of the game—trying to build a movement among the Newest Generation that might give us a chance to defeat the real enemies of Democracy.
Amen [to the above.]
I knew what I said would not be popular. Glad you see it is not about ideology – since they both support US empire for corporate profit. I agree Gore would have conducted the wars better than Bush. However, from what he said at the Council on Foreign Relations he probably would have attacked Iran first. That would have been quite a quagmire.
I know Dems don’t like to see their party as militarist but read Gore’s words. He even endorsed the Axis of Evil language of Bush.
Two other points: The Gore family also profited from the oil business.
And if you read Gore’s words to the CFR he did not call for stopping at Afghanistan. He urged focus on Iran and supported attacking Iraq.
Gore was a hawk and picked uber-hawk Lieberman as his VP. A ‘C’ student could not have shown worse judgment.
KZ