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October 1,
2001
The Good, The Bad,
and the Ugly
By David Grenier
I'm not sure what to write anymore.
I feel like it's wrong to write about anything aside from the
events of September 11th and the aftermath we're all facing.
At the same time, I have even less time now to write than I did
three weeks ago because now I have anti-war activities on top
of my normal work, organizing, and social life. I feel like most
of what I have to say has been said, but I can't just go back
to writing about dogs and Clint Eastwood.
Some events seem to be unfolding
quickly, others are leaving us with sickening anticipation of
the dropping of the other foot. There are new surprises every
day, every hour. It's not always easy to keep it together and
create a coherent reaction to the world around me. My thoughts
are too jumbled right now to give anything other than quick impressions
of the last two weeks.
The Good
Human beings all over the planet
reached out to help other human beings in need. People donated
blood, food, money, and time. Volunteers came from all over to
try to help the search for missing people in New York. A movement
spontaneously started to fight the idea that killing thousands
or even millions more people was a sane response to the tragedy
- and it's winning so far. People saw beyond the media's permanent
loop of cheering Palestinians and refused to succumb to racism
against Arabs. Many Americans I've talked to have a newfound
interest in understanding world politics, U.S. foreign policy,
and the tenets of Islam.
The Bad
The President of the United
States has tried to use this situation to establish permanent
global United States hegemony over the entire world. The idea
that every country has to allow the U.S. to have access to their
military and intelligence capabilities, to "cooperate"
with U.S. dictates or be considered "with the terrorists"
is frightening. How anyone can talk of freedom, democracy, and
sovereignty and support this idea is beyond me. In addition,
the government has established the very Nazi-sounding "Office
of Homeland Security" and is trying to erode our rights
to freedom and privacy. We must fight this. We must not assume
simply because our government flies a red white and blue flag
that they always follow or uphold the ideals that the flag embodies
for many Americans.
The Ugly
In a time when people need
a sense of security the most corporations are laying off thousands
of workers. 100,000 workers in the air transport industry alone
lost their jobs, plus thousands more in service and manufacturing.
We don't see CEOs slashing their salary or investment firms accepting
a loss as "good for the country", yet workers are supposed
to be ok with losing their very livelihood and then being told
that it is their patriotic duty to go out and spend money they
don't have. To compound this heinousness, our tax money is then
given to the same rich assholes who fired our working class brothers
and sisters in the form of an "emergency bailout."
This same administration that gave speeches about personal responsibility
and made it more difficult for working folks to declare bankruptcy
when they're in over their head now tells us to go further in
debt while they give our money to their wealthy buddies. No law
has been passed to help the people laid off (which is only mildly
related to the tragedy of Sept 11th... it was obvious when Boeing
moved to Chicago that they would begin shutting down U.S. plants
and moving the work to Mexico or overseas). No emergency funding
can be found for the victims of ruthless profit-oriented Capitalism.
In a time when regular folks all over the world are doing everything
they can to help each other, these moves expose the free market
as a lumbering dinosaur in opposition to the values of solidarity
and humanity we've witnessed over the past two weeks.
I say that if the air transport
industry is so vital to the nation that the public has to pay
for it, then goddammit, the public should own it.
I also say that we all need
to think about two images from September 11th. The first is the
image of firefighters heroically putting themselves at risk to
save the lives of their fellow human beings. The second is the
image of Starbucks charging rescue workers (who paid out of their
own pocket) $130 for bottled water to treat the victims of the
attacks. We are a world at a crossroads. Which would you rather
live in, a society of heroic firefighters, or a society of greedy
Starbucks execs and their hapless employees?
Make your decision, and carry
it with you. Think about the kind of world you want and be prepared
to struggle to bring it about. The people who are using the tragedy
as an excuse to lay off workers, the people who are using the
tragedy as an excuse to steal our money and give it to their
rich pals will not bring about a better world on their own. Just
like we need to fight to create a society based on pluralism
rather than racism and justice rather than revenge, we need to
struggle to bring about a world based on cooperation and mutual
aid rather than profiteering profiteering and corporate greed.
David Grenier is a web developer, labor activist,
and league bowler...not necessarily in that order. He writes
political commentary and humorous anecdotes on his website.
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