Have We Humbled Yet?

Yet, even with a firm understanding of the causes of this act of desperation, fury, and hatred of US imperialism, turning to terrorism to fight global oppression and exploitation is not an acceptable strategy.

In retrospect, I can say with confidence that I was right. The imperialist strategy hasn’t worked for us – especially, the poor and working class of this country. The economy has worsened – for working-class Americans, that is; war contractors looted Iraq’s money; and Republicans didn’t even invite the architects of their response to 9/11 to their own convention this year! There was no Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld or even “Scooter” Libby. No Colin Powell…

We are still fighting the “War on Terror.” Like the unwelcomed house guest who won’t leave, we remain in Afghanistan despite Afghans desire for us to leave their country, which they show us in the form of IEDs in our path. Though the US killed Osama bin Laden (at least that’s what we were told), the body didn’t die. Even though we periodically manage to kill an al-Qaeda #2, we can’t seem to locate #3.

It took years before we came to the point where we realized that America is not always in the right.

As we deliberately withdraw troops from two US-invaded and US-occupied nations, our country attacks teachers whom we entrust to impart knowledge to our children. We keep spending money for war, but want to pull money from teachers, firefighters and policemen.

We haven’t even completed the new World Trade Center memorial site. No progress has been made in the Israel-Palestine saga as the US continues to back an even more racist and imperialist policy of occupation than it did 11 years ago.

Americans have grown tired of the drama, but has she humbled herself? At least, this year, there was no terror alert. Maybe the terrorists weren’t after us after all? It’s such a shame it took us 11 years to figure out the boogey man ‘ain’t’ real. How about sorting the rest of the fact from fiction? How long might that take?