My tiny claim to Sept. 11 fame is that I shared the horror of the crime with Margaret Atwood (I hope you know who I mean). We both happened to be at Toronto airport for an early flight to New York when we saw the first tower hit and, as longtime acquaintances, we hung together glued to the TV until the second crash made clear we weren’t going anywhere that day. The day, as the cliché now insists, that changed everything. Maybe it’s really true.
Of the million stories that reflect the world since that moment, here’s the one I find most revealing. As a direct result of toiling in the ruins of the twin towers, many New York firefighters, police officers and other emergency workers became seriously ill, some terminally. These “first responders” have been lauded to the hills for their heroism, often in the most cringe-worthy manner by craven political opportunists. Saints, they were, saints, my dears, and we’ll never ever forget their sacrifices.
Late last year, the American government proposed a bill to provide funding to aid these damaged saints. A no-brainer, eh? Not in post-9/11 America. In fact the Republican members of Congress united to oppose such funding unless the tax cuts George Bush had gifted to the top 2 per cent of Americans were extended. Only when they were shamed publicly by Jon Stewart did the Republicans finally relent. But fear not. They of course won those continuing gifts to the filthy rich when President Barack Obama caved on raising America’s credit limit.
Writ small, this is the history of the post-9/11 world in the United States, in Canada, in Britain, and wherever else business interests and conservative politicians have been able to have their way with us – us being the vast majority of the world’s population.
In the aftermath of 9/11, George Bush liked to hear himself say that the terrorists were motivated by their hatred for America’s freedoms, for the American way of life, and not of course by brutal American policies in the Middle East. So how to retaliate? Easy peasy. When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping. Shopping, Mr. Bush inspirationally declared, was exactly the best revenge. But if you’re laid off or can’t pay your mortgage or on minimum wage or your wages are being squeezed and your pension cut and your union broken and social services slashed – all goals American conservatives set decades ago, now ramped up after 9/11 – well, it kind of limits your purchasing power.
Yet at the same time, Mr. Bush told good guys everywhere that what we all needed to do after 9/11 was to accept “shared sacrifices” in the deadly battle to combat terrorism. Some sacrifices. Some sharing. In fact, what Mr. Bush and his allies did was to escalate a class war on both the economic and the culture front. Conveniently enough, the same cabal of extremist billionaires are funding both flanks of this two-front war. The upshot is that never before have so few sacrificed so little while so many have paid the price, led by those who died – both as fighters and as victims – of the wars that Bush and Co. launched or incited.
As it happens, when American and Canadian soldiers returned from these distant battlefields physically or psychologically maimed, despite their never-to-be-forgotten sacrifices their governments promptly forgot them. The result in both countries was a shocking scandal of neglect that hardly anyone ever heard of.
What was needed after 9/11, as all agreed, was unity of purpose against the evildoers. So conservatives intensified the culture wars, bitterly dividing people as rarely before. For them, gun laws are slavery, gays are sinners, same-sex marriage is the devil’s work, Jesus saves, Muslims are terrorists, abortion is immoral, immigrants are hounded, law ‘n order is the permanent priority, the United Nations is subversive, feminism is a menace, global warning is a delusion, evolution is sacrilegious, liberalism is anti-American, and Mr. Obama is an African Muslim Hitlerite commie.
