When seriously seeking solutions rather than constantly complaining, one has to diligently dig for the root reason. What caused 9/11? By knowing the root, could it have been averted? I believe so. Identifying the root opens the opportunity to eliminate or, at least, to contain the causation so the same horror wouldn’t be repeated.
As I’ve often stated, 9/11 wouldn’t have happened if Bush wouldn’t have stolen the election the year prior. On the other hand, it wouldn’t have been stolen if Al Gore would have shown some courage. Like Democrats’ spinelessness that lost 2000 & 2004 and almost all policy battles since – even when they manage to capture both branches – Al Gore only was a channel of the party’s tradition in cowering to bullies.
So, I believe the root problem is Democrats’ passiveness that allows for stolen elections, anti-environmental policies, anti-worker sentiment, illegal wars, a nation on the brink of depression, and a crushed global economy. If they only would have stood up to the right, most of these wrongs would never have materialized.
The solution is to put some spine into the spineless. That means influencing the party through a new grassroots drive. The Occupy Movement was a good start. Organized labor should also push the party hard to reform its ways and purge its weaklings. The Democratic Leadership Council, which does nothing but compromise with crooks, should be fired.
Without a stolen election in 2000, 9/11 wouldn’t have made the headlines in 2001. So, the root, stolen election, goes deeper than the GOP’s election fraud, voter suppression, and outright thievery; it navigates to the passive nature of the Democratic Party and why it feels compelled to appease enemies instead of please friends.
How many centuries did it take science to discover germs were the primary reason people become sick? Until that time, superstitions and myths were accepted because facts were buried. Meantime, millions died for lack of sanitation. The Black Plague swept Europe because people didn’t realize rats and fleas carried microscopic organisms called bubonic bacteria that were being transmitted to humans, killing them by the millions. Over 1/3 of Europe was wiped out. Imagine 1/3 of the U.S. killed by an incurable disease – 100 million people.
I’m not necessarily comparing the past ten years to the Dark Ages and Black Plague. But the comparison in not finding the root cause in time to save us from terrorists’ attacks, unnecessary wars, and a collapsed economy – is similar. Monday morning quarterbacking is not seeking root causes. Because we knew in 2000 the election was being rigged. We knew Katherine Harris was busy purging voter rolls before that time. We knew of Karl Rove’s dirty tricks – how he stole elections in Texas and South Carolina. And we knew Bush was planning war against Iraq before he stole the election, a year before 9/11, which was used as pretext.
We got into this mess not only because of the 2000 stolen election or even the Democrats’ apparent weakness, but because of the greed element’s growing power over a period of decades. There is an element in this country that is determined to destroy unions, decimate the Middle Class, and concentrate wealth into the hands of the few. Bush was just a symptom, tip of the iceberg.
Remember Wisconsin in 2011? Go back to the 1930s; we saw the same element working to destroy Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. They challenged Social Security all the way to the Supreme Court. They not only tried to repeal SS, but all the labor laws enacted to solve the Great Depression. They even tried an armed revolt against the Government in 1933.
Now we know the root cause of this current crisis. It’s political. It’s politics based on greed. It’s an entire political movement bent on destroying the public sector and making the nation into a corporate-run oligarchy owned by the elite few with millions of servants around them living in abject poverty.
Greed is the primary root that branches into derivatives that may seem as causes but are merely manifestations of the root itself. Once one realizes the source, what corrective action is necessary to eradicate it?