September Eleventh and November Eighth

In addition to remembering the innocent people who were murdered 15 years ago we should also remember the decades of U.S. interventions in the Middle East and elsewhere that helped fuel the hatred that culminated in that terrorist attack and reflect upon the poorly planned interventions that followed it. 9/11 was a turning point in U.S. and world history and unfortunately the U.S. turned the wrong way. On this anniversary a sarcastic thanks must be given to U.S. mainstream media, particularly Fox News, for too often failing to challenge Bush administration assumptions and leading an uninformed/misinformed U.S. public into a strongly opposed war of choice.

The U.S. led invasion of Iraq destroyed much of the only good which came from the 9/11 attacks which was the goodwill and willingness of the much of the Middle East and rest of the world to stand together and fight against terrorism and religious extremism. However as a direct result of the invasion of Iraq terrorism and religious extremism is now as big of a problem as ever and the world has to deal with a de facto country founded upon it known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Moreover issuing what could be seen as a hit list, an “Axis of Evil”, and then invading one of those countries, Iraq, encouraged North Korea, and perhaps Iran, to speed up the development of their own nuclear weapons arsenal.

If Al Gore had been sworn in as president in January 2001 instead of George W. Bush odds are the invasion of Iraq would have not have taken place and ISIS would not exist moreover humanity wouldn’t be in quite as serious of a predicament it’s in with climate change. This goes to show you just how important voting for the best candidate is even when there isn’t an ideal option. It’s easy to get cynical when faced with two unappealing choices and say “They’re all the same. What’s it matter?” however although oftentimes similar they aren’t “all the same” and it matters a lot. For instance the 2000 Bush vs Gore election ended up mattering trillions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of lives, and millions of metric tons of greenhouse gasses.

If you’re a U.S. citizen I hope you will vote on November 8th, or sooner, and support Hillary Clinton and other candidates that recognize the the urgent need to reduce CO2, methane, and other greenhouse gas emissions because with Trump and a bunch of like-minded climate change deniers in the House and Senate as the alternative this election is way too close for comfort. The last thing the U.S., the world, and the biosphere needs is Trump nominating Supreme Court justices who could continue to obstruct the implementation of the Clean Power Plan and stick around the Supreme Court for decades making other bad decisions based upon their interpretations of the Bible and Atlas Shrugged.

NYT Obama Climate Change Interview (Less than 7 minutes when viewed at 2x speed.)