HERE IS A LEFTOVER ESSAY THAT THE NEWSPAPERS DIDN'T USE - FOR YOUR EDIFICATION

HOW THINGS HAVE CHANGED SINCE 9/11

JACK BRAGEN

On 9/11/2001, in many ways we lost our innocence as a nation.  We realized that we have enemies; these enemies were and are ruthless as well as clever.  These enemies are determined to put the American people in fear and to ruin the civil liberties that have made the US a great place to live.  Many politicians in the US seem to find this agenda a convenience, since it could be seen as a way of leveraging more power. 
     The Iraq war that followed ultimately became yet another blow against our freedom and our success.  Saddam Hussein was a cocky leader and in the process of not losing face, provided the US with excuses for going in.  Iraq turned out to be a Trojan Horse, badly draining the U.S. economy and tarnishing our international reputation as well as weakening our military.
     The legislation that followed the 9/11 attack, The Patriot Act, which was sold to us by the government as a set of safeguards to protect our people, ended up eroding our constitutional rights.   The government now had he blessings of Congress to wiretap citizens, to do surveillance on people, to incarcerate people without giving them legal representation, and to search people's homes at will without informing us that this was done. 
     These changes in how we are governed may not be constitutional, but no one was able or willing to stop the Patriot Act from being put into effect.  The Patriot Act was passed in a time of fever pitched patriotism and fear, and the American people and Congress were essentially conned into its passage. 
     The war in Iraq dragged on.  Our troops paid heavily, often with their lives, the price of either protecting the American people or fighting an unnecessary and costly war.  It remains a question whether the war in Iraq did anything to help us.
     Bush caused the liberal movement to rally and to grow stronger the way no progressive President could.  People were outraged at what was being done, in terms of starting unnecessary wars, eroding our freedoms, and putting more padding in the pockets of rich people, (while others barely got by, if at all.)  President Bush's grand scale fiasco was probably a major factor in Barack Obama being able to be elected to the White House. 
     President Obama is an improvement over President Bush.  And yet with President Obama in office, many of the flawed policies of the Bush administration continue.  Racism has not ceased to exist with an African-American President.  Several states in the South have circulated petitions to secede from the U.S., mainly due to white resentment.  We no longer have the blind patriotism that existed under Bush.  It has been replaced by right-wing extremism among people who were patriotic under Bush. 
     Are things better than they were thirteen years ago?  No.  The U.S. is under siege from forces within our borders and outside of them.  Flawed policies, leftover from President Bush, and kept in place largely by an obstinate Congress, are leading the US largely in the wrong direction.  The American people are splintered, and we are in danger of collapsing in much the same way as did the Roman Empire.