graeme in 3...2...1...

I've already made some comments in some of the videos...

September 11th has jumped the shark for me and I think that people should resist the manipulation by the US government and other governments to continue their War on (some of) Islam and the deification of those who died in that religiously-intended car accident that is called September 11.  We are being used.

Spirituality isn't aboot following someone else's Spirituality that has been manufactured for you, it involves finding your own.  So that is one of the 'positives' of September 11th, kicking us out of our complacency and to fight against these worlds that have been created (and still are) for us to consume/live in.

That is all, citizens.

Amen InannaWhimsey.

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

     Friedrich Nietzsche

I've shared the first one on facebook...as I think it is a great discussion starter.

I'm wondering if someone wants to start a thread with the first question -- where were you on 9/11...and then we move through them over the next week or so...

I can't post video's...quite frustrating, but don't want to risk starting a thread..and not being able to post the video.

okay. Then we'll  have on on the spiritual implication of the massive slaughter in iraq, the genocide in guatemala, and the killings in Libya.

Sorry. I'm not interested in a church that kisses ass.

As soon as I have time, I will flag my ppost above as offensive. Then I will flag the post from the church.

I am using the anniversary along with the recent assasination of Bin Laden as a jumping off point to talk about "victory" and forgiveness and mourning.

THe lectionary suggests we read the story of Israel crossing the sea and the Egyptians being drowned in same.  It also suggests we read Miriam's song of victory for that event.  The Gospel reading is about forgiveness.

One of the hardest parts of the 9/11 coverage for many in N.America was scenes of Arabs dancing in the streets over their "victory".  And yet what happened in Washington when Bin Laden's death was announced.  Is this how we respond to events of victory?

There is an old story (rabbinic I believe) that while the angels rejoiced at teh drowning of Pharoah God wept because God's children were suffering.  How does this influence our reaction to events like this?

AS Christians we bear teh name of the one who taught us to forgive those who injure us and to love our enemy.  HOw does this impact our reaction to these events?  HOw should it?

Amen graeme.

ina...so you think we shouldn't discuss it? we shouldn't have conversation about it..or what has happened or how people approach it.

The articles in the paper have already started..where were you, etc.  To NOT talk about it, is hiding our head in the sand.

Graeme? are you implying the world has not changed? did you even listen to the videos. 

I think as Christ-followers we are supposed to know that ALL are God's children. Those in the buildings, those on the ground, those flying the planes, those who cheered and those who cried.... those who were sickened by the hanging of Saddam and those who cheered... those who cheered Bin Laden's death and those who cried.... those who work for peace and those who love war..

I have no objection to remembering victims. i have every objection when we remember only those on our side. - the two to three thousand in New York. But ignore the millions  (in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Guatemala, Vietnam..Libya....and the millions to come.

I suggest you read the gospels more carefully.

Pinga,

Phrases like "the world has changed", "post 9/11 world" are part of the September 11th Brand.

I fear that Canada is becoming more affected by this Brand as well and is replacing thinking on the subject.

It is a Brand that has been spread to the world and was created for a reason.

The world has changed because of this Brand.  Not because of some inherent nature of September 11th itself.  The anxiety of the US is real and the rest of the world should try to resist it.  But it is hard.  Now we have countries that are using this to their own ends as well, quelling "opposition" by calling them terrorists.

I remember, since I spent a lot of time in the US, going "I hope they don't turn the site into a sacred site."  And they did.  That fits with the US character.

What I've always been hoping, wishing, sending out to universe is that this tiny event would inspire people to WAKE UP.

I'm glad that, around the world, it seems that a Global Human Spring has happened, as people are so frustrated with these worlds that have been created for them that they want to live in their own worlds that they choose.

To break free from these various corporate worlds that these corporations and organizations have created for us and that we have been living in for so long that we think it is "The World".

Feelings are real.  But they aren't the objects that they describe :3

I challenge everyone and anyone (especially here) to feel the same way aboot a death in another country or a horrific accident, like say the Madrid train bombing, just as they feel aboot September 11th.  That is the challenge.  That is agape.  That is the faithful response.

And then, of course, to analyze why one feels or doesn't feel that way.

that's my point..the brand has been laid down.

if you listen to the video's they speak about the security crap that we now go through..which is over the top, and not required....the islamaphobia  which we even have experienced on this site (and continue to)

we do need to speak out against all of those changes........

to state that it hasn't changed is putting your head in the sand.

Pinga,

And it fits in quite nicely with Christianity, fighting of Empire.

I just get the idear that this Brand, when I hear "the world has changed" & "post 9/11 world" etc I think of what is being said there is that there is some evil (cue reverb) in the world that has made the world not safe anymore...which is obviously patently untrue.

I think the branding has made the world less safe. Canada is a safe country to live in,  we are extremely lucky, but the world as a whole is less safe.  I understand people mourning over the tragic and horrible loss of loved ones on 911, but I am fearful when I see the hype about the anniversary in the news, that it will only continually fuel the fire of extremists and not lead to peace,

Nicely said Kimmio and Innawhimsey.

November 11th, that other day of Remembrance, was originally called Armistice Day it was a celebration of "the cessation of hostilities".  The hostilities didn't end and Armistice Day was renamed Remembrance Day.

There is nothing wrong with remembering per se.  There can be something wrong with how one remembers.  Do the victorious remember smugly and with righteousness?  Do the conquered remember their wounds and nurse their grievances?  Or do we remember the horrors and end the madness.

In the end, it was appropriate to rename Armistice Day because the definition of "armistice" is "A temporary cessation of fighting".  Indeed the original day lived up to the definition and another "war to end all wars" occurred.

And once again the world finds itself fighting another "world war".  We just don't name it.  Does it take a declaration to make a war?  Will it only be when we watch troops march through our own streets before we acknowledge its existence?

How we remember defines us.  What we remember propels us into action.  The action of the September 11th remembrances will shape the world we live in.

Let us remember the promises made to the Fallen, all the Fallen.  Let us make this the final world war.  We could record September 11 as Cessation Day and remember that in the future.

All the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month. It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.

     Kurt Vonnegut

God spoke clearly.  The silence was the voice of peace. 

We should remember that.

absolutey, Ina, and it is the reaction....again, listen to the video and allow them to help you launch those dialogues.

the way to have dialogue with people is to start in a place where you can talk, and then move.

naming the videos as graeme did, is exactly what happens with the branding you refer to....It blocks communication.....find the spot, find common language, and then move from it.

the world has changed..let's talk about an example....air security....going through lines, etc...has it made anyone any more safe?  damn -- nope....highly unlikely   Compare US / Canada security with European or other countries where security is invisible..and works well.  So.....our phobias, fears, have resulted in the government providing things to make people think they are being kept safe, which are crap.......the world has changed -- why? because we are collectively idiots.

Whatever your opinion on how the tenth anniversary of 9/11 should or should not be observed, it has be admitted that it changed a lot of people's thinking.   Including mine.   

I was kind of in la-la land pre 9/11, not really following the international news beyond what was in Newsweek.  After 9/11, I started reading about Islam and starting following the news much more closely.

If that makes me a hypocrite because I ignored the CIA excesses of the sixties and seventies, then I am guilty (although I did hear about them, I was reading Newsweek.  I even have a book about the massacres in El Salvador).

Another thing that made a difference was that, right around 9/11, the web was really taking off.  You could now follow news from big papers like the Wall Street Journal and New York Times and European publications that were formerly only available only if you lived in a large city (I live in Victoria, BC, not large) or worked at a university or had plenty of spare time to visit libraries.

In the web-age, things are very different.  People are following things--everything--much more closely.  Another thing that had made a difference is being able to buy books on-line.  Again, the beneficiaries were people like me, in small or middling cities, not working at universities, but too busy to spend a lot of time going to libraries.

The web and Amazon (and Abebooks, the used book seller) have really changed my thinking.  I have become much better-informed in general.  It was just a coincidence that 9/11 took place at the time these on-line things were taking off.

Thank you, Pinga.  I find that I was reacting according to my programs rather than acting.  I've analyzed how I felt aboot the videos and in particular my strong emotional reactions to the Moderator.  I projected myself onto what was being said.

Thank you again, Pinga.

I don't think there was a deliberate connection by anyone to the evolution of the internet and September 11. People were online prior to it, but like every other technology, it evolves, with often unintended consequences. They may be indirectly related. To say it's directly related or deliberate is like saying there was a deliberate connection to the industrial age, or the invention of the automobile and global warming. People intended it for good purposes, and just didn't have foresight and didn't know where the use of the technology could lead. Technology evolves, and in the case of the internet, it has become a tool for people disseminate and to seek out more information, and misinformation. Education is very important, to avoid such misinformation.

I am not suggesting it is deliberate!   It was just a coincidence, and I know the web did exist before but, like I said, I was off on my own little projects and kind of ignoring foreign affairs.

If you can read and write German, you can add your thoughts here

http://september-2001.net/wo-warst-du-am-11-september/

(literally, where-were-you-on-11-September).   

ina, i feel that i know you well enough to dialogue....glad that we were able to work together on this one....have a great day...now drive the dialogue....

EasternOrthodox...sorry, my misinterpretation. I've been in several discusions on WC today and can only focus and multi-task so much (my cue to slow down ).  Unfortunately I can't read or write German, but thanks for posting the link anyway. :)

Here is a taste of how the proceedings are going to go at Ground Zero.  Bless those involved with organizing it.

"The ceremony was designed in coordination with 9/11 families with a mixture of readings that are spiritual, historical and personal in nature. It has been widely supported for the past 10 years and rather than have disagreements over which religious leaders participate we would like to keep the focus of our commemoration ceremony on the family members of those who died. This year's six moments of silence allow every individual a time for personal and religious introspection," Evelyn Erskine, a spokeswoman for the mayor, said in an email.

[source]

(The title of the article is misleading, there is no clergy ban.)

EDIT:  in related news, here's Zach Hunter, 19 years old, Christian, and he already groks what Christianity is all aboot...here's the link this beautiful young man's article.

Wonderful article.  The world could use more "naive and ignorant" Christians like Zach Hunter.

Now at 19, I'm still far from a theological prodigy - and have been called naïve and ignorant. I have learned the value of working with people who think differently from me because there is too much to do to be petty or territorial. I still think I'm awkward and misfit and I find it interesting that people are surprised to learn I'm a Christian - not because of the bad things I think and do (and there are plenty) but because of the passion I have to do good.

Actually, the world could use more people with a passion to do good.

UCC-GCO - thank you for posting the videos.   I am always touched by Mardi's wisdom and gentleness.  And I'm proud to have her as my Moderator. 

What would people say if the UC had a memorial service for all those tortured and killed in CIA prisons?

For the hundreds of thousands killed in Iraq?

Foro those killed in the western overthrow of elected governments in Guatemala, Haiti, and Iran?

I am not proud of the United church. To hold such a service in these circumstances can do only two things - 1. satisfy a lust for righteousness in the cheapest and most brainless way. 2.encourage hatred for those responsible for it, a hatred which is bound to become generalized to millions who had nothing to do with it.

A service for all the killed, impoverished and tortured in 9/11 and since? Certainly. But that would take a courage and honesty I have not seen. Not in the leadership of the church, and certainly not in its membership.

Graeme - have you read the opening post and watched the videos?

I think they should.  I think we all should have memorials to the various sufferings and injuries that have occurred.  I'm trying to push for this view also.  My idea-factory is busily composing a post for the Huffington Post for Septermber 11 that will include that.

And graeme, I think you should collect some of your articles and make a pitch to the editors of Huffington Post -- the Huffington Post is a very good place for exposure -- it's a bit rough n' tumble with the comments, but it has quite a big internet readership.  I look forward to seeing your articles there sometime :3

seeler - why pick 9/11 as the marker? Why not pick the bombing of Cambodia that killed 250 times as many innocent people? Why not pick the massacre in Guatemala that killed a hundred times as many people?

By picking that day, we set the tone for the mourning - and the spiritual enquiry.

Graeme - on September 11, 2001, my world changed.  I sat and watched the TV and thought about how the US (and Canada) would react to this act of terrorism, and I felt fear (fear like I used to feel as a small child during the 2nd world war when my father  listened to the news on the radio after supper and we weren't permitted to make a sound.)    Understand, my fear was not of the terrorists, but of our reaction to it.   And the US (and Canada) reacted just as I had feared.   It just took them a few weeks longer.   Since that time we have never been without war or rumours of war.  Our freedoms have been curtailed - travel restricted.   And we hear of things that until then were unthinkable - torture justified - people arrested and held without charges - held in foreign prisons, etc.     Would these things have happened without 9/11?   I don't know.   I do know that for me it is a day of mourning.

I understand your point, and agree with it. I remember the day well, too.

But the world didn't change just that day. The decision to change it was made years earlier, when American business leaders and their puppets like Jeb Bush decided that the US had to make an attempt to militarily and economically dominate the world. It was immediately or never. Neo-Conservative leaders and business realized that the US was at the peak of its military power, and could only go downhill as new powers like China and India rose.

In fact, it your track American participation in wars since 1900 (earlier if we count the annexation of Hawaii), the consistent American policy has been military and economic expansion beyond the new world.

Business leaders knew they had to act immediately to nail down the middle east and Africa to keep China and Russia out. They also knew they needed even more military bases to limit any expansion of China, in particular.

This was, or should have been, public knowledge in the 1990s when the declaration of Project for the New American Century appeared on the web.

After Libya,  expect Syria and Iran, maybe Pakistan, probably Venezuela - maybe in open attack (with some excuse) or set up by financing and training "freedom fighters" to overthrow governments that business doesn't like.

I was on the air when 9/11 happened. And it certainly scared me because I knew this gave American business the excuse it wanted. I knew that we were in for a long period of wars and instability.

(You'll notice I don't mention the US government or the US people much. That's because they don't matter. The US is run by large corporations. We barely hold on to a fiction of democracy even here in Canada. Most of our news media are owned by and operated for a small number of very wealthy people. The Liberals and the Conservative are essentially puppets - only slightly less so than the Democrats and the Republicans.)

The fundamental problem is not who did what to whom. Nor is it how the peoples of of the world can get along with each other. The problem is that our western world is controlled  by people of unlimited greed and brutality. Our problem is not Moslem terrorists. It's Christian billionaires.

They have looted South America, the Middle East, Africa, the US itself, and Canada. Even today, as Americans face a real unemployment rate of over twenty percent, the wages of the wealthiest continue to rise, and the major corporations are posting record profits, much of them from rigged government contracts that milk the taxpayers even more. Any tax raise for the wealthy and for corporations will be a joke because their profits are neatly filed under the jurisdiction of various tiny jurisdictions that impose almost no taxes.

The problem is not that we lack tolerance and understanding though, of course, a great many do. The problem is that we are victimized and controlled by economic monsters.

I don't see much sign the churches are prepared to face up to that.

I always ask at times that we remember the victims inside the world trade towers, on September 11, that we also pray for and remember the victims of September 11.1973. As a result many more were killed than people in the Trade Centre.

How can re remember 2001 and not 1973?

From Wiki

On Tuesday 11 September 1973, the democratically elected President Salvador Allende was overthrown in a coup d’état organised by the Chilean military and the CIA. After the coup, Pinochet established a military dictatorship that ruled Chile until 1990;

The Rettig Report concluded 2,279 persons who disappeared during the military government were killed for political reasons or as a result of political violence, and approximately 31,947 tortured according to the later Valech Report, while 1,312 were exiled. The latter were chased all over the world by the intelligence agencies. In Latin America, this was made in the frame of Operation Condor, a cooperation plan between the various intelligence agencies of South American countries, assisted by a United States CIA communication base in Panama. 

Some political scientists have ascribed the relative bloodiness of the coup to the stability of the existing democratic system, which required extreme action to overturn. Some of the most famous cases of human rights violation occurred during the early period: in October 1973, at least 70 people were killed throughout the country by the Caravan of Death. Charles Horman, a US journalist, "disappeared", as did Víctor Olea Alegría, a member of the Socialist Party, and many others, in 1973.

Furthermore, many other important officials of Allende's government were tracked down by the DINA in the frame of Operation Condor. Thus, General Carlos Prats, Pinochet's predecessor and army commander under Allende, who had resigned rather than support the moves against Allende's government, was assassinated in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1974. A year later, the murder of 119 opponents abroad was disguised as an internal conflict, the DINA setting up a propaganda campaign to accredit this thesis (Operation Colombo), campaign that received diffusion by the leading newspaper in Chile, El Mercurio.

Other victims of Condor included, among hundreds of less famous persons, Juan José Torres, the former President of Bolivia, assassinated in Buenos Aires on 2 June 1976; Carmelo Soria, a UN diplomat working for the CEPAL, assassinated in July 1976; Orlando Letelier, a former Chilean ambassador to the United States and minister in Allende's cabinet, assassinated after his release from internment and exile in Washington, D.C. by a car bomb on 21 September 1976. This led to strained relations with the US and to the extradition of Michael Townley, a US citizen who worked for the DINA and had organized Letelier's assassination. Other targeted victims, who escaped assassination, included Christian-Democrat Bernardo Leighton, who escaped an assassination attempt in Rome in 1975 by the Italian terrorist Stefano delle Chiaie; Carlos Altamirano, the leader of the Chilean Socialist Party, targeted for murder in 1975 by Pinochet, along with Volodia Teitelboim, member of the Communist Party; Pascal Allende, the nephew of Salvador Allende and president of the MIR, who escaped an assassination attempt in Costa Rica in March 1976; US Congressman Edward Koch, who became aware in 2001 of relations between death threats and his denunciation of Operation Condor, etc. Furthermore, according to current investigations, Eduardo Frei Montalva, the Christian Democrat President of Chile from 1964 to 1970, may have been poisoned in 1982 by toxin produced by DINA biochemist Eugenio Berrios.^[43]

In The Globe for Sept. 2, 2011 is a remarkable story of a Mr. Sosa or Guatemala (who also has Canadian and American citizenship.

Now the elected government of Guatemala was overthrown about 1953 or so by American-supplied "rebels. The reason was that the president wanted the people to be able to eat, and he wanted to levy a small tax on the landholdings of United Fruit Company. A major shareholder in UFC was John Foster Dulles, the secretary of State. The freedom fighters promptly established a dictatorship. The CIA established training in torture and murder to keep the peasantry quiet. The United Fruit Company was very happy with this arrangement.

That led to a forty year massacre of 200,000 Guatemalans, mostly Maya. In this good work, the CIA was assisted by Israeli special ops.

Mr. Sosa was arrested in Canada to face war crimes charges of having slaughtered a village of 222 people in 1982. He had accused a village of having rifles. When he couldn't find rifles, he decided to kill them all anyway.

Infants and young children went first, many killed by Mr. Sosa using a sledgehammer. Girls and women were raped, then killed. Finally, all the men were killed. I think that counts as a war crime.

But in such a trial, awkward stories could come out, stories about Chiquita Banana and the CIA. So the US has asked that he be extradited to the US to be tried for lying to immigration officials. Wow! That could carry a heavy penalty - maybe even deportation to Guatemala.

Harper will almost certainly agree.

I really don't think that a day of mourning on the anniversary of 9/11, and an appeal for people to love and understand each other is anywhere close to an appropriate response.

Unregulated capitalism has become extraordinarily greedy and brutal and murderous. Our acceptance of its greed and brutality has become a threat to the stability of even our own society.

A day of mourning is simply a pious way of ignoring the real problem.

OK Graeme - you've made your point.  I shouldn't mourn for the world on Sept. 11th   (I'll hopefully be on vacation then and not even attend church.)   But what should I do?  I don't think stopping eating bananas will help - though I do try to eat locally if possible. 

You can't eat locally. They aren't grown locally. And there have been more people killed in the Chiquita banana trade than their have been in drug trafficking in Mexico. Canadian mining companies in the third world  have been involved in killing more people than in t he Mexican drug wars.

My point was not what you said it was. (Not surprisingly). My point was that being piously mournful for no matter how many victims isn't going to do a hell of a lot. My point was that much if not most of the world's suffering has been caused by a capitalism run wild, by our obsession with consuming, and by our participation is wars designed to exploit weaker countries.

I'd like the churches to face reality. I'd like them to realize that much of what Jesus said had to so with daily lives and behaviour. So far, I've seen little willingness to do that.

I think the church has to take up sides, here. I think it has to recognize that killing or impoverishing the wretched to make ourselves comfortable is wrong. I think it has to recognize that we are prominent among those who are doing the wrong. I think it has to make broad alliances - not just aid packages but alliances - with people and religions around the world.

The Christian churches have been mourning for centuries. So far, it doesn't seem to have helped a whole lot.

.

Graeme - you must attend a different church than I do.  I know about the mining companies - we have an outreach committee in our church (with two of its members on Presbytery) who spend a great deal of time and effort researching mining companies, and water, and famines caused (at least partly) by converting subsistence farms into factory farms growing food for export.  They do their best to keep us informed. 

We promote buying local.  Except for bananas, coffee and sugar - I try to buy local and eat foods in season (no bananas since the local berries ripened).  We use fair trade coffee at the church and I use it in my home (although it is much more expensive than the stuff you can by in Walmart).   I shop at a Coop store - and I inquire where the produce is grown - and my store (many people from my church are part owners) promotes local produce.  I also shop at the farmers market.  

Actually it is through my church that I learn about these things - certainly not from most TV news programs.

Then your church must seriously discuss what  has happened to capitalism, how it is destroying us and the rest of the world. This is not an attack on the idea of capitalism. I hold no brief for any ideology. But capitalism as experience it now has become a brutal, murderous and even self-destructive force.

The problem is not solved by drinking fair trade coffee because you cannot get enough fair trade drinkers to have any great impact. The problem is that we fail to recognize what has happened to our economic system. We are headed, and very rapidly to a major breakdown of our society. Historically, the winners of any such breakdown have been dictators - Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin. They make the problem worse.\, but get away with it because their is no agency that encourages people to think about what the core problem is.

Within a generation, the world will have changed beyond our imagining. The Christian churches have to seriously rethink their role. Playing good cop is not going to help.

aaah, now I see.

We should never encounter any event, or cultural memory of loss, as we can never truly grasp the concepts behind them.

We cannot ever comprehend all what resulted in 9/11....and so...in our attempts to explore our confusion, our loss, our struggle with the complexities, we can only make it worse.  As a church, we suck at such things, clearly....for we are human.  We should leave it to those who are wiser, much wiser than us.

We probably shouldn't have held a memorial on Dec 6th, either...as we don't understand the violence against women, or the educated.....and the hate that existed.  why should we gather to mourn, all we do is add to the foolish ideas and surface ideas.

We probably shouldn't attempt to discuss thngs during lent, unless we cna somehow to tap into the experts...i know, i know...some of you struggle to get that information from different sources, and use material from alternate sources, such as kairos, but, honestly, you can never truly grasp it, as much as others...so why do you bother. Better to not dialogue, for you are sure to fail.

And on that note, why bother with a funeral, for we cannot truly understand a person's life, all the items that led them to their decision, all the complexities of how they interacted with family, friends, coworkers.  In an hour, we can never begin to comprehend a person's life enough to lament or celebrate it or our relationships in it......so...we shouldn't bother.

We shouldn't baptise a person, either, probably, as we can never truly grasp the relationship with God, the Spirit, Jesus....or how we define them..and so...to attempt to do so is foolish.  Why, we poor ignorant humans should not try.....

maybe, even gathering is foolish.....

Aw Pinga - and there is no hope either, for our puny efforts are worthless against the powers that are in control and moving the world in a terrible direction.  

But I read in an old book about a man who never traveled more than 30 miles from his home, and who never wrote anything down (except in the sand), who only had 12 people he could count on (and they let him down), and who worked one on one among the poorest and lest influential in the area.   And he changed the world.

Quite marvelously off the point.

I did not suggest we should not discuss or meet or take action. I think you suggestion are reductio ad absurdum.

nce,To meet on miolence against women makes sense because it is clearly against violence again all women. It is taking a stand against those who inflict violence.

The proposed 9/11 day does not. And will not.

The world did not change on 9/11. Attack on the Moslem world by the west had been going, in their modern phase, for over a century. The west had been killing moslems for that time. Remember Kitchener and Khartoum? Why were the British there? The British also bombed Kurdistan villages in the 1920s in terror raids aimed at civilans, inposed a dictatorial "royal family" on SAudi Arabia, forced Iran to supply all the oil for its navy free of charge for over forty years, maintained a royal puppet in Egypt.

Then, with France and the US, Britain overthrew an elected government in Iran, imposed a dictator, took over control over the oil fields. And wondered why Iranians didn't like them. Libya was, for years, controlled by Continental OIl. When it tried to be more independent,  rebellioin was set up with NATO participating.

France, Spain and Italy concentrated on North Africa - France with hired thugs that we romanticized as The Foreign Legion.

The US has a history of aggressive expansion going back to 1775 , when it invaded Canada. It fought, and still fights, wars of aggression in  Latin America as well as wars overseas - with at least 750 permanent bases all over the world.

In that procdess, the west has killed in the millions, looted natural resources, tortured..........   So how did "the world" change on 9/11?

For the first time, Moslems found a way to shoot back at the US - in an attack that was minor compared to

Bthe killing, torture and looting that the west had submitted them to..  That was the change. That was the only change. So we have responded by killing almost a thousand times as many people who were killed on 9/11.

Fra

So the united church will discuss this over tea as though 9/11 was somehow a change in the whole direction of the world.

Will you be able to but memorial teaspoons with a picture of the trade towers?

I have to agree Graeme, war has always been with us. Do you think there are more democratic nations in the world today than before? Do you believe that democratic nations are less likely to go to war against each other?

A  democratic nation is one that has full access to information so that its people can make informed choices.

An country on earth has that.

A democratic country is one in which all have equal opportunity to run for office - without having special access to big money or to media controlled by big money.

If you can fill in the name of  a country here, I would be delighted to see it.

A democracy is something that people believe represents them, and so they will voluntarily turn out in large numbers to participate in the democratic process.

Suggestions?

A democracy is a country in which any citizen has as easy and open access to government as a billionaire does.

?A democracy is a country in which one cannot be arrested without evidence that a)a crime has been committed b)there is evidence you have committed it c)one has access to  a lawyer,d) you have assurance of the right to trial.

Both Canada and the US have laws overriding all those rights. There are many Americans who have been in prison for years with no trials, no legal representation, and no evidence of a crime. It has happened in Canada, too, fairly recently.

An American president also has the right to order the assassination of any American or foreigner without any given reason. And that power has been used. A [president can also order torture. And that has certainly been used.

So name me a democracy.

men have been killing women for centuries, graeme.  Dec 6th was just one more example of it.  If historical patterns mean it is foolish to discuss, then   it was foolish to gather and talk about anything related to dec 6. as hatred toward women has been going on for years and has many many reasons for it occurring and types of it.  

you may not like the way that i try to shift the conversation.. you are right, i am not trained to argue as you are...i am unworthy of conversing with you clearly, as do not value the debate style.

instead of coming at it and trying to prove the other a fool, I will try to find common ground, and then work through our differences understanding where each came  from...what knowledge causes them to be in the position that they are

so...graeme.....here's my thought...you are welcome to attend any church or gathering and share your great knowledge through lecture...and debate....talk to the minister, offer to do a service....or house a gathering and name it, something like "The Way It Truly Is"

i am considering having a gathering to discuss where people are....and using the video as a way to move dialogue.  Wondering how we can multiple viewpoints in a good way of sharing information...and working through some of the emotions being felt by people as they remember their fear...(as some have expressed here...the fear of how countries with power might react). I am wondering who are solid knowledgeable people on the subject, who would be good to have, to help broaden it from our fears, to the deeper issues, and our actions.   I will continue to have such discussions with folks, looking for alternate articles to launch dialogues.  

According to the Democratic Peace Theory, nations that are democracies rarely if ever go to war with each other. The number of these "democracies" have increased sharply over the last century.

If you google the "democratic peace theory" you will see and I'm sure you already know there are many definitions for "democracy". (eg:Kant's)

I suppose democracies share similarities within their capitalisms making them more agreeable trading partners.

Do you suppose 911 maybe marked the point where a more autocratic state started creeping within the US and somewhat Canada. (similar to Germany before WW1)

For some interesting American view points, both published on Sept 4, 2011...

The Worst Mistake America Made After 9/11
How focusing too much on the war on terror undermined our economy and global power.
 

and

The DOJ's escalating criminalization of speech

If you start from a false premise, your discussion is useless.

The world did not change after 9/11. For Asia, Africa and Latin America, and much of Europe, nothing whatever changed. People who had been randomly killed or exploited for centuries continued to be randomly killed or exploited.

Nothing changed in the behaviour of American governments. That all had been, throughout history, aggressive and expansionist. I don't understand how people can have a vision of a peaceful US when its creation and expansion across the continent was violent, when Canada was invaded by it twice and war on Canada threatened on at least two more occasions.

American policy remains what it always has been - US military expansion for economic gain.

As for Canada, we have pretty much followed the US lead since 1920.

The only thing that changed was the US became more of a police state than it already was.  If you see some other change. please enlighten me.

But, if you start with the premise that 9/11 was the great change, your discussion is going to go nowhere of any use. At best, you will end up with prattle that people should be nice to each other.

Democracies don't go to war with each other? I've often heard that. It's not true. It's in a class with another foolish statement that countries with close economic ties don't go to war with each other. (In 1914, Germany invaded Belgium, the centre of European, including German, banking) Lots of other examples.

Democracies?

1. The US overthrow of the democratically elected government of Guatemala.

2. The US creation of civil war in El Salvador.

3. The British, French and American overthrow of the democratically elected government of Iran ini the early 1950s.

4. The war in Vietnam, in which the US supported a coup and assassination of the elected president to set up a series of military dictatorships.

5. The overthrow of Aristide in Haiti, though he was the only elected (and popular) leader Haiti ever had.

6. The British war against the elected governments of the Boer states in South Africa.

That's just a quick list off the top of my head. There have been many more in, say, LAtin America. There have also been many impositions of phony civil wars to destroy democracies. And there have been many, many cases of democratic America supporting brutal dictatorships to make sure that democracy doesn't happen.

 If Britain was a democracy in 1914, then so was Germany.

To get into a useful discussion, we need to be able to see reality. We dont see it, as a rule, because we are swamped with propaganda and a largely mythical history.Setting up 9ll as a time of fundamental change has start us off with the unreality we should be getting away from.

(sorry, my hyphen has stopped working.)

Note the beginning of the first post - the tragic events of 911. That pretty well mapss out the terrain for the discussion. I think.

Vietnam was not tragic (except for the Americans killed there in defence of homeland and freedom). The invasion and destruction of Iraq was not a tragedy. Afghanistan was not a tragedy. Syria and Iran will not be tragedies. The invasion of Mexico that killed thousands and stole one third of Mexican territory was not a tragedy.

But,, for the first time over a century foreigners killed americans on their home ground. Now that is a tragedy.

If you want to have a discussion, clearly define what it is about. And never start with loaded language.

Graeme this theory mentions that it applies to democracies that are older than 3 years and that those in transition to a democratic state are more likely to be involved in war. So there is a negative aspect to democratizing initially.

Graeme, how do you think the USA should have responded when they were attacked?

"if Britain was a democracy in 1914, then so was Germany"  What would you say they are now?