I have been thinking about how profoundly 9/11 changed my life, changed my worldview. It affected my friendships, my family relationships (such as they were and some were never much), my career. It drew me to people with whom I otherwise might not have spent time, including my oldest brother – unlike so many of our relatives, we did not reside in the historically illiterate, reflexively anti-American, Chomsky/Zinn/Finkelstein part of town (to paraphrase Hitchens). It crystallized for me so much which I already knew but – despite years of living overseas, years of education – had not been able to articulate. It forced me to see some people in ways I had been avoiding. The only other world event that had this same profound effect on me was the fall of the Berlin Wall.

For today’s anniversary, I would like to outsource my links to myself – what I posted last year; and in 2015; and 2018.

I’ll sign off today with a lovely quote from Brendan Behan, one that sums it all up for me – To America, my new found land: the man that hates you hates the human race.