American Terror
On 11 September 2001, 2,996 Americans were killed by the worst terrorist attack in that nation’s history, abetted by governmental incompetence. The US government response was to spend well over $3 trillion dollars killing over 500,000 Muslims in their native countries, along with 5,000 US military casualties, and permanently maiming hundreds of thousands more.
Meanwhile, back in the US, gun-toting madmen slaughtering innocents – a reign of domestic terror – went unchecked. 500,000 Americans were cut down in homegrown terror attacks 2001–2017, and many more in violent crimes involving weapons, including from those ostensibly committed to law enforcement. This is just the terminal end of the incivility that is rife in American society.
People heap disrespect on anyone who dares oppose them, tap into anger and manipulate it for their own benefit, and don’t seem to see anything wrong with that. If bad behavior is contagious – as many studies have shown it is – we’re in an epidemic. ~ American diplomats Lea Berman & Jeremy Bernard in 2017
With good reason Americans have little confidence in their nation’s institutions, especially the political ones.
Trust within and among countries is being driven down by those who demonize and divide. ~ UN Secretary General António Guterres in 2017
America rots from the inside and overreacts to threats from outside. In 2016 the nation pseudo-elected a president to hasten the process of societal self-destruction, abetted by a passively enabling Congress.
America, as the leader of the Western world, presents itself, at least temporarily, as more repulsive than attractive. What is happening is the disintegration of the American camp. ~ German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk in 2017
