But permit me to explore the questions a little deeper.

To find the roots of destruction in my own life, I needed to take a moral inventory. It is a way to find out who I really am. (Not who I think I am, but who I really am.) In the inventory, I wrote out lists. I listed my resentments, fears, sexual harms, etc. in four columns. In the 1st column, I named the person or thing I resented (or feared etc.). 2nd column, what happened (got fired, jailed or whatever)? 3rd column, what part of self is affected (ambition, personal security, pocketbook, etc.)? 4th column, what is my part in it?

The key to understanding how such a terrible thing like this could happen is to ask: What is my part in it? Or, more specifically, what is our government's part in all this?

I sat along with the rest of the nation and watched as events unfolded, I listened to an unending stream of expert pundits and government officials prattling on about finding who's responsible. Not one of them has answered the question honestly yet.

So, Im taking the plunge: What, indeed, could drive people on the other side of the earth to hate the United States so viscously as to mastermind and carry out the inconceivable enterprise needed to pull this attack off?

Bin Laden, Bin Laden, Bin Laden they keep whining. The government of the United States of America created him; they trained him and his gang back when they thought terrorizing the Soviets was an honorable concept. The US government has trained death squads that have murdered thousands of innocent people around the world. Is it all that strange that some of it comes back on us?

Truth is, if a group of people are willing to give their lives in their cause, you really cannot stop them. That's the same for Marines charging up Iwo Jima or the events of 9.11.01.

Theres an expression in the street: "You get what your hand calls for." And the real shitty part of it is, its not the leaders who get killed, its us. Its working folks. It's poor people. It's average people. People just trying to get by, trying to find some peace in our day-to-day lives. It's never the leaders and feeders in the high offices of power.

I'm wondering how is it that, culturally, we do not look inward for the source of our problems? Is it really the American way to blame somebody else for our difficulties? And please don't misunderstand me, the perpetrators of this crime should be brought to justice. By law, the same way any killer should be prosecuted. But understand this: Hunting down and killing the leaders of this crime will not prevent it from happening again. That kind of logic will only guarantee that it will happen again and again. To stop this from happening again, the conditions that created it must be changed.

When we see hundreds-of-thousands of people die in other countries, it hardly makes a dent in the nightly news in this country. We are hated for our arrogance.

When countries without the basic elements of life (food, shelter, medicine) exist in the same day as the obscene riches this country flaunts, how do you think those who can do something might react? We are hated for our excess.

If history has shown us anything it's that you cannot fuck people over forever. At some point they will rise up angry.

The rest of the world lives with this kind of terror everyday. Why should we be immune? Clearly we are not.

What is happening is a human tragedy. But it doesnt have to stay this way. Or does it?

Are we at the turning point? Or will it be more of the same? Is there a lesson here to be learned? Will all those who died have died in vain? Must the behavior on the highest levels of government that brought this pain down on us be repeated again and again?

We all live on the same planet. We all want to be healthy and happy; to live our lives and do our work and raise our families. To love and to be loved.

My dear friend Doug Lunn sent me this, and I think it speaks more eloquently to both the problem and the solution than all of my ranting.

If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of only 100 people, it would look something like this:

57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 North and South Americans
8 Africans
30 White
70 Non-white
6 people would possess 59% of the world's wealth, and all 6 would be from the United States
80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
30 would suffer malnutrition
1 would have a college education
1 would own a computer

May we love the lives we lead and may we embrace the rest of the "village" with love and compassion.

God bless you all,

w