A worker from the WTC
'Don't let Bush use our pain to push the world to war'
By John Catalinotto
Former World Trade Center worker
New York
Could you imagine this a year ago? It's September 2002.
Under the pretext of a "war on terror," Washington is waging an
aggressive war against any who resist its domination of the
world--from Afghan istan and Iraq to the guerrillas of Colombia
and the progressive nationalist government in Venezuela.
What made this possible was the Bush administration's
exploitation of the events of Sept. 11, 2001.
Sometimes, looking downtown, I almost expect to still see
the World Trade Center towers. On Sept. 10, 2001, I worked late
on the 31st floor of Tower Number 1. I felt justified sleeping
late the next morning. I was late enough to see the towers
burning, and Tower 2 collapse, and lucky enough not to be
inside.
Most of my 1,900 co-workers on floors 18 to 31 made it out.
But 11 died, including one in his wheelchair and one keeping
him company. Everyone in the office that day was traumatized.
They climbed down smoky staircases dripping with water from
automatic sprinklers.
To escape falling debris, one co-worker out on Liberty
Street had to leap over a woman killed by a wheel from the
airplane that crashed into Tower 2.
Like the rest of the city's working class, about a third of
my co-workers were immigrants--mainly from China, Russia, South
Asia, the Pacific islands and Latin America.
The company survived. In a month everyone was back at
work--everyone but the 11 who died and 6 percent of the
company's work force who were downsized. That plan had been in
the works long before the attacks, as part of capitalist
restructuring. Our work time was increased 6 percent without
extra pay.
A year later, the families of those who died on Sept. 11 got
substantial financial compensation. Many workers, like some who
bussed and waited at the Windows on the World restaurant, have
remained jobless. One has said he wished he had been caught in
the rubble, where his compensation would have been more
valuable to his family.
The World Trade Center towers were places where tens of
thousands of people worked. That's the human side of the
equation.
Symbols of U.S. domination
But the towers were also symbols of U.S. economic domination
of the world, of so-called globalization that reduces hundreds
of millions of people to starvation and which aroused a
powerful worldwide movement to fight it.
The Pentagon, also hit that day, is the symbol of U.S.
military domination, and of the bombs dropped on Korea,
Vietnam, Iraq and Yugoslavia--that have killed many, many more
than the 3,000 in the towers.
Together these buildings symbolized the grip that
Washington, Wall Street and Hollywood have on the Middle East,
sucking out the oil and money, and pumping in a foreign
culture. Holding down the masses and stifling the educated
middle classes. Propping up the intrusive Israeli settler
state.
U.S. foreign policies and practices, especially throughout
the Middle East, aroused a deep anger. And, even according to
the official story, this anger found expression through
organizations that Wash ington itself had funded and aided for
decades as part of its war against communism.
Those who killed themselves and 3,000 others may have
intended a blow against U.S. domination. And the destruction of
these symbols was indeed an insult to the perceived
invulnerability of the U.S. state. But the slap in the face
broke no teeth.
A propaganda weapon
On the contrary, the Sept. 11, 2001, attack put a propaganda
weapon in the hands of the most right-wing, aggressive faction
in the U.S. political establishment. It stunned much of the
population into passivity, and made it possible for George W.
Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and others
in their grouping to exploit the pain and fear the attack
inspired to push the country toward a permanent state of war
abroad and repression at home.
Right now the threat of a major assault on Iraq seems the
biggest danger. But along with this-or waiting in line behind
it-is a war against all peoples and parts of the world that
resist "globalization." Henry Kissinger, in a 1999 talk at
Trinity College, admitted that "globalization" means the
domination of U.S. financial and strategic interests.
U.S. advisers and weapons pour into Colombia, now openly to
battle leftist guerrillas of the FARC and ELN who have been
fighting the oligarchy. U.S. troops are back in the
Philippines, allegedly to battle "Islamic terrorists" but
really to intervene against a people's liberation army.
U.S. agents and money move against the progressive Hugo
Chávez government in Venezuela, which neighbors Colombia
at the north end of a continent that is in a depression deeper
than that of the 1930s.
Suffering Afghanistan is now permanently occupied by U.S.
troops, ruled by a president who can't survive without a team
of 70 U.S. bodyguards.
Meanwhile U.S. bases proliferate from Eastern Europe to
Central Asia, setting up a modern version of the old Roman
Empire, with its capital in Washington.
Those of us who worked in the towers can rightly ask
ourselves, "Will we let Bush and Company use our worries and
sorrows as an excuse for the Pentagon to wage war on the
world?" As an indication of the answer, the sister of the
worker who died keeping his friend in the wheelchair company
has become a spokesperson for anti-war causes.
I, for another, say no, and I'll be demonstrating this
decision in the weeks that come.
Reprinted from the Sept. 19, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
under a Creative
Commons License.
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