That day, twenty five years ago, the America I grew up in changed forever.

It was September 11, I'll never forget it. I turned on the TV that morning before work to catch some news, CNN I think, the first tower was on fire, smoke billowing against the background. The announcer said a plane had hit it. I was wondering about the poor people that were in the building, especially the ones above the fire. I watched longer than I should and I needed to go to work. I reached to shut off the TV and then the second plane hit the second tower. I pulled my hand from the knob. I knew immediately that this wasn't coincidence, and I also knew, almost immediately, that it was a terrorist event. I stayed home from work, and like many across the country that fateful day, I was glued to the TV.

I was as cynical then, as I am now. I knew something was off from the beginning. The 60s had taught me a deeply ingrained distrust of the government, and even though I had no idea what really was going on, the surreal event I was witnessing sent my mind reeling into a cloud of doubt, and fear. Are we under attack? Was this a coup?

Then the towers fell, straight down, into their own footsteps.

Do social media sites, and in our case, blogs, purposely or inadvertently brainwash its participants? Does group think affect conformity? Does pigeonholing into hive-like communities lead to a lack of social plasticity? Is social media causing an even wider political gap? Are people being lead around by their noses?

Let's take a look.

The lovely tree-studded Bolshoy Devyatinsky Lane in Moscow is getting a new name. In a ceremony in early March it will be renamed Seth Rich Boulevard in Honor of Seth Conrad Rich, the slain activist who leaked the derogatory emails of the Democratic National Committee that proved election rigging against Hillary Clinton's presidential opponent, Bernie Sanders.

Rich was killed near the White House a year and a half ago. He was not robbed. He was conscious and speaking when the police arrived, but it is unknown what he said. The Democratic Committee worker was shot by an unknown assailant(s) just days before he was to testify in a lawsuit brought against the DNC for election rigging during the Democratic Primaries — and twenty days after it was learned that the downloaded emails were in the hands of Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange. The DNC has denied any involvement in his murder, which has never been solved by the police or the FBI, who are still in possession of Rich's personal computer..

PLEASE NOTE: What follows is obviously not directed at my friends at The 99. It is an essay excerpt written for a different place. I wanted my colleagues to see it, because parts of it are inspired by things I've learned here and by links I've followed that were posted here.
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Let us Synchronize our Moral Compass

We should be ever mindful of the fact that ISIS are a creation of US imperialist slaughter and mass displacement, along with secular liberal authoritarianism and suppression.

Any US meddling in the region should be opposed wholesale by the genuine left, if it does exist, for the horrors of US imperialism that it is

I am struggling to reconcile the logic of Europeans, Americans, or other foreign entities who heroically opposed the Iraq war with now supporting mass slaughter against sovereign nationals or so-called rebels in Syria, Iraq, or anywhere else in the Middle East. My position is this:   Oppose any bombing of Syria or any sovereign region by the US, France, Great Britain, Australia, Russia or any other murderous regime with a squadron of warplanes ready to inflict the terror of aerial bombardment.

Solidarity with those people being terrorized from the skies is the natural position of a truly sentient human being with an undamaged mind.