As we hurtle towards the 10th anniversary of 9/11 (11th September for Anglophiles), I think what seems to strike many people is the surprise at how little it seems to have changed the world.
Yes, we've had a couple of awful wars and a messy arab spring. But the Afghan and Iraq wars were ultimately wars of choice and the world and the US has stubbornly refused to be more just.
When people said that this was an attack on the American way of life, they were damn right but they were dead wrong when they claimed that it was under threat or in any way vulnerable. When I witnessed the events, I did believe this was huge and I predicted wars to follow but outside of that, the economy steamed on and politics continued on its road to polarisation.
I think events like Katrina, the credit crunch and others have contributed at least equally to where we are now. I have to admit it doesn't feel 10 years ago and in some ways we've stood still but there have been a lot of slow-burn, non-headlining changes that have changed society and the world.
Oil has continued its upward trend, debt has become a dirty word and people in the Middle East have run out of patience with their pathetic dictators.
I had many questions in the aftermath of the event as I looked at the remarkable opportunism, staggering unpreparedness and downright odd behaviour of government and the president. So many questions were officially avoided and people forget about the disturbing links to the Bin Laden family the Bushes had (James Baker, a long-time friend and former Sec of State, was hired as a lawyer to defend the Bin Laden family from 9/11 victims' families).
But over time you just had to absorb the facts and the full picture and see that, yes, Bush was an incredible arsehole and the family has seriously murky history but 9/11 itself was as it was and no less heartbreaking for it.
By the way, I was critical of the official JFK assassination story (although I never claimed to believe anything else specific) but I now think it's correct and accurate after having all my questions answered. I still think RFK stinks to high heaven, though.
Anyway, I digress. So, what now? Well, I don't see Obama winning again because the propaganda machines out there haven't stopped their drivel since even before he won and the idiotic Tea Party has seduced many into thinking what is effectively Libertarianism is somehow middle ground.
What I do see is eventually, the US's imperialism shrinking (partly due to this libertatrian rise) and China - possibly along with India if she can stop being so corrupt and look outwards - to slowly increase its might bloodlessly and near-silently. Beyond that, we're talking pure guesswork.
I just hope we don't need to see any such cataclysms and wars again in my lifetime. Hope. That's it.
