(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Anti-Capitalist Meetup: Acknowledgements [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-09-10 Happy birthday, Markos Moulitsas. May the years be better and better. I love Daily Kos. That's a quantitative fact. Most of my online consumption and contributions have come through Daily Kos. Not counting work, you host over 90% of my public writing. When I do overcome laziness and cynicism enough to check out other platforms, I do things like get myself blocked by old friends in my first and only twitter post. Thanks to progressive and socialist social media warriors on all platforms. Thanks to Markos for sticking with this. We couldn't have done it without you. As an entrepreneur, according to my pass through businesses and 8 hour adult ed course, it seems to me that there are a few ways Kos Media can go. Keeping it in the family sounds good to me, though you have to be open to options. Contributors, activists and other networkers need to explore, as well. I could stand to do more on medium, The Autonomous Collective or other sites. Trusted community moderation is a big plus, as Daily Kos regulars are aware. More democratic management of our online commons remains for us to take back from private control. 9/11 is also a day of remembrance. Commemorations are being held at the 9/11 Memorial Plaza in Manhattan, the Flight 93 National Memorial in Stoystown, Pennsylvania, the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial, and at events across the country. Remember all of the victims of senseless terrorism who died from the 9/11 attacks and subsequent exposure to debris. Give thanks for those who have kept further attacks at bay. 9/11 also drew us further into engagement in Central Asia and the Middle East. 6859 plus American soldiers and civilians died defending us in global operations focused primarily on Afghanistan and Iraq. Another 30,177 have been lost to suicides after completing their tours and returning to inadequate social support. Coalition partners have also lost thousands. Tens of thousands more have been wounded. These same wars are also responsible for at least 400,00 civilian deaths and 290,000 opposition fighter deaths. Actual losses might be far higher, while millions more have been displaced. Today, economic activity puts Iraq at around 50th, and Afghanistan at 124th out of 213 nations ranked in terms of nominal GDP. In per capita GDP, Iraq is 100 and Afghanistan is 191 out of 192 listed countries. The economy of Afghanistan revolves around regional partnerships in trade for food, textiles, and coal, with Afghanistan currently running large trade deficits. The economy of Iraq remains dominated by the oil sector. Neither Afghanistan or Iraq fare well in measures of democracy and rights. Both are authoritarian regimes, with Iraq ranked 124th and Afghanistan ranked last out of 167 rated governments in the Economist Democracy Index based on economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. Both retain wide gender gaps, with Iraq ranking 154 and Afghanistan 156 out of 156 evaluated countries. Looking at regional and historical contexts, it is difficult to say how much better off, if at all, Afghanistan and Iraq would have been in the absence of American invasions. Saddam Hussein and the Taliban were no friends of democracy. If we needed to invade, we might have sided with better allies, such as the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, rather than war lords. We can lament possible lost opportunities for more peaceful and inclusive solutions, but we still must deal with the current world as it is. Whatever the reasons for the American invasion of Iraq, their oil-based economy includes ownership and trade among a variety of nationalities. Neither the United States nor American companies dominate Iraqi oil production and trade. However, we do still exert considerable influence through enforcement of sanctions, including approval of trade with Iran. The world is growing much more complicated than a unipolar world dominated by the United States and dollar trade. The no longer exclusive dollar now is traded for oil and other commodities along with Chinese Yuan, Euros and regional currencies. We have international technology corporations working with national governments to advance their shared interests, often with insufficient attention to citizen rights to assemble and speak freely. We are now living in a multipolar world with often corrupt authoritarian regimes competing with the Western countries that fell into neoliberal practices of exporting exploitation to curry favor among domestic consumers. Many countries are run by authoritarian regimes and strongman gangster politics. Western countries and citizens still have chances to promote democracy and equity. Trade agreements can still include labor, rights and environment issues that have been neglected in previous agreements. Workers and activists must also learn how to organize across political and national divides for the benefit of workers, families and communities across the globe. Now, as much as ever, we must work for better lives at all levels, from local, to national, to global. 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