The 20th anniversary of 9/11 is a stark reminder of the costs of prioritizing the health of financial markets over the health of American citizens. Stuck Nation reports on the misguided encouragements to reopen schools and businesses before the WTC fires were suppressed and the parallels between this response and that of COVID-19.

The 20th anniversary of 9/11 is a stark reminder of the costs of prioritizing the health of financial markets over the health of American citizens. Much like the rush to reopen American business put hundreds of thousands at risk of contracting COVID-19, the particulates from the smoldering fires of the WTC towers, inaccurately deemed safe, have resulted in long-term illness and a death toll that rivals that of the attack itself.

Award winning print and broadcast journalist Robert "Bob" Hennelly’s recent book Stuck Nation: Can the United States Change Course on Our History of Choosing Profits Over People? reports on the misguided encouragements to reopen schools and businesses before the WTC fires were suppressed, the effects on first responders and NYC residents, the parallels between this response and that of COVID-19, and what the lack of awareness says about our nation.

“For 9/11 WTC first responders still on the job in the midst of the pandemic, there’s a tragic parallel between the betrayal they experienced at the hands of a dishonest EPA in 2001, in order to reopen Wall Street, and the Trump administration’s downplaying of the COVID virus in a bid to limit its impact on the financial markets in 2020… As with the lingering 9/11 aftermath, there will be an army of suffering COVID survivors that will be the living witnesses to the excesses of winner-take-all capitalism.”


You can read the entire chapter dedicated to this parallel history in your copy of Stuck Nation.  

You can also watch author Bob Hennelly and Richard Wolff discuss this on Economic Update.