Remembrance of Things Lost

As I reflect on the days and years that have passed since 9/11, sadness is the overriding emotion that remains. Sadness for the people lost that day and the grief of their families. Sadness as well for us all -- for the lost opportunities arising from that time. After we were attacked, the country was united, and the world was united, in support of our country.

For a time, I believed that out of the devastation, the country would be united for the common good. But now I realize how naive that was. The party in power remains focused on keeping the Party united (the Republican Party, that is), not the country. This is an Administration that rules solely by politics, so a united America would be contrary to its interests. Ex-White House official, John DiIlulio's words, in Ron Suskind January 2003 article, in Why Are These Men Laughing? still describes it best:

"There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus," says DiIulio. "What you’ve got is everything—and I mean everything—being run by the political arm. It’s the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis."

That may, in fact, be the biggest failure (out of many) that will be the legacy of the Bush Administration. To have squandered the goodwill of its people and many in the world in support of its own policial agenda, to have co-opted 9/11 for partisan political purposes, which has furthered the extreme divisions in the country (and the rest of the world) perpetrated by the Republican party.

In fact, whenever I hear the words "9/11" today, my first reaction is that I assume that the Republican party is about to use the term as a slogan, a propaganda tool, to instill fear for political purposes. It has nothing to do with what happened that day.

To some extent, because Bush has peverted the meaning of "9/11," for many in this country, we have become like those people pictured above, chatting in the distance of the burning towers. Frank Rich also explores this topic in his NY Times piece, Whatever Happened to the America of 9/12? Describing the shot, he says:

Seen from the perspective of 9/11’s fifth anniversary, Mr. Hoepker’s photo is prescient as well as important — a snapshot of history soon to come. What he caught was this: Traumatic as the attack on America was, 9/11 would recede quickly for many. This is a country that likes to move on, and fast. The young people in Mr. Hoepker’s photo aren’t necessarily callous. They’re just American. In the five years since the attacks, the ability of Americans to dust themselves off and keep going explains both what’s gone right and what’s gone wrong on our path to the divided and dispirited state the nation finds itself in today.

What’s gone right: the terrorists failed to break America’s back. The “new” normal lasted about 10 minutes, except at airport check-ins. The economy, for all its dips and inequities and runaway debt, was not destroyed. The culture, for better and worse, survived intact.

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But even as we celebrate this resilience, it too comes at a price. The companion American trait to resilience is forgetfulness. What we’ve forgotten too quickly is the outpouring of affection and unity that swelled against all odds in the wake of Al Qaeda’s act of mass murder. If you were in New York then, you saw it in the streets, and not just at ground zero, where countless thousands of good Samaritans joined the official responders and caregivers to help, at the cost of their own health. You saw it as New Yorkers of every kind gathered around the spontaneous shrines to the fallen and the missing at police and fire stations, at churches and in parks, to lend solace or a hand. This good feeling quickly spread to Capitol Hill, to red states where New York had once been Sodom incarnate and to the world, the third world included, where America was a nearly uniform object of sympathy and grief.

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The destruction of that unity, both in this nation and in the world, is as much a cause for mourning on the fifth anniversary as the attack itself. As we can’t forget the dead of 9/11, we can’t forget how the only good thing that came out of that horror, that unity, was smothered in its cradle.

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Less than a month after 9/11, the president was making good on his promise of “no sacrifice whatsoever.” Speaking in Washington about how it was “the time to be wise” and “the time to act,” he declared, “We need for there to be more tax cuts.” Before long the G.O.P. would be selling 9/11 photos of the president on Air Force One to campaign donors and the White House would be featuring flag-draped remains of the 9/11 dead in political ads.

And so here we are five years later. Fearmongering remains unceasing. So do tax cuts. So does the war against a country that did not attack us on 9/11. We have moved on, but no one can argue that we have moved ahead.

Will Bunch also considers the impact of 9/11, in a piece posted at Attytood, From the Philly streets to the NOLA floodwaters to a Lexington runway, the other legacy of post 9/11 America. In his thoughtful observation is focused on the other legacy of the post-9/11 Bush Administration, he notes:

As you reflect today on the deadly terrorist attacks that took place on Sept. 11, 2001, and everything that has happened in America and around the world in the five years since then, you probably didn’t think of Philly’s soaring crime rate, or a commercial aviation disaster from human error.

But maybe you should.

Because one of the many effects of 9/11 — seldom mentioned — is that when the White House declared a “war on terror” and America made that the No. 1 priority, other issues began to get short shrift, some that had dominated the national agenda during a very different 1990s.

This Jon Stewart clip is a touching reminder of how far we have strayed from the unity engendered by 9/11. As Norm Jensen of One Good Move says:

This is Jon Stewart's first show after 9/11. A time when we were united, and we were one. We shared our grief, and the world shared our grief. It was a time when the world also shared our goal to find those who were responsible for the death of our friends, our neighbors, our husbands and wives, and of our brothers and sisters. It started well going after bin Laden, but then our leader stumbled. He lost his focus. He stole our sorrow and turned it to fear. He stole our pride of country and replaced it with hubris. He abandoned the principles that made America great, and replaced it with hate. The day will come when we are once again united as a country. Let this day be a reminder that unity is possible and that hope has not been extinguished.

As we look back with the towers in the distance, we have lost much since that day. Much more, and in different ways, than we could ever have envisioned.

(See Rozius for full Frank Rich article)

(Photo: from Watching the World Change by David Friend)