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ONE YEAR LATER |
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 Stan Isaacs is based in Roslyn Heights, N.Y. |
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on Sept. 11 |
By STAN ISAACS
of TheColumnists.com
The Sept. 11 terrorist attack on America was an abomination.
I grieve for the dead and the families of the more than 3000
people killed at the World Trade Center, at the Pentagon and
in the crash of the plane in Pennsylvania that killed the heroic
passengers who valiantly failed to overcome the terrorist hijackers.
I suppose I might have a deeper feeling than many about the incident
because I was only six blocks away from the Twin Towers when
the two planes hit. I was at a meeting at New York’s City
Hall with my wife at the time. We were there to view some models
of a planned memorial to Brooklym Dodger immortals Pee Wee Reese
and Jackie Robinson.
We did not hear the first plane hit. As a mayoral aide somewhat
shakily tried to explain the first incident, we heard a huge
boom at the impact of the second plane. We went to an outer office
and watched replays of the second crash on a small television
set. We then stood on the steps watching people with anguised,
scared looks on their faces rushing across City Hall park,away
from the buildings from which huge clouds of black smoke belched
into the air. After a half-hour we made out way through the streets
to a subway.
I was not particularly interested in viewing the site at Ground
Zero in the days following the incident. But a few months later
a visiting friend from Chicago, who had grown up in New York,
felt an urgent need to go to the site. We agreed to accompany
her.
It was a weird, troubling experience. People signed their names
to banners and many of them invoked the name of God to threaten
vengeance on the terrorists, on Arabs. Vendors unashamedly hawked
9/11 souvenirs. A waitress at a nearby restaurant told us, “I
know it was a tragic thing, but the atmosphere out there is more
like Disneyland than a solemn pilgrimage.”
The past year has not been exalting.
There is obscenity in the way President Bush has wrapped himself
in the tragedy of Sept. 11. He has become the ultimate patriot,
brandishing the flag, bringing up 9/11 ad nauseum, cynically
making the tragedy the cornestone of the Republican’s 2002
election strategy.
For example, he inveighed against the terrorists for the umpteenth
time in what amounted to a public relations trip to bask in the
reflected glory of the rescued miners in Pennsylvania. Skepticism
seemed beyond one rescued miner who said, “I was just overwhelmed
for him to take the time to stop and visit us.”
The Bush administration responded quickly to 9/11. It took bows
for its war against the terrorists which has crippled the evil
Taliban. But the ledger would be easier to contemplate if more
innocent Afghanistanis were not killed than died in the terrorist
attacks here.
And when was the last time Bush mentioned the name Osama Bin
Laden? Despite Bush’s John Wayne act promising we would
capture Osama Bin Laden, the blackguard is still out there, as
far as we know. Terrorists win without raising a finger every
time the FBI issues a false alert which causes apprehension and
keeps the nation jittery. A recent cartoon illustrates this:
It shows Paul Revere riding through town shouting;, "Al
Qaeda may be coming, Al Qaeda may be coming!" The caption
reads: "The Bush security agencies in action."
Civil liberties have been assaulted by this President in the
wake of 9/11. The Bush people seem to believe that if it calls
citizens suspects in the war on terrorrism, it can imprison them
indefinitely and deprive them of lawyers. As the New York Times
said, “This repudiated two centures of constititional law
and undermines the very freedom Bush says he is defending with
the stuggle against terrorism.”
Go tell that to the attack dog Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Bush uses 9/11 to justify spending only for anti-terrorist programs
and national security. Recently he reneged on some of the reclamation
money he had promised New York City in the “We Love New
York” bathos that swept the nation.
Much of the good feeling among citizens immediately after 9/11
dissipated. Many lawyers who volunteered to represent the families
of the victims in claiming money from the Federal Victim Compensation
Fund soon faded away. After awhile there weren’t enough
volunteer lawyers, and 500 families--a quarter of those who sought
legal advice--hired paid lawyers to represent them. These lawyers
could collect fees of up to 25 per cent of the awards.
The bickering in New York over what to do with the Ground Zero
site has been anything but uplifting. Among the other preposterous
suggestions was the idea of building a structure a mile high.
At times the New York City police and fire people have argued
about who was more effective in coming to the rescue of the afflicted.
There has been a fight about unauthorized tradesman selling bogus
NYPD caps. And there is nary an EMS (Emergency Medical Services)
cap to be seen anywhere to honor their people’s rescue efforts
because the EMS doesn’t have the marketing clout of the
NYPD.
Many people think of patriotism as flying the American flag.
So, we are treated to the sight of gas-guzzling suburban utility
vehicles zooming along, flaunting flags from both sides of the
cars. The patriotism that would stem from relying less on gas
from the Middle East is lost on such bozos.
As my wife and I walked from City Hall toward a subway on that
mournful day, we stopped at two corners where we had an unobstructed
view of the gash and ribbon of fire at one of the high floors
of Tower No. 2. We didn’t dream for a moment that the building
would collapse. We made our way on one of the last subways uptown
to a friend’s office on West. 34th Street. There we heard
news on the radio of the collapse of the two buildings.
This Sept. 11 Bush will be at the three sites to lend his presence
to the ceremonies recalling the tragedies. And people will fly
their flags from their homes, from poles--and from SUVs.
I won’t fly a flag this day because Bush has appropriated
the flag as he has 9/11. I will think of the look on the faces
of the people scurrying away from the damaged tower across City
Hall Park that day. I will think of Marge Glickman, the widow
of my deceased friend Marty; she lost her grandson in one of
the Twin Towers that day.
© 2002 by Stan Isaacs. The logo illustration is © 2001
by Jim Hummel.
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