Friday, September 11, 2009
Still Here
The best thing was that New York City went ahead & elected a mayor of moderate political & nonalarmist temperament who, from his own business experience, took a long economic view & understood it wouldn't do to turn Manhattan into a fortress island. He believed the city had a hopeful future & gambled on it.
Many of us were wondering at the time if we should put more distance between ourselves & the Port of New York.
We're still here.
The worst thing was a president who couldn't build on the good will of a shocked world, who couldn't finish the dangerous & difficult task we had generally agreed upon in Afghanistan & instead lied & manipulated America into a war-for-profit that his backers had intended to wage before he had taken office.
There's the contrast. A nation bogged down in two wars; a revived Taliban; a national economy in tatters; an irrational, paranoid, extremist right more obsessed with the new president's birth certificate than with bin Laden & Al-Qaeda or our own economic recovery. & in New York, a vibrant international city toughing out a recession, & a mayor - like him or not - about to accomplish what "America's Mayor" couldn't pull off from a smoking pit using the bullhorn of fear in the anxiety following 9/11: a third term.
I don't care for midtown Broadway as a pedestrian mall. But it could have become a desolate, scary place patroled by National Guard in Humvees. It might have been unimaginable for thousands of people to pack the streets outside Ed Sullivan Theater as Paul McCartney performed from the marquee, as they did last month. Downtown may have been largely abandoned by major businesses.
The shame of it is so much of America didn't learn from New York City. The place is too diverse, too broad-minded, too unconcerned with matters that future Americans will regard as petty, reactionary, bigoted, & foolish. That's how great cities are; New York, L.A., San Francisco, Chicago. Tough, resilient, & hopeful.
The President advises children to study hard, & some seriously unbalanced Americans go nuts. New York, having constructed two new baseball stadiums, begins digging a new trans-Hudson rail tunnel & debates the long-term revitalization of Coney Island.
9/11 Day is different around here. Everyone lost someone or has friends who lost someone. We've met people who were downtown that morning. It's personal.
We're still here.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
Many of us were wondering at the time if we should put more distance between ourselves & the Port of New York.
We're still here.
The worst thing was a president who couldn't build on the good will of a shocked world, who couldn't finish the dangerous & difficult task we had generally agreed upon in Afghanistan & instead lied & manipulated America into a war-for-profit that his backers had intended to wage before he had taken office.
There's the contrast. A nation bogged down in two wars; a revived Taliban; a national economy in tatters; an irrational, paranoid, extremist right more obsessed with the new president's birth certificate than with bin Laden & Al-Qaeda or our own economic recovery. & in New York, a vibrant international city toughing out a recession, & a mayor - like him or not - about to accomplish what "America's Mayor" couldn't pull off from a smoking pit using the bullhorn of fear in the anxiety following 9/11: a third term.
I don't care for midtown Broadway as a pedestrian mall. But it could have become a desolate, scary place patroled by National Guard in Humvees. It might have been unimaginable for thousands of people to pack the streets outside Ed Sullivan Theater as Paul McCartney performed from the marquee, as they did last month. Downtown may have been largely abandoned by major businesses.
The shame of it is so much of America didn't learn from New York City. The place is too diverse, too broad-minded, too unconcerned with matters that future Americans will regard as petty, reactionary, bigoted, & foolish. That's how great cities are; New York, L.A., San Francisco, Chicago. Tough, resilient, & hopeful.
The President advises children to study hard, & some seriously unbalanced Americans go nuts. New York, having constructed two new baseball stadiums, begins digging a new trans-Hudson rail tunnel & debates the long-term revitalization of Coney Island.
9/11 Day is different around here. Everyone lost someone or has friends who lost someone. We've met people who were downtown that morning. It's personal.
We're still here.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, bully pulpit, George W. Bush, in the news
