Posted on 09/17/2006 4:01:16 AM PDT by goldstategop
A lot of the 9/11 anniversary coverage struck me as distastefully tasteful. On the morning of Sept. 12, I was pumping gas just off I-91 in Vermont and picked up the Valley News. Its lead headline covered the annual roll call of the dead -- or, as the alliterative editor put it, "Litany of the Lost." That would be a grand entry for Litany of the Lame, an anthology of all-time worst headlines. Sept. 11 wasn't a shipwreck: The dead weren't "lost," they were murdered.
So I skipped that story. Underneath was something headlined "Half a Decade Gone By, A Reporter Still Cannot Comprehend Why." Well, in that case maybe you shouldn't be in the reporting business. After half a decade, it's not that hard to "comprehend": Osama bin Laden issued a declaration of war and then his agents carried out a big attack. He talked the talk, his boys walked the walk. If you need to flesh it out a bit, you could go to the library and look up a book.
But, of course, that's not what the headline means: Instead, it's "incomprehensible" in the sense that, to persons of a certain mushily "progressive" disposition, all such acts are "incomprehensible," all violence is "senseless." Unfortunately, it made perfect sense to the fellows who perpetrated it. Which is what that headline writer finds hard to "comprehend" -- or, rather, doesn't wish to comprehend. The piece itself was categorized as "Reflection" -- dread word. No self-respecting newspaper should be running "reflections" anywhere upfront of Section G Page 27, and certainly not on the front page. But it has exactly the kind of self-regarding pseudo-sophistication the American media love. The proper tone for 9/11 commemorations is to be sad about all the dead -- "the lost" -- but in a very generalized soft-focus way. Not a lot of specifics about the lost, and certainly not too many quotes from those final phone calls from the passengers to their families, like Peter Hanson's last words before Flight 175 hit the World Trade Center: "Don't worry, Dad. If it happens, it will be very fast." That might risk getting readers worked up, especially if they see the flight manifest:
"Peter Hanson, Massachusetts
"Susan Hanson, Massachusetts
"Christine Hanson, 2, Massachusetts"
No, best to stick to a limpidly fey, tastefully mopey, enervatedly passive prose style that suggests nothing very much can be done about the incomprehensible lost. This tasteful passivity is the default mode of the age: Five years ago it was striking, even in the immediate aftermath, how many radio and TV trailers for blood drives and other relief efforts could only bring themselves over the soupy music track to refer vaguely to "the tragic events," as if any formulation more robust might prove controversial.
Passivity is far slyer and more lethal than rabid Bush hatred. Say what you like about the left-wing kooks but they can still get a good hate on. Sure, they hate Bush and Cheney and Rummy and Halliburton and Fox News and Rush Limbaugh rather than Saddam and the jihadists, but at least they can still muster primal emotions. Every morning I wake up to a gazillion e-mails from fellows wishing me ill, usually beginning by calling me a "chicken hawk" followed by a generous smattering of words I can only print here peppered with asterisks, and usually ending with pledges to come round and shove various items in a particular part of my anatomy. There's so much shipping scheduled to go up there I ought to get Dubai Ports World in to run it.
The foaming leftie routine seems to be a tough sell to a general audience. I see that, a mere three weeks after I guest-hosted for Rush, the widely acclaimed and even more widely unlistened-to Air America is going belly up. Coincidence? You be the judge. But I doubt the "liberal" radio network would be kaput if anti-Bush fever were about to sweep the Democrats to power this November. I think I said a few months back that the Dems would be waking up to their usual biennial Wednesday morning after the Tuesday night before, and I'll stick with that.
But there's more to the national discourse than party politics. And, whoever wins or loses, the cult of feebly tasteful passivity rolls on regardless. As part of National Review's fifth anniversary observances, James Lileks wrote the following:
"If 9/11 had really changed us, there'd be a 150-story building on the site of the World Trade Center today. It would have a classical memorial in the plaza with allegorical figures representing Sorrow and Resolve, and a fountain watched over by stern stone eagles. Instead there's a pit, and arguments over the usual muted dolorous abstraction approved by the National Association of Grief Counselors. The Empire State Building took 18 months to build. During the Depression. We could do that again, but we don't. And we don't seem interested in asking why."
Ray Nagin, New Orleans' Mayor Culpa, is a buffoon but he nevertheless had a point when he scoffed at the ongoing hole in the ground in Lower Manhattan. And whatever fills it is never going to include those "stern stone eagles." The best we can hope for is that the Saudi-funded Islamic Outreach Center will only take up a third of the site. But in our hearts we know whatever memorial eventually stands on the spot will be rubbish -- tasteful rubbish, but rubbish all the same. Last year, I criticized the Flight 93 memorial, the "Crescent of Embrace," whose very title is a parodic masterpiece of note-perfect generically effete huggy-weepy blather. And in return I received a ton of protests pointing out that the families of the Flight 93 heroes had "approved" the design. All that demonstrates, I think, is how thoroughly constrained our society is within its own crescent of embrace: The cult of passivity has insinuated itself deep into our bones. Behind those "IMAGINE PEACE" stickers lies a terrible failure to imagine.
At what point does a society become simply too genteel to wage war? We're like those apocryphal Victorian matrons who covered up the legs of their pianos. Acts of war against America have to be draped in bathetic music and uncomprehending reflections and crescents of embrace. We fight tastefully, too. Last week one of America's unmanned drones could have killed 200 Taliban big shots but they were attending a funeral and we apparently have a policy of not killing anybody near cemeteries out of sensitivity. So even our unmanned drones are obliged to behave with sensitivity. But then, these days the very soundtrack to our society is, so to speak, an unmanned drone.
"Great post man , thanks so much . I visit Holland every year and I get so depressed at times there . I love the country but the insane , blind anti American hatred is too much. Leftist propaganda has been massively effective in Europe. Most believe the most inane bullsh*t .Facts and evidence are missing in most arguments I've had there. Europe has a big mouth ever since the Big Bear of Communist Russia was slapped down by Regan .Just wait though . One BIG terrorist even in Western Europe and American will become it's big brother/buddy again. History repeats itself over and over again. I do however try to remind my European friends that MANY MANY Americans will not be willing to bail out Europe again . It's not 1940 anymore..The dutch seem to be coming around a bit the last 2 years but it may be too late as the Islamic population there swells beyond belief."
What sort of event do you think it would take to awaken Western Europe? The stabbing to death of a film-maker in Holland? The spectacle of an attempted shoe-bomber being subdued en route from the UK to the US? The bombing of a subway system? The foiling of an attempt to bomb multiple airliners departing Europe for the US? Or would none of those awake the sophisticated and distinguished Western Europeans?
"If I - and I think many Freepers - have complaints about the conduct of the war, it's that we should be kiling a lot more jihadis, and not arguing with silly asses in the Senate about Constitutional rights for people who have openly stated and acted to kill as many of us as they can, under no flag and in no uniform, and with no regard as to military, civilian, man, woman, or child.."
War was prosecuted much more effectively before the age of virtually instant communications. When Generals and commanders in the field could fight military campaigns without the "help and guidance" from Washington we did quite well. Once the relativists in Congress gained the power of instant contact with those in the war zone, we immediately began to see these ineffectual struggles starting with Korea.
" What sort of event do you think it would take to awaken Western Europe? The stabbing to death of a film-maker in Holland? The spectacle of an attempted shoe-bomber being subdued en route from the UK to the US? The bombing of a subway system? The foiling of an attempt to bomb multiple airliners departing Europe for the US? Or would none of those awake the sophisticated and distinguished Western Europeans? "
How about simultaneous bombings of commuter trains in/around Madrid, Spain?
No, wait......
Thanks for the ping, Pokey! It warms the heart to see Mark Steyn quoting James Lileks...
Thanks for the letter and the link, Freedom and Stegall. It is good to see the occasional Eurabian who gets it.
I remember hearing about that, and was incredulous of the outcome.
I still puzzle over that one.
I've gotten 5-6 attaboys on posting that letter. I'm beginning to wonder, if I shouldn't post it, as its own thread.
Even here I didn't detect enough intestinal fortitude. Look, I'm sorry that so many died, but we need to stay FOCUSED.
As the writer said, the people who died on September 11th weren't simply victims. They represent much more than that.
The workers in the Twin Towers showed such bravery, even when they knew it was the end. And yet, SO many were able to help one another, along with the rescue workers in all uniforms. It is important to remember the thousands of people who ESCAPED before the buildings at Ground Zero collapsed! There is victory in those numbers!
What about the heroism in PA?
How about the quiet, daily dignity and duty that is carried on at the Pentagon every day... those men and women who serve their country whose names we don't even know? The ones who Rumsfeld helped pull out of the wreckage?
What about the passengers on the airplanes whose strength and sense of purpose we can never completely fathom... we only have a vague picture of what happened to them.
Add to this the bombings at the embassies, the USS Cole, etc... much more has happened than can be put in one newspaper edition, one cover on Time Magazine, and one special on World News Tonight.
The issue of al-Qaeda and terrorism is bigger than September 11th, and remembering that not only makes us safer at home, but it dismantles the terror apparatus around the globe.
My tears are not of anger or sorrow... they are of FRUSTRATION. We need to wake up!
Fabulous, must-read post #47
Very nice sentiments. I wish it were true of all traveling Americans.
Thanks for the ping.
I wish it were true of all Americans.
We need more ambassadors in our own country!
I'm always looking for signs of those unashamed to show love for America.
Agreed.
Good on ya, Nick!
I tend to be skeptical of self-serving explanations, like this one. I would sooner believe they decided that red America wasn't smart enough to handle this information in a way which met their approval, which would scapegoat the Muzzis and fuel red American rage. Mindless, jingoistic patriotism, you know.
I want to choose my words carefully here...there's a question in some people's minds whether the greater enemy is foreign or domestic. Given that, there may be a question in some people's minds whether the first shots should be aimed foreward, or sideways.
It is time to let the dead bury their dead. Too many are using these ceremonies as a substitute for moral clarity and action.
No one plays with words more skillfully than Mark...he astounds me.
MARK, BTTT
Thank you so very kindly for the ping. THAT was WONDERFUL! Doodlelady! Major Salute!
Go ahead and do so. We get so much bad news from there. "European think Americans are..."
Ping Pokey78 when you post!
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