Is it just me, or are the 9/11 commemorations oddly subdued?
Actually, I don’t think it’s me, and it’s not really that odd.
What
happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this,
whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. The atrocity should
have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake
heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced
to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an
unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.
A
lot of other people behaved badly. How many of our professional pundits
— people who should have understood very well what was happening — took
the easy way out, turning a blind eye to the corruption and lending
their support to the hijacking of the atrocity?
The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.
I’m not going to allow comments on this post, for obvious reasons.
Paul Krugman calls 9/11 anniversary ‘an occasion for shame’
Paul Krugman.
(Dan Deitch)
New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman published a blog post Sunday
in which he wrote that “the memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably
poisoned” and that the date has become “an occasion for shame.”
Krugman’s point was that conservatives exploited the tragedy of 9/11
for years afterward. Conservatives angry about his post — including
Donald Rumsfeld, who canceled his subscription to the Times after he
read the piece — say their point is that Krugman shouldn’t be launching a political attack on a day of solemn remembrance.
As the blogosphere argues over Krugman’s choice of words, of tone and
of timing for this kind of post, it’s worth realizing that most of the
country’s media struggled with how to write about the anniversary of
9/11.
In the Times special section on 9/11, “The Reckoning,” Executive Editor Bill Keller wrote an odd mea culpa apologizing for his brief stint as a war hawk after the attacks.
The Washington Post’s Gene Weingarten, instead of writing anything new, republished yesterday what he wrote in 2001.
Several journalists, including the Boston Globe’s Neil Swidey, simply wrote down their memories of that awful day, a reflex that essayist Steve Almond said he’s seen before.
“I recently went on a radio program to discuss the literature of 9/11,” Almond wrote on the online culture magazine the Rumpus.
“The host spent most of the hour chatting with people about their
memories. They all talked about watching television. They were telling
personal stories about watching television.”
It wasn’t just journalists; authors struggled with how to write about the day, too.
In the New Yorker, author Zadie Smith wrote a somewhat convoluted essay about the persecution of Muslims after 9/11, even misquoting Martin Luther King Jr., who did not actually say, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
Also in the New Yorker, author Jonathan Safran Foer compared writing about 9/11 to his son’s nightmares, which his son either couldn’t describe or didn’t have the vocabulary to.
Some say that if many of the best writers alive struggled to put down
words to describe 9/11’s anniversary, Krugman should also get some
slack.
Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher, an often combative writer, took a softer tone toward Krugman on Monday, writing,
“If I woke up every September 11 and banged out the first five
paragraphs that popped into my head, I’m sure the result would often be
something as inflammatory as what Krugman wrote.”
And he included this telling point: “The 9/11 anniversary is a tough
day for everyone, and people handle grief in different ways.”
Re “The Years of Shame” (“The Conscience of a Liberal” blog, The New York Times on the Web, Sept. 11):
Paul Krugman writes, “The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned;
it has become an occasion for shame.” I disagree.
I feel no shame about my personal recollections and commemorations of
9/11. My memories of the day have not faded; I recall what I saw with my
own eyes in Lower Manhattan. I do not believe that our political system
was irrevocably poisoned, or that it is a day of shame.
I remain grateful for the words of comfort that President George W. Bush
and Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani provided the nation in the aftermath.
I find no shame in the pursuit of justice since then by two presidential
administrations. I may not agree with every policy decision taken
since, but American society is sound and our recollections have not been
hijacked.
I urge Mr. Krugman to appreciate moments of great leadership, regardless of the leader’s political affiliation.
MICHAEL METS
Glendale, Queens, Sept. 11, 2011
To the Editor:
Of all the things Paul Krugman could have written, this is what he chose to share with a grieving nation?
Published on any other day, this blog post would have been civil
discourse. But published on Sept. 11, it politicizes the memory of
innocent Americans who lost their lives.
It is the nature of those in a democracy to disagree with one another —
sometimes vehemently — even on subjects as tender as this. But it is in
the character of America to temporarily put our differences aside in
times of pain.
The funny thing is, I don’t disagree with his assertion that there were
some sad and shameful misdeeds in the wake of 9/11. Yet the irony is
that this ill-conceived post will surely be remembered as one of them.
JENNIE WOLTER
Sacramento, Sept. 12, 2011
To the Editor:
Paul Krugman is certainly entitled to his opinion concerning 9/11,
whether it is popular or not. I am a little confused, however, by his
unwillingness to allow comments to be posted. Isn’t the idea of writing
such a post to provoke thought, create discussion and foster critical
thinking?
TOBEY MONTGOMERY
Oakland, Calif., Sept. 12, 2011
**********************************
orgive Paul Krugman For Calling 9/11 ‘An Occasion For Shame’
Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times conscience-disseminating liberal Paul Krugman has caused an uproar with a 3-paragraph (and change) blog post in which he, among other things, calls the anniversary of 9/11 “an occasion for shame.”
Krugman writes several stupid, wrong things in that small space, but
upon reflection, I think critics left, right, and center ought to cut
Krugman some slack. The 9/11 anniversary is a tough day for everyone,
and people handle grief in different ways.
Krugman begins by asking one of the weirdest questions I’ve ever
heard. “Is it just me, or are the 9/11 commemorations oddly subdued?”
What does he expect, beer bongs and a conga line?
He then pivots to the “deeply shameful” actions taken in the wake of
the tragedy by “fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes,
George W. Bush,” as they raced to cash in on the horror.”
Much of the conservative angst surrounding Krugman’s post centers
around the propriety of launching such a political attack on such a
solemn occasion. That’s a fair point (it’s not something I would do),
but not particularly outrageous. I’m certain you couldn’t throw a rock
in either blogohemisphere without hitting something just as partisan, or
worse. Krugman’s central point, that post-9/11 America quickly became a
deeply-divided place, is something that neither side can credibly deny.
He also alludes to political pundits who fell down on the job
post-9/11, but he probably should have mentioned the journalism
establishment that openly admits to giving President Bush a years-long
pass.
But where Krugman really goes wrong is in connecting the
commemoration of that day, and the day itself, to those divisions. The
memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned,” he says. “It has become
an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.”
Whatever you think of the political and policy implications of a
post-9/11 world, or the partisan jousting that accompanies it, the idea
that they could touch the memory of 9/11 is completely backwards. If one
can, indeed, affect the other, it is the memory of that day that has
the potential to be an antidote to that which has poisoned us.
You can chalk some of this up to the perils of trying to sum up 9/11
in a quickie blog post. In ten years, I don’t think I’ve managed to
write more than a paragraph about the day itself. The events overwhelm
the words. Every moment of that day is so frozen in time in my mind, I
could write a volume about each one, and still come up short.
I usually spend the anniversary trying to avoid television entirely;
the instant replay of the mind is vivid enough, thank you. Unavoidable
are the thoughts of those thousands of souls, the horror of that lone
tower, and minutes later, that empty space. I can’t scratch the surface
of the things that remembering that day makes me feel, but I can say,
conclusively, that shame is not one of them, and it never will be.
The grief and trauma of 9/11 affects people in different and powerful
ways. That’s another reason I don’t write much about that day. If I
woke up every September 11 and banged out the first five paragraphs that
popped into my head, I’m sure the result would often be something as
imflammatory as what Krugman wrote. For example, I sometimes get pissed
off when I see “Never Forget” decals and the like, because I think, “Who
the hell is that for? Who could possibly forget that?”
Ordinarily, I’m not afraid to make a flawed observation in anger, but
where 9/11 is concerned, I’ve found it’s better to err on the side of
shutting the hell up, lest my bitter pique intrude on someone else’s
legitimate grief.
In that spirit, I hope that Paul Krugman realizes that the
anniversary of 9/11 is not an occasion for shame. There are 364 other
days on the calendar to work that out.
Paul Krugman, of Princeton and the New York Times,
was up early last Sunday morning, reflecting, as many of his fellow
Americans were, on the tenth anniversary of 9/11. He chose to share his
thoughts on the meaning of the day. Here’s his contribution in its
entirety, posted at 8:41 a.m., five minutes before the first moment of
silence was to begin at Ground Zero:
The Years of Shame
Is it just me, or are the 9/11 commemorations oddly subdued?
Actually, I don’t think it’s me, and it’s not really that odd.
What happened after 9/11—and I think even people on the right know
this, whether they admit it or not—was deeply shameful. The atrocity
should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue.
Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush
raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify
an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.
A lot of other people behaved badly. How many of our professional
pundits—people who should have understood very well what was
happening—took the easy way out, turning a blind eye to the corruption
and lending their support to the hijacking of the atrocity?
The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.
I’m not going to allow comments on this post, for obvious reasons.
Krugman pretends to be struck that the 9/11 commemorations have been
“oddly subdued.” He rather oddly offered this judgment before the major
commemorations in New York and at the Pentagon took place. No matter. He
was presumably able to base his evaluation on the ceremony Saturday in
Shanksville commemorating the heroism of the passengers on Flight 93, or
on other events from the preceding week.
Of course, he’s right that the 9/11 commemorations, both before and after he wrote, were subdued.
But why is that “odd”? Shouldn’t they have been? 9/11 is a day of
mourning, of solemn remembrance and rededication. What did Krugman
expect but subdued commemoration? Loud and raucous gatherings?
Celebratory and chest-thumping declamations?
Perhaps that is what he anticipated. Krugman’s contempt for his
fellow Americans is so bottomless that it might have led him to assume
that they would commemorate 9/11 in a thoroughly inappropriate way.
But the key to understanding Krugman’s odd declamation is not what he
expected. It’s what he wanted. He wanted an acknowledgment of shame.
For him, 9/11 “has become an occasion for shame.” And he wanted America
to acknowledge its shame because, he claimed, “in its heart, the nation
knows it.”
Really? Paul Krugman is not stupid. Surely he knows Americans don’t
agree with him that the memory of 9/11 has become an occasion for
shame—that’s probably one of the reasons he didn’t allow comments on
his post. But he doesn’t have the courage to acknowledge that. He’d
rather ascribe his own sense of shame to the American people, who
manifestly don’t share that sentiment.
The next day, after a barrage of criticism, Krugman wrote a
follow-up. After defending himself, he did acknowledge one error of
omission: “Now, I should have said that the American people behaved
remarkably well in the weeks and months after 9/11: There was very
little panic, and much more tolerance than one might have feared.
Muslims weren’t lynched, and neither were dissenters, and that was
something of which we can all be proud.”
This qualification is perhaps just as revealing as Krugman’s original
post. In Paul Krugman’s America, one expects panic and lynchings of
Muslims and dissenters. So “we” should be “proud” to have avoided this
natural inclination of ours.
To which one might respond: What do you mean “we,” professor? Krugman
posted his original declaration on the morning of September 11. In the
moral universe of most Americans, if one were to choose to declaim on
the meaning of 9/11 on its tenth anniversary, even if one wanted to
criticize subsequent policies of the American government, one would
first pay tribute to the sacrifice and heroism of that day. But on
September 11, and again on September 12, Krugman has nothing to say of
the people killed in New York and Washington, of the passengers on
Flight 93, the firefighters and rescue workers in New York City, the
civilians and military at the Pentagon, or those who after 9/11
volunteered to serve their country in uniform or otherwise. He finds
nothing to be proud of there.
Paul Krugman is ashamed of America. We trust Americans, to the degree they notice him, will wear his scorn as a badge of honor.
