Monday, October 8, 2001
Further to New York - THE COMMENTARY
By Joseph Planta
VANCOUVER -- Nearly a month later it’s still hard to believe. If it were a conventional news story, like that of a Gary Condit or an O.J. Simpson, we’d be past saturation. But this isn’t a conventional news story. Not at all. Though we’ve seen the images -- jets going through buildings, giants of the New York skyline crumbling, the weeping of grown men and children, men and women jumping to their deaths -- hundreds of times since, yet it still does not sink in. It truly makes no sense. The world changed and I think a bit of all of us died.
Usually in times of ‘big’ stories, one -- especially in the column writing biz -- would like to commit as much as possible to print. I’ve done that in the past, but then it was different. I took the line of late night talker David Letterman. His show done in New York, Letterman wondered whether he should bother doing a show in light of September 11th. I too wondered if I should bother making meaningless rants -- whether I should do this column. But then again, there is no alternative to move on because that’s what gets in the craw of people like bin Laden. That’s what pisses them off. And if it’s little consolation for the blokes that bounded a hundred stories to their death or the widows of those that either died in a plane crash or minding their own business on a Tuesday morning four weeks back -- confounding Osama bin Laden and the unbeliveables responsible, should be the least we can do.
We mustn’t forget the events of September 11th. They’re far too important, the loss of lives and the unadulterated acts of heroism. September 11th, may as some have writ, be the end of irony, but let’s hope it’s the beginning of the new world as we know it. Perhaps we’ll be a little scared, but we should be all the more courageous to face the 21st century with greater resolve.
***
A couple of days after the attack, while witnessing the fate of New York City unfold, I thought about Frank Sinatra. The line from “New York, New York” -- which was originally written for Liza Minnelli -- “If I can make it there, I’ll make it any where...” seems to ring so ironically true. Maybe the terrorists or anti-Americans made their point in inflicting damage, but if you go on in this particular song, Sinatra used to sing, “It’s up to you, New York, New York.” To dissect poetically, Sinatra calls on the city “that doesn’t sleep” to decide whether the line will ring true and if success is indeed plausible.
Clearly post-September 11th, the ‘town so nice they named it twice’ has decided that those terrorists did not succeed in diminishing the intrepid American spirit. America will triumph and make it; the bastards responsible for September 11th will not. Rudy Giuliani, the sheer expression of courage and the manifestation of New York City’s resilience, for one has seen to that rightfully so. Sinatra would have been mad, but also proud of ‘the house he lived in’ -- America.
***
The events of yesterday -- the striking back of the American government against an elusive enemy -- scuttled yesterday’s planned Emmy Awards. Irrespective of the fact that I was looking forward to the Emmy’s, I think Les Moonves and the powers that be at CBS and the Television Academy did what they felt they must do. The show should have gone on, but it didn’t. The Emmy’s weren’t a go last night and that’s that. Since they’ve postponed twice, they might as well just open the envelopes up and release the winners’ names and mail out the statuettes. This on-again, off-again exercise is wearing thin. I haven’t the patience for what is essentially disingenuous compassion on the part of show business types who are merely riding the waves of emotion as created by themselves.
It would have been perfectly acceptable to have this so-called ‘subdued’ affair as planned for last night. I guess, it probably wasn’t so subdued in the first place. The ego filled stars of television and their network powers were probably just scared that further developments or ‘breaking news’ to this story would break into the telecast, thus depriving them of the glare of the world, as holding the show would have afforded them should they have gone on with it.
***
And finally... there was no alternative for the Bush administration but to strike back. People like Sunera Thobani who claim that the Americans have no right to strike back, as their foreign policy is ‘drowned in blood’ (or whatever the hell she said last week) must know that war is not at all pretty. Those anti-war protesters are brave to stand up and bitch about America, but really they mustn’t expect the United States of America to back down from a challenge. Sure the States have made egregious mistakes in the past, but that’s no excuse for anyone to create and carry out the events of September 11th.
Sure there will be innocent lives lost -- ‘collateral damage’ if you will -- as a result of the American response. That’s expected of Americans, least of all a Republican administration. The Afghanistan people are mere bystanders. Should they be? Surely not, but that’s where Osama bin Laden finds his refuge and thus that’s where the Bush government must strike. It may be that I am simply sanctimonious in belittling less fortunate lives, but indecisiveness on the part of the American government would be intolerable to the truly just.
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