September 11, 2022
A Gazette Editorial
Sampling this year’s 9/11 coverage, one could hardly miss all the references to the ‘house divided’ theme and how we were all so incredibly united after that horrible attack. But in fact, even before Obama took office, there were accusations of his ‘divisiveness’ being made in between howling demands that he produce a birth certificate to prove he was even American. And nobody howled louder or more often than the man who became Obama’s successor, Donald Trump. Trumpism’s latest obsession is that now Biden is the most divisive President ever. That’s because he dared to point out the obvious in a recent address he delivered: that any attempt to violently overturn an election is a threat to democracy.
But the divisiveness angle that struck us this year has to do with our collective response to threats. After the WTC came down, we were all more or less on the same page regarding the stepped up airport security measures implemented to keep us safe. Cockpits were locked, a secret no-fly list was created, and an epic pre-flight security routine was implemented: electronics removed from carry ons, liquids banned, shoes taken off and bodies scanned, wanded and patted down. It was, and remains, a major inconvenience to put it mildly. It can double your travel time!
For more than two decades now we’ve gone through the drill. We arrive at airports hours before our flights so we won’t miss them. To say the routine is what you’d expect on a visit to the state pen is no exaggeration.
But here’s the thing. We lost more than 3,000 of our fellow Americans on 9/11 when four planes were hijacked and turned into deadly missiles by a gang of fanatics. Since then there have thankfully been zero hijackings or any more such deaths. Yet we endure the continuing security measures without much complaint.
In contrast, when the Covid pandemic “attacked” us, one million Americans died. Less than ONE YEAR into that nightmare, people who arrive at airports two hours before their flight without griping, became outraged by the common sense recommendation to don a mask when in the close company of others. Wearing a mask that weighs less than an ounce and causes no delay whatsoever in order to be part of the solution was evidently asking way too much. People not only refused to wear them, they refused to tolerate others wearing them! It became a point of pride to not wear one, in fact. Defiant, barefaced political rallies were held. Talk about divisive!
Granted, by now everyone is tired of anything to do with Covid-19. If we could just wish it away we would, and we mostly have done. But it’s still around and yet another mutant variant isn’t out of the question. Now we’ve just resumed school without masks, restaurants and theaters are now mask free, and even mass transit has gone mask optional. This, while Covid is still around and we’re barely two years out from Spring 2020 when we lost tens of thousands of our family, friends, and neighbors here in just a few months. When we were digging mass graves on Hart Island. When refrigerated trucks were full of the dead because the hospital morgues were over capacity. When people were needlessly dying because there were no ICU beds nor ventilators available.
Something doesn’t add up. Our response to 9/11 was, if anything, overdone while our response to the pandemic was clearly inadequate. 3,000 deaths, a million deaths. Twenty years, two years.
Go figure.
Photo: an Inwood shrine that stood for more than a year following the 9/11 tragedy. That man kept watch the entire time.
