Like you, I've been watching with horror since Tuesday morning. If ever there was an unredeemably vicious plot, this was surely it. And yet in one key way, it misfired.
So far we're only guessing about the killers' motives, but we have reason to believe that what they hated was not so much Americans but the American government -- an institution we haven't been all that fond of ourselves. Fewer than 50% of us have tended to say yes to that poll question about whether we trust our government to generally do the right thing.
And indeed, why should we? Most of what government does is so taken for granted that it's effectively invisible. We take for granted roads, bridges, clean water, safe meat, homes built to meet building codes, refuse-free neighborhoods, public schools and universities, public libraries and museums and parks, Medicare. If asked to name ten functions of government, many people couldn't do it.
In fact, when we do hear about government in the news media, it's almost always about what government is doing wrong. We hear about failure, inefficiency, corruption, uncompetitiveness. Especially the last one, because there are so many people who would like to make money performing services currently delivered for free by government, like schools and databases and library service.
The terrorists have inadvertently counteracted all that bad press by letting us watch our local, state, and federal governments in powerfully effective action. The disaster has allowed Americans to understand that sometimes government is the only organization with both the power and the ability to say, "OK, these are the things we need to do, this is the order they have to be done in, this is how many people we need, and this is the kind of equipment they'll need," and, bingo, that's what happens. We've discovered that our governments have even planned and trained to handle disasters we never believed would happen. Because of the terrorists we've spent the last two days watching our governments organize rescue efforts, restore damaged infrastructure, investigate this appalling crime against us, and reassure us -- and the world -- that the grownups are in charge, that we will recover and fight back.
In the face of the rescue squads' extraordinary losses, it'll be a long time before we again take for granted the public servants who unhesitatingly charge toward the danger everyone else is running away from.
We've suddenly become aware of all kinds of government agencies we never heard of, or that never really seemed to matter to us before, as the Federal Emergency Management Agency sent in urban rescue and recovery teams, and the National Transportation Safety Board headed to Pennsylvania and New York and Washington to look for the planes' "black boxes."
One cabinet member after another held news conferences explaining what their departments could do to stabilize the nation. Alan Greenspan guaranteed that Federal Reserve banks would remain open, giving business the confidence that money would continue to flow in a time of economic uncertainty. The SEC and other agencies worked with Wall Street to make sure investment records and the telecommunications infrastructure were secure. The FBI showed startling speed in tracking down leads and identifying the terrorists. The librarians of New York Public Library, despite short staff and repeated bomb scares, kept on doing what they do best: informing people about the emergency and available assistance (http://www.nypl.org/branch/services/emerginfo.html ). Even state attorneys general gained our gratitude when they announced huge fines for gas station owners who used the emergency as an excuse to double and triple their gas prices.
Don't get me wrong -- I'm not saying these thugs did us a favor. Their actions were wholly evil, wholly unforgivable; our losses are wholly tragic. There are NO little rays of sunshine in the darkness they created.
But we've had a chance to see the selfless dedication of government workers, many of them working double shifts, swallowing pain and anger and exhaustion to keep on doing what has to be done. When the present emergency is over, it may be harder for demagogues to score points by railing against government; the public servants who've sacrificed so much have given a human face to government.
It's an opportunity all public agencies, including libraries, should seize, I think, an improved atmosphere in which to assert the importance of the public sphere.
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COOL QUOTE
Perfect valor is to do unwitnessed what we should be capable of doing before all the world.
Duc de la Rochefoucauld.
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Copyright, Marylaine Block, 2000.
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