The NY Post

The NY Post
: Here’s the link to my NY Post op-ed on PBS, 9/11, and globalization.

: I neglected to give props to John Podhoretz, New York Post columnist, who arranged this after seeing my post on the show. I’ve been trying to convince John, via email, that he should blog. But he’s busy writing a book.

: I’m already getting emails from folks about the piece; power of the press.

: The only thing wrong with getting a nice, long plug from Glenn Reynolds is that he links to the op-ed piece (of course) and I’m not getting any damned traffic.

: I forgot to put on my American flag lapel pin today. Oh, well, having a piece in the Post is the moral equivalent.

: See these wise words in my comments:

You can divde the Left into to camps – the Progressive Left, for whom liberal prinicples are a means to advance human progress, and the Scoldy Left, for whom liberal principles are a vehicle to turn the world into a morality play where they can harp endlessly about how baaad someone or something is. Perhaps Progressives vs. Scorners might be more apt. They do seem to do a lot of scorning.

Mr. Jarvis, with this editorial, seems to be launching an effort on behalf of the true progressives to reclaim the left from the scorners and scolders.

: Here’s a permanent link to the column (since it goes off the Post in seven days).

17 responses to “The NY Post”

  1. button Avatar

    Excellent essay! And I’m usually skimpy with the praise because there’s so much hype around these days. I did not see the show because I’m not a big TV watcher in general, but now maybe I’m kind of glad I didn’t.
    I’m not too clear on how “globalization” could have perpetrated this atrocity, but wouldn’t it include the Qaeda’s transference of the Kaba-icon ritual of stoning the Devil displaced to the WTC as their religious fetish? I don’t see why not. But, in that case, there’s a little problem here: viz, it’s THEIR mishigas, not ours.
    What…? We have a “stoning the Devil” ritual? No, I don’t think so. We also do not have cows wandering around the streets here either.
    This was never about globalization. It could be a matter for intellectual debate as to what it is “about.” But as a prospective theme, globalization is silly.
    My vote lately is: it’s “about” their FETISH. I don’t know anyone who had a fetish involving those two office buildings. To most people, they were just office buildings that made a nice addition to the skyline and had a good view and a famous restaurant. No one I know regarded them as a fetish.
    I used to work around the corner on Thames St. and I used to come up through the WTC from the Path, I believe. I never thought of them as any kind of symbol, five days a week, twice a day. I think a person would have to be pretty crazy– a nutjob– to perceive them as a symbol.
    I kept a pretty good grip on all this for a while, but I think it’s finally getting to me.

  2. MommaBear Avatar

    It’s crapola like that from PBS that made PB & MB quit sending even a dime to those obnoxious “PBS pledge month beg-athons” they run way too many times each year.
    They still don’t get the message that people will quit sending money if the tripe they spew is just plain wrong.

  3. KMK Avatar

    You were bang on in your original comments and I’m glad your opinion wasn’t diluted by the comments left. It’s a shame PBS choose to forgo the humanity for a political angle. Keep on keeping on. You give us back a voice.

  4. rossi Avatar

    jeff
    congratulations on a wonderful
    wonderful piece

  5. Jos Avatar

    There seems to be a singular inability of most of the chattering classes to understand that the reasons why the terrorists hate us are the very things that the scoldy and scorning-left actually appproves of in our society. You know, religous tolerance, emancipated women, un-stoned-to-death single mothers, un-mudered gays, and so on.
    You can divde the Left into to camps – the Progressive Left, for whom liberal prinicples are a means to advance human progress, and the Scoldy Left, for whom liberal principles are a vehicle to turn the world into a morality play where they can harp endlessly about how baaad someone or something is. Perhaps Progressives vs. Scorners might be more apt. They do seem to do a lot of scorning.
    Mr. Jarvis, with this editorial, seems to be launching an effort on behalf of the true progressives to reclaim the left from the scorners and scolders.
    Well done!

  6. Lola Avatar

    Well-said! This a great essay. I only caught the tail-end of that documentary and I was annoyed by it. Far more interesting were the 3-part documentary that aired the next evening, where the people from May Davis (I think that’s the name of the company) spoke about their experiences. You could clearly see just how this affected them because it was obvious they had to pause throughout the interviews to compose themselves. It really made it so much more powerful simply to hear from the survivors themselves.

  7. ....a moment with Easycure Avatar
    ….a moment with Easycure

    Just proves you were too good for TV Guide…..heh

  8. Eric M Avatar

    Your essay makes the mistake of equating globalization and trade. They’re not the same thing. Tom Friedman has been making this mistake for a long time too, that’s why he can’t figure out what’s going on.
    Trade is good, wealth is good, but globalization hasn’t resulted in better living conditions for the poor countries. I say this from a conservative free market perspective.
    If you believe in the truth of economic gain, and the ability of a population to rationally determine whether globalization is an economic positive, then there is no way to deny that globalization is being rationally rejected by most people in the poor countries it is supposed to help, while big banks in the US and Europe make out like bandits.
    Again if you don’t investigate this your writing on this subject will be simplistic and rather confused.

  9. Richard Bennett Avatar

    You make the mistake, Eric M, of confusing hallucinations with facts and of confusing your beliefs with those of rational people the world over.
    Osama and his evil minions didn’t attack the WTC to protest the WTO and the Starbucks monopoly on latte; they seek to impose a ninth century Islamic caliphate on the entire world, and the end to trade, progress, and travel would be a mere side-effect.
    Get out and mix with the people. Travel to other countries. Learn languages and study cultures other than those Woodstock, Ravers, and the Seattle grunge movement. There is hope for you as long as you breath, and we’re pulling for you.
    Go, dude.

  10. Eric M Avatar

    ass

  11. Eric M Avatar

    horse’s ass. Explain election results in Argentina, Brazil, Pakistan, Turkey, Peru, Venezuela. All recipients of the medicine of globalization. The world is hallucinating, oh I see it, these countries have gone stark raving mad. What kind of conservative are you? At least the real conservatives are in it for the dollar.

  12. Paul Avatar

    I did not watch the PBS documentary. No TV. But I am struck by Javis’ going ballistic on the word ‘globalization’.
    A generation ago few in Saudi Arabia would have had a clue about what the World Trade Towers were, or where New York was, much less about the signifigance of the buildings. ‘Globalization’ changed that. ‘Globalization’ is not just trade and its discontents. ‘Globalization’ is about media, too.
    They hated ‘us’ all along. We’re apostates and infidels. Globalization simply made them aware of where we were. They saw ‘Taxi’, and the ‘Airplane’ movies. They saw The Towering Inferno. They put two and two together, and ‘globalization’ happily made it possible for them to hop on a plane. . .
    In this sense, globalization is about means and opportunity. Not motive. Pretty obvious, IMHO.

  13. jeff lang Avatar

    Jeff,
    Congratulations on getting your piece in today’s Post. It’s nice to see the blogosphere having a voice offline. That being said I hated your piece. Hated it. I thought the logic was severely flawed and your venom seemed way misdirected.
    This program was an installment in a documentary about the history of New York City. It was not and did not claim to be a documentary about 9/11, it’s causes, victims, heroes or villians. The aim of the episode was to look at “NYC as the center of the world” at the end of the 20th Century. The story of the building and destruction of the World Trade Center is a pretty good vehicle to tell that story. You’ve got the power stucture of NYC politics and money, the transformation of NYC & the US’s economy away from manufacturing and toward information, and two giant buildings that captured the imagination of every school kid in the Tri-state area over the last 30 years and wonderfully proclaimed the triumph of American imagination and power. And you know what? As someone who ate his lunch in the plaza between those two buildings on many afternoons I can tell you that those buildings were pretty arrogant too. And there is nothing wrong with that. And there is nothing wrong with saying they were a symbol of globalization. They were. The lights were never turned out in the towers because there was always something in the world being run through them.
    Do you really believe that the towers were not a symbol? And do you think they were made a target twice for some other reason? Of course they were a symbol. Why do you begrudge that being said? It was true. The terrorists attacked symbols of our way of life. Ric Burns, in the voice of David Ogden Steers didn’t say, “In a little under two hours the buildings fell to punish us for being bad.” How could you think he was? I thought it was fact that the terrorists don’t like the way we live and so launched a sick and twisted attack against us. And I thought that the words, combined with the pictures pretty much said that. And I know you know that.
    I know you know that. I do. Which is why I was so confused about what the hell you were talking about. Then when you brought up Hitler I thought someone had put acid in my coffee. What was that?
    Hey, you’re entitled to your opinion and luckily the word opinion hung proudly over your piece so nobody would accidently mistake any of it for fact. Here’s mine:
    OPINION
    Jeff Jarvis hates PBS. I don’t know why. Maybe a muppet was once mean to him. Maybe he’s just grumpy. Not only does he hate PBS he hates Ric Burns. Really hates him. I can see that he and his brother can seem kind of pretentious thinking they own our shared stories and all. Plus his brother has that stupid haircut. But Jeff Jarvis’s hatred is no ordinary hatred, he hates these parties so much that he’s willing to twist words, assume ideas and try and taint them with the blood of innocent victims of 9/11. And I think that sucks. The next time he wants to unload on somebody I hope that he won’t cloak himself in funeral clothes and a stolen American flag, he’ll just say what he means.
    Thanks for the soapbox,
    Keep on buzzing Jeff,
    Jeff Lang

  14. Paul Avatar

    Unhappily, I should have typed “and ‘globalization’ happily (for them) made it possible”. My bad.
    These were twisted, fallen human beings who commited an act beyond redemption.

  15. Robert Swaim Avatar
    Robert Swaim

    Bravo Mr. Jarvis. Encore! Encore!

  16. button Avatar

    O.K., Kiddos, here’s the explanation.
    They established The Nuremberg Tribunals. Under the groundrules, it was explained, an abstraction such as ‘Globalization’ is not culpable of committing a crime.
    Human beings are accountable for their actions. Human beings commit crimes.
    It is not valid to contend that it was Globalization that was responsible for this atrocity or the mass murder of almost 3,000 people.
    It’s such sloppy thinking that Jeff does not want this crackpot chain of reasoning even broached. And I don’t blame him.
    Do not get into the habit of investing culpability or moral agency into abstractions. It’s a bad habit, poor thinking, and not acceptable 50-plus years after Nuremberg./tsktsk.

  17. button Avatar

    Jeff: Just so you know… I linked your essay via the permalink to this entry on your blog. So, if someone in the future is looking for that link, they’ll find it here and can follow it from your blog where you added the essay’s permalink. You did complain that you weren’t getting the traffic here because it was going there, so I directed any such traffic over to here. And I submitted my remarks to the weekly Carnival of the Vanities which will be at bigwig’s place this coming week.