These self-styled patriot-conservatives sounded like anti-war activists on the left, and offered a real counterpoint to the flag waving at Ground Zero.
On Sunday, while the cameras were all pointed at the President and the politicians at Ground Zero, up at the Library at Lincoln Center, an organization called Civ World sponsored a forum and event called Interdependence 2011: New York.
Led by Political philosopher and Demos Fellow Benjamin Barber they were crafting a 911-coujter narrative preaching the importance of cooperation, solidarity and interaction with the rest of the world as opposed to the Bush Doctrine stressing unilateralism and US exceptionally,
"The choice between terrorism and violence and anti-terrorism and violence is a false choice," declared Barber in his opening remarks. "You will never deliver peace with war."
I have covered and participated in several interdependence events in the past, in Paris, Rome and Morocco. All featured a high level of discourse by prominent public intellectuals, scholars and journalists. While many were covered in other countries, they were mostly ignored in the nation they most wanted to influence.
That was also true of Sundays panels that featured prominent speakers including Former Maryland Lt Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, David Steiner former New York State Commissioner of Education, Howard Dean, Former Governor and Democratic Party official, Princeton Professor Cornell West, Khalil Gibran Muhammad, the new head off Harlem's Library for Black Culture, TV personality Laura Flanders and TV host Tavis Smiley. Smiley recorded a live panel discussion at the event for NPR and interviewed Barber last week for his TV show.
The ideas were provocative and the analysis was deep, calling for news ways of thinking, a new approach to foreign policy, bottom-up organizing in America and the pros and cons of Barack Obama's leadership and lack of it.
Many of these were the ideas and issues that a more democratic media would highlight. If we lived in Europe, these events would have been covered. But here in the US of A, it was media business as usual---genuflecting the view of the powerful, sympathizing with the victims, but never debating how things might be different. Events like these were considered a sideshow unworthy of attention.
What these events stressed is that real change has to become the business of citizens and people's organizations, not official bodies and antiseptic media.
For more information, visit, http;//http://www.interdependenceMovement.org.
If you are as tired of the exploitation of 911 as I am, consider checking out this emerging interdependence movement online or in person. The future is still ours to shape, we must always hope.
As everyone knows action speaks louder than words, and I say that as professional wordsmith. Word!
News Dissector Danny Schechter blogs at NewsDissector.com.
He is the director of Plunder, The Crime of Our Time
(PlunderTheCrimeofourtime,com) He also hosts news Dissector Radio on The
Progressive Radio Network.com.
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