The Best Defense Is A Calm Head
This seems like about as good a time as any to mention that I've long thought it was a bad idea for liberals (and some conservatives, too) to criticize George W. Bush for his infamous post-9/11 remark that people should "go shopping." A big part of what events like today today's attacks ought to do is remind us of the crucial role that terror plays in terrorism. The murder of about forty innocent people going about their business is a horrible thing, and insofar as we can prevent such attacks, we of course should. At the same time, these sort of attacks simply aren't devastation on the sort of scale that is, by itself, a major national security threat.
The deeper threat posed by terrorists is that they'll induce paralysis. If people throughout the western world become reluctant to ride on subways, city buses, and railroads, the damage -- though diffuse -- would be enormous. The costs of apply airport-style security to every sort of venue where largish groups of people congregate and therefore render themselves vulnerable to being blown up would be prohibitive. In this sense, then, much of the grief President Bush took for his post-9/11 exhortation to the American people to "go shopping" was quite wrongheaded. The main purpose of these sorts of attacks (nuclear terrorism is another matter) is precisely to provoke panic, and trying to get people to stay relatively calm and continue to lead normal lives is an crucial part of sound leadership.
Nonsense.
Bush said all you needed to do was go shopping. He completely blew the opportunity to prepare America and pull her citizens together. He made no claim that we could all help in civil defense preparations, or take first aid courses, or engage in neighborhood watch activities, or prepare to join up. He made a patronizing and paternalistic claim, you go shopping and government will take care of you, and then used the war to force cuts in taxes and cuts in our bill of rights and cuts in our forests. You of course, appreciate the latter best.
July 7, 2005 11:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
I dunno, Matt. I agree that avoiding panic is important. But I think you more or less misconstrue the intent of the "go shopping" remark. Part of it was to maintain calm, for sure. But mostly it was meant as an attack posture, as in, "we will fight back by shopping, and thereby reaffirm our patriotism."
In that sense one can be critical of the remark. Because it was intended as a call to arms, and it was, I think, the wrong call. A call to shared sacrifice would have been better, paleoliberal as it may be.
July 7, 2005 11:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know how much Bush was really attacked for saying to "go shopping." It was a popular sentiment at the time. Remember all those "America Open for Business" signs? (soon to be replaced by an immigration policy of "America Closed for Inventory") Actually, I don't remember Bush being attacked for much of anything at the time, not even for making clearly delusional statements about ridding the world of evildoers being an achievable goal.
Nobody was saying that we ought to be out there feeling terrified. The most cogent criticism against "go shopping" was that this missed an opportunity to ask Americans to do more than that, and to acknowledge the fact that it's futile to pretend it's business as usual. The advice certainly had a hint of big government paternalism: just sit tight and let the big boys handle things.
On the other hand, I can't say I had a big problem with "go shopping." The declaration of forever war against evildoers struck me as considerably more damaging.
July 7, 2005 11:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Andrew Sullivan has some good posts up today talkign about this, how the traditional British Stoicism plays out in this. If a storm take out a subway stop everybody takes it as excuse to stay home form work, if the IRA bombs a subways stop every man woman and child within a train ride of London makes sure to be there the next day.
When will peopel realize that Bush has basically done eveerythign OBL would hope for at every step since 9/11? His lien about going Shopping may be the last thing he did right. I know that is somewhat exaggerated, going to Afganistan was of course right, but doing it on the cheap and pulling resources from there to Iraq before the job was done certainly wasn't.
Good lord, if Gore had been president in 2001 and we were where are today the right would be calling for impeachment for his incompentant handling of the war. When will people wake up and realize the utter incompetance of this pack of overgrown adolscents in charge who still seem to have no idea how the real world works?
July 7, 2005 11:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Matt, some people threw a little heat on Bush at the time, but the real criticism didn't come until much later, when anti-terrorism funds were dispersed to the states of political allies and promised aid to first responders was quietly cancelled. At that point, it appeared that Bush's entire plan was to say things like, "everybody go shopping and everything will be fine." It's not so much the shopping remarks, but the absence of anything else. Except, of course, attacking one of the two states in the Middle East that had nothing to do with al-Qeada. It's the context.
July 7, 2005 11:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Since when does "Spend Money" equal "Stay calm?"
July 7, 2005 12:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let me calm Mr Yglesias' fears of paralysis. The BBC reported this afternoon that shoppers were indeed taking advantage of the empty streets to get some shopping done in central London. And I for one find that just as despicably cynical as Bush's comments.
No, the sky is not going to fall that easily -- there's going to be plenty of commuting going on as more and more people won't be able to afford living in the large metropolitan areas any longer thanks to a ridiculous real estate market. The economy is going to tinker along just fine, thank you, as people will pay down their mortgages and pay their bills while struggling with record personal debt.
Now something else:
The predictable outcry of 'not giving in to the evildoers' has begun once more.
At lot of people are VERY tired of this.
It's almost unbearable to see Tony Blair stand before for the nation and intone his 'steadfastness on values' bulls*&t.
These groups don't attack major cities because they hope to paralyse them. They know they can't do that. We know that, too.
In Bahgdad, tens, or perhaps hundreds of people are getting killed EVERY DAY by huge bombs, snipers and the American military thanks to their fantastic knowledge of the language and culture of the place they occupy. And do the Iraqi people stop living because of that? NO they don't. They CAN'T either.
London saw the protest of millions of people against an illegal war of occupation that hadn't even begun.
It was Tony Blair's decision to play poodle to Bush's policies of wars of aggression against the Muslim world that have brought these attacks upon the UK.
Madrid's attacks, which were far more deadly than today's blasts by the way, brought down the government that had allied itself with Bush. But in the UK, Blair is still in power -- even after the leaking of the Downing Street memos.
When will the political leaders who have brought these disasters to the West be held to account? When will they held responsible? What has to happen until they will be removed from their positions of power?
July 7, 2005 12:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly. Which is why the weak little girlie-boys who wet their pants whenever someone mentions tarra or the tarrists, who think Saddam bin Laden is going to murder them in their sleep if we don't blindly annihilate random MidEast nations and torture the living shit out of every swarthy suspect we can get our hands on, are doing more for al Qaeda than al Qaeda could ever do for themselves.
July 7, 2005 12:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Less attention, less glory, probably less recruitment.
Unlikely to happen, but the more we do try to take these attacks in some degree of stride, the less likely they are to happen in the future.
July 7, 2005 12:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
One more thing:
The West doesn't need more shoppers.
The West needs citizens. It needs voters.
July 7, 2005 12:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
After learning of the London attacks this morning I thought how great it would be if the British could show us how we should have reacted to 9-11. Are the British today as stoic as those who endured the German blitz. I hope so because I confess to being embarrassed by our overreaction to 9-11 and wondering how and when we turned into a nation of wusses.
Yes, 9-11 was horrible. But it was a cheap shot by a small group of outlaws who got lucky because our guard was down. Anyone who followed Frontline's documentary series on the group that bombed the WTC in 1993 would have known they intended to try again. Frontline also profiled bin Laden and his activities prior to 9-11.
Bush's "go shopping" comment infuriated me when he made it because it confirmed to me that they didn't feel very threatened by the attacks either but were determined to use them to entrench themselves in power by promoting a phony perpetual war against an "ism".
July 7, 2005 12:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bush's response from the moment 9/11 occurred has been fear. From his belated arrival in Washington due to fear for his safety, to the self-conscious selling of fear by his administration since. The very first week after 9/11, Bush officials told us that it was a certainty that we would get hit in this country again in the next year. Fear got Americans to sign onto the Iraq war, and fear got Bush re-elected.
With the ports going unguarded, the strip searching of grannies in airports is just another tactic to sow fear. And it has worked. If we had ignored 9/11 completely and went about our business as usual, except for some internal re-evaluations by the FBI and CIA, we would have been better off than we are now.
When Bush began selling fear, he knew the August 2001 PDF would be revealed eventually. It was critical that the meme "everything has changed" be pushed. Nothing changed except that now Bush takes the warnings from his national securtiy staff seriously. We are such a coddled, overprotected society. And the more we become so, the more fearful we become. Home of the brave my ass. Leave the terrorists to the pros. If we need to be strip searched at the airport, or yield freedoms as in the Patriot Act, then we need a new, more competent administration.
Fear of terrorists will replace fear of Commies as the stick the military industrial security complex beats us with to shake down stupid Republicans who otherwise would balk at high taxes.
July 7, 2005 1:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
'Tis your naysayers that are correct on this one, Matt. It was probably the most naïve and childish proclamation Bush has made to date.
July 7, 2005 1:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
saying that the "go shopping" remark fulfills the President's obligation to provide calming leadership is like saying that starting the Iraq War fulfills his obligation to protect us from our enemies.
There's nothing wrong with trying to calm people, but it should be possible to do so without pointing out the extent to which being an unthinking consumer drone and being a good citizen overlap in the President's mind.
July 7, 2005 2:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let's not forget that almost immediately after 9/11 Bush asked the American people to "buy and fly" as the main way they could fight terrorism at home. It was business as usual, with the emphasis on business. Let the soldiers do the dirty work, everyone else just pretend we aren't at war and keep the money flowing into the coffers. I think we are negligent if we do not ridicule the leadership of George W. Bush by pointing out the inanity of his "buy and fly" strategy. It is one of the best ways to get everyday Americans to see what a weak leader he is, void of ideas and strategy. He wants to make credit-card commandos of all of us, and that trivializes the whole war on terror, which is real and very deadly as we just found out again today.
July 7, 2005 3:29 PM | Reply | Permalink