It was the look in their eyes when the nurses gave them the diagnosis —
H.I.V.-positive — then said there was no treatment. I saw no anger in their
expression. No protest. If anything, just a sort of acquiescence.
The anger came from the nurses, who knew there really was a treatment — just not
for poor people in poor countries. They saw the absurdity in the fact that an
accident of geography would deny their patients the two little pills a day that
could save their lives.
This was less than a decade ago. And all of us who witnessed these dedicated
African workers issuing death sentence after death sentence still feel fury and
shame. AIDS set off an almost existential crisis in the West. It forced us to
ask ourselves the big, uncomfortable questions, like whether capitalism, which
invented the global village and kept it well stocked with stuff, could also
create global solutions. Whether we were interested in charity... or justice.
The wanton loss of so many lives in Africa offended the very idea of America:
the idea that everyone is created equal and that your destiny is your own to
make. By the late 1990s, AIDS campaigners in the United States and around the
world teamed up with scientists and doctors to insist that someone — anyone —
put the fire out. The odds against this were as extreme as the numbers: in 2002,
two million people were dying of AIDS and more than three million were newly
infected with H.I.V. Around 50,000 people in the sub-Saharan region had access
to treatment.
Yet today, here we are, talking seriously about the “end” of this global
epidemic. There are now 6.6 million people on life-saving AIDS medicine. But
still too many are being infected. New research proves that early antiretroviral
treatment, especially for pregnant women, in combination with male circumcision,
will slash the rate of new H.I.V. cases by up to 60 percent. This is the tipping
point we have been campaigning for. We’re nearly there.
How did we get here? America led. I mean really led.
The United States performed the greatest act of heroism since it jumped into
World War II. When the history books are written, they will show that millions
of people owe their lives to the Yankee tax dollar, to just a fraction of an aid
budget that is itself less than 1 percent of the federal budget.
For me, a fan and a pest of America, it’s a tale of strange bedfellows: the gay
community, evangelicals and scruffy student activists in a weird sort of
harmony; military men calling AIDS in Africa a national security issue; the
likes of Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Lee and John Kerry in lock step with Bill Frist
and Rick Santorum; Jesse Helms, teary-eyed, arriving by walker to pledge support
from the right; the big man, Patrick Leahy, offering to punch out a cranky
Congressional appropriator; Jeffrey Sachs, George Soros and Bill Gates, backing
the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; Rupert Murdoch (yes,
him) offering the covers of the News Corporation.
Also: a conservative president, George W. Bush, leading the largest ever
response to the pandemic; the same Mr. Bush banging his desk when I complained
that the drugs weren’t getting there fast enough, me apologizing to Mr. Bush
when they did; Bill Clinton, arm-twisting drug companies to drop their prices;
Hillary Rodham Clinton, making it policy to eradicate the transmission of H.I.V.
from mother to child; President Obama, who is expected to make a game changing
announcement this World AIDS Day to finish what his predecessors started — the
beginning of the end of AIDS.
And then there were the everyday, every-stripe Americans. Like a tattooed
trucker I met off I-80 in Iowa who, when he heard how many African truck drivers
were infected with H.I.V., told me he’d go and drive the pills there himself.
Thanks to them, America led. Really led.
This was smart power. Genius, really. In 2007, 8 out of the 10 countries in the
world that viewed the United States most fondly were African. And it can’t be a
bad thing for America to have friends on a continent that is close to half
Muslim and that, by 2025, will surpass China in population.
Activists are a funny lot. When the world suddenly starts marching in step with
us, we just point out with (self-)righteous indignation all that remains to be
done. But on this World AIDS Day I would like you to stop and consider what
America has achieved in this war to defend lives lived far away and sacred
principles held closer to home.
The moonshot, I know, is a tired metaphor; I’ve exhausted it myself. But
America’s boldest leap of faith is worth recalling. And the thing is, as I see
it, the Eagle hasn’t landed yet. Budget cuts ... partisan divisions ... these
put the outcome in jeopardy just as the science falls into place. To get this
far and not plant your flag would be one of the greatest accidental evils of
this recession.
WASHINGTON — Another 2.6 million people slipped into poverty in the United
States last year, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday, and the number of
Americans living below the official poverty line, 46.2 million people, was the
highest number in the 52 years the bureau has been publishing figures on it.
And in new signs of distress among the middle class, median household incomes
fell last year to levels last seen in 1997.
Economists pointed to a telling statistic: It was the first time since the Great
Depression that median household income, adjusted for inflation, had not risen
over such a long period, said Lawrence Katz, an economics professor at Harvard.
“This is truly a lost decade,” Mr. Katz said. “We think of America as a place
where every generation is doing better, but we’re looking at a period when the
median family is in worse shape than it was in the late 1990s.”
The bureau’s findings were worse than many economists expected, and brought into
sharp relief the toll the past decade — including the painful declines of the
financial crisis and recession —had taken on Americans at the middle and lower
parts of the income ladder. It is also fresh evidence that the disappointing
economic recovery has done nothing for the country’s poorest citizens.
The report said the percentage of Americans living below the poverty line last
year, 15.1 percent, was the highest level since 1993. (The poverty line in 2010
for a family of four was $22,314.)
The report comes as President Obama gears up to try to pass a jobs bill, and
analysts said the bleak numbers could help him make his case for urgency. But
they could also be used against him by Republican opponents seeking to highlight
economic shortcomings on his watch.
“This is one more piece of bad news on the economy,” said Ron Haskins, a
director of the Center on Children and Families at the Brookings Institution.
“This will be another cross to bear by the administration.”
The past decade was also marked by a growing gap between the very top and very
bottom of the income ladder. Median household income for the bottom tenth of the
income spectrum fell by 12 percent from a peak in 1999, while the top 90th
percentile dropped by just 1.5 percent. Overall, median household income
adjusted for inflation declined by 2.3 percent in 2010 from the previous year,
to $49,445. That was 7 percent less than the peak of $53,252 in 1999. Part of
the income decline over time is because of the smaller size of the American
family.
This year is not likely to be any better, economists said. Stimulus money has
largely ended, and state and local governments have made deep cuts to staff and
to budgets for social programs, both likely to move economically fragile
families closer to poverty.
Minorities were hit hardest. Blacks experienced the highest poverty rate, at 27
percent, up from 25 percent in 2009, and Hispanics rose to 26 percent from 25
percent. For whites, 9.9 percent lived in poverty, up from 9.4 percent in 2009.
Asians were unchanged at 12.1 percent.
An analysis by the Brookings Institution estimated that at the current rate, the
recession will have added nearly 10 million people to the ranks of the poor by
the middle of the decade.
Joblessness was the main culprit pushing more Americans into poverty, economists
said.
Last year, about 48 million people ages 18 to 64 did not work even one week out
of the year, up from 45 million in 2009, said Trudi Renwick, a Census official.
“Once you’ve been out of work for a long time, it’s a very difficult road to get
back,” Mr. Katz said.
Median income fell across all working-age categories, but was sharpest drop was
among the young working Americans, ages 15 to 24, who experienced a decline of 9
percent.
According to the Census figures, the median annual income for a male full-time,
year-round worker in 2010 — $47,715 — was virtually unchanged, in 2010 dollars,
from its level in 1973, when it was $49,065, said Sheldon Danziger, professor of
public policy at the University of Michigan.
Those who do not have college degrees were particularly hard hit, he said. “The
median, full-time male worker has made no progress on average,” Mr. Danziger
said.
The recession has continued pushing 25-to-34-year-olds to move in with family
and friends to save money. Of that group, nearly half were living below the
poverty line, when their parents’ incomes were excluded. The poverty level for a
single person under the age of 65 was $11,344.
“We’re risking a new underclass,” said Timothy Smeeding, director of the
Institute for Research and Poverty at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
“Young, less-educated adults, mainly men, can’t support their children and form
stable families because they are jobless,” he added.
But even the period of economic growth that came before the recession did little
for the middle and bottom wage earners.
Arloc Sherman, a senior researcher at the Center on Budget and Policy
Priorities, said that the period from 2001 to 2007 was the first recovery on
record where the level of poverty was deeper, and median income of working-age
people was lower, at the end than at the beginning.
“Even before the recession hit, a lot of people were falling behind,” he said.
“This may be adding to people’s sense of urgency about the economy.”
The suburban poverty rate, at 11.8 percent, appears to be the highest since
1967, Mr. Sherman added. Last year more Americans fell into deep poverty,
defined as less than half the official poverty line, or about $11,000, with the
ranks of that group increasing to 20.5 million, or about 6.7 percent of the
population.
Poverty has also swallowed more children, with about 16.4 million in its ranks
last year, the highest numbers since 1962, according to William Frey, senior
demographer at Brookings. That means 22 percent of children are in poverty, the
highest percentage since 1993.
The census figures do not count noncash assistance, like food stamps and the
earned-income tax credit, and economists say that as a result they tend to
overstate poverty numbers for certain groups, like children. But rises in the
cost of housing, medical care and energy are not taken into account, either.
The report also said the number of uninsured Americans increased by 900,000 to
49.9 million.
Those covered by employer-based insurance continued to decline in 2010, to about
55 percent, while those with government-provided coverage continued to increase,
up slightly to 31 percent. Employer-based coverage was down from 65 percent in
2000, the report said.
For the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, we invited readers to offer
their thoughts.
To the Editor:
For one brief moment on Sept. 11, 2001, time seemed to stand still. People
sought family members and recognized the importance of family. Acts of charity
were plentiful. There was an assessment of life and what is really important.
Places of worship were full. People unashamedly prayed.
There was a strong feeling of patriotism, and a desire to show the flag. Crime,
and even the thought of it, was absent. We were all in support of our president.
Congress and all our elected leaders worked together for the good of our
country. Nations across the world expressed concern, sadness and unity with the
United States.
For one brief moment ...
AL DiLASCIA
Chicopee, Mass., Sept. 7, 2011
Sept. 11, 2001, marks the last day of my life that I did not own a cellphone. I
was a college junior in Sarasota, Fla., and heard about the planes hitting the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon. My father was supposed to be giving a
briefing at the Pentagon that morning, and I had no way to get in touch with
him.
Hours passed before a message made its way through family channels that my dad’s
briefing had been canceled and that he was several miles away when the plane
struck the Pentagon.
The heroic images and stories of the day, the ignorance and blind hate of the
days that followed and the military and political quagmires of the subsequent
years, though they are with me every day, will never overwhelm the biggest part
of 9/11 for me: for several hours, I didn’t know if my dad was alive or dead.
The next day I went and bought a cellphone and called my dad.
ROBERT HUTCHISON
South Bend, Ind., Sept. 7, 2011
After 10 years, and this week’s necessary memorials, I am hopeful that America
will finally move beyond 9/11. Not to forget it — no, we shall never forget. But
can we finally become more than a nation of victims and vengeance?
Can we return again to a pre-9/11 era, when Americans listened more to reason
than to rage? Can we, like every nation in Europe that has been targeted by
terrorists, acquire the confidence to walk beside our fears and not let fear
consume any more of our defense dollars, our civil liberties, our ability to
listen to one another and to world opinion?
Ten long and difficult years have passed. It’s time to move on.
BRUCE WATSON
Leverett, Mass., Sept. 7, 2011
In a letter published in The Times on Sept. 12, 2001, I wrote that “we can only
hope” that the response to the 9/11 outrage will be “prudent, measured,
rational, and within the parameters of the law,” and that “the inevitable
temptation to change fundamentally the nature of our society, by attacking the
civil rights and civil liberties of any individual or group, must be resisted.”
Unfortunately, this admonition was not heeded, and in the 10 years since the
attacks we have betrayed our core values and undermined our credibility, both
domestically and internationally.
On the home front, we have compromised our basic commitment to civil rights and
civil liberties through devices such as the Patriot Act, the 2008 amendments to
the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and “national security letters” — in
the process creating an enormous surveillance apparatus worthy of a police
state.
Internationally, our response remains one of unbridled militarism and
imperialism, as we continue to wage two wars, occupying Muslim nations with tens
of thousands of troops and seeking to impose our will on those lands by force —
and now even working to undo our pledge to leave Iraq by the end of 2011. We
have employed torture as an instrument of policy, in flagrant violation of the
rule of law, and declined to punish or prosecute the policymakers who authorized
it. And Guantánamo is still open, despite President Obama’s promise to close it
by Jan. 21, 2010.
In the long run, this unprincipled reaction does not make us safer, but simply
invites more terrorism and repression. But most important, it is a national
disgrace.
JOHN S. KOPPEL
Bethesda, Md., Sept. 7, 2011
I experienced 9/11 first as an American mother, then as a “Muslim other.” For
the first three hours, I didn’t know whether my son, who worked for one of the
banks at the World Trade Center, was in New York or in London on that fateful
Tuesday; when he finally called me with a terse “Mom, I’m all right,” I thought
of all the mothers who didn’t get that reassuring phone call.
My second thought was to pray that the perpetrators of the horror would have no
connection to the Middle East. When that prayer was not answered, I understood
that, after 20 years of believing myself and my family to be completely
integrated in American society, we were now perceived differently.
In the weeks that followed, I volunteered to speak wherever I was invited, to
try to distance the religion I had grown up with in Egypt from the atrocity
perpetrated in its name. The first time my neighbor of eight years heard me
speak at a church, she burst out, “I didn’t know we had Muslims in the
cul-de-sac!”
Today, 10 years later, it seems evident that efforts to distance Islam from
terrorism have proved futile; an unapologetic Islamophobia is the last allowable
prejudice in America. The only hope of reversing that alarming trend lies in the
Arab Spring; if it succeeds, it might open the eyes of the world to a different
image of Arabs and Muslims — not as an undifferentiated horde of potential
terrorist recruits but as peaceful young protesters aspiring to dignity and
democracy.
SAMIA SERAGELDIN
Chapel Hill, N.C., Sept. 8, 2011
On that fateful morning I was in the South Tower above the 90th floor. I escaped
without injury, but 13 of my colleagues lost their lives. I have been living
with the memories of that day, just as I have been living with memories of the
Holocaust. But enough is enough!
When will we stop this nonstop memorializing? Ten years have passed and the
reconstruction on the World Trade Center site has barely begun. Ten years after
World War II Europe was largely rebuilt.
I know families who lost loved ones, and all they ask for is that they stop
being reminded constantly about what happened. A quiet and tasteful memorial for
first responders and victims should be enough. It is time to close the door on
the event and let the survivors live our normal lives.
W. BODKIN
New York, Sept. 7, 2011
I was at Stanford in California; it was a little before 6 a.m., local time. I
was preparing to go for a walk with a friend and turned on the radio — something
I rarely do in the morning. Then I heard the shocking news that a plane had hit
the World Trade Center. I quickly turned on the television.
When my friend arrived, we watched in horror as the second plane hit. I did not
immediately think “war.” President Bush was much too quick to announce that we
were at war.
I was even more shocked when he decided to send troops to Iraq. Saddam Hussein
had nothing to do with 9/11. That was a mistake from the beginning and has made
me very suspicious about decisions politicians make and about those who are
influencing them.
That war and the one in Afghanistan have cost us too many lives and too much
money. They have also cost us our once-noble standing in the world. Instead of
making us safer, they have increased Muslim hostility toward us. I see no end in
sight until we get out of the wars and focus on rebuilding our own declining
country.
CAROL DELANEY
Providence, R.I., Sept. 7, 2011
Of all the stories I’ve read in the days and years after 9/11, the ones most
vividly recalled have to do with people’s desire for connection until their very
last moments — the jumpers who clung to one another as they stepped off the
towers or the final phone calls made to loved ones to say goodbye.
In this post-9/11 world where connections seem more superficial, where the only
way some people keep up with loved ones is by following Facebook and Twitter
feeds, this 10th anniversary of 9/11 is a reminder to me to really connect to
the people around me.
For all those we lost on 9/11, I hope those personal connections provided some
comfort in their final moments.
The ninth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was marked
on Saturday by the memorials and prayer services of the past, but also by events
hard to envision just a year ago — heated demonstrations blocks from ground
zero, political and religious tensions and an unmistakable sense that a
once-unifying day was now replete with division.
The names of nearly 3,000 victims were read under crisp blue skies in Lower
Manhattan after the bells of the city’s houses of worship tolled at the exact
moment — 8:46 a.m. — that the first plane struck the north tower of the World
Trade Center. At the Pentagon, President Obama called for tolerance and said,
“As Americans we are not — and never will be — at war with Islam.”
The familiar rituals at ground zero — the reciting of names, the occasionally
cracking voice of a reader, the silences — had a new element. The posters and
photographs that victims’ relatives held aloft bluntly injected politics into
New York City’s annual ceremony, addressing the debate over plans to build a
Muslim community center and mosque near ground zero.
Two posters commemorated the victims James V. DeBlase and Joon Koo Kang. One
read, “Where are OUR rights?” The other: “We love you!! Islam mosque right next
to ground zero??? We should stop this!!”
Differences were evident at the outset. About 7:25 a.m., as a choir finished up
“The Star-Spangled Banner” at Zuccotti Park, just southeast of ground zero,
Alyson Low, 39, a children’s librarian from Fayetteville, Ark., faced the media
bleachers and held up a photo of her sister, Sara Low.
“Today is ONLY about my sister and the other innocents killed nine years ago,”
read the text beside the photograph.
Nick Chiarchiaro, 67, a fire-alarm designer, gave her a hug. Ms. Low’s sister
was a flight attendant on the plane that crashed into the north tower, where Mr.
Chiarchiaro’s wife and niece were working and were killed.
“I’m tired of talking about everything else, tired of the politics,” she said.
“Today is only about loss.”
But for Mr. Chiarchiaro, it was not. “A mosque is built on the site of a winning
battle,” he said. “They are symbols of conquest. Hence we have a symbol of
conquest here? I don’t think so.”
Thousands filled the makeshift plaza beside a construction site sprouting cranes
and American flags on a crystal-clear morning a few degrees cooler than the one
nine years ago. They carried cups of coffee and wore T-shirts emblazoned with
the symbols of the response agencies that had paid so dearly. Until midday, they
placed flowers at ground zero.
During the ceremony, knots of protesters wandered the area, sometimes arguing.
In the afternoon, a few blocks away, police officers and barricades separated
demonstrations, both for and against the Muslim center, that each drew about
2,000 people.
Around the country, people debated the meaning of 9/11 and the appropriateness
of political rallies and protests on its anniversary. The day drew an array of
national and international figures. John R. Bolton, the former United States
ambassador to the United Nations, addressed the New York rally against the
proposed Muslim center via video, and Geert Wilders, a Dutch politician who
tried to ban the Koran in his country, described Islam as an intolerant “power
of darkness,” saying, “We must draw the line, so that New York, rooted in Dutch
tolerance, will never become New Mecca.”
Thousands were expected to gather later in Anchorage, paying $74 to $225 to hear
speeches by Glenn Beck, the conservative broadcaster, and Sarah Palin, the
former governor of Alaska.
At the Pentagon, in a memorial honoring the nearly 200 victims of the attack
there, Mr. Obama said that those responsible had sought to divide the country.
“They may seek to spark conflict between different faiths, but as Americans we
are not — and never will be — at war with Islam,” Mr. Obama said. “It was not a
religion that attacked us that September day; it was Al Qaeda, a sorry band of
men which perverts religion. And just as we condemn intolerance and extremism
abroad, so will we stay true to our traditions here at home as a diverse and
tolerant nation.”
In Shanksville, Pa., where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed after passengers
rebelled against the plane’s hijackers, the focus remained on the victims, with
speeches by the first lady, Michelle Obama, and her predecessor, Laura Bush.
Mrs. Obama celebrated the bravery of the passengers. “They called the people
they loved — many of them giving comfort instead of seeking it, explaining they
were taking action, and that everything would be O.K.,” she said. “And then they
rose as one, they acted as one, and together they changed history’s course.”
Terry Jones, the Florida pastor who had announced, and then suspended, plans to
burn copies of the Koran, arrived in New York on Friday seeking a meeting with
Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam behind the proposed Muslim center. The pastor’s
presence in the city, under police protection, only added to the day’s drama.
On NBC’s “Today” show, Mr. Jones said that neither he nor his congregants would
burn the Koran, whether or not he met with the imam. “We feel that God is
telling us to stop,” he said.
Yet scattered imitators adopted his idea. Near the White House, 10 members of
the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue tore pages from the Koran that they
said showed Islam’s intolerance. Near ground zero, a man burned what appeared to
be a page of the Koran. Behind him, someone held a sign: “Real Americans don’t
burn Korans.”
In Afghanistan, five people were wounded when demonstrators protesting the
proposed Koran-burning tried to storm a provincial governor’s house.
At the New York demonstrations, there were no arrests, the police said, and the
few clashes were verbal. Priscilla Lynch, 58, a Massachusetts social worker who
supported the center and was wearing a T-shirt with Arabic writing, crossed a
street near the opposing protesters. Some yelled: “Go back to Mecca!”
Supporters of the center rallied at City Hall Park, two blocks from the proposed
center. The group was organized by left-wing and pro-Palestinian groups,
following a separate vigil Friday by Christian, Jewish, Muslim, interfaith and
neighborhood organizations.
Stephen Northmore, 24, an emergency medical worker who attended both, wore an
American flag as a cape. Three friends from his native Staten Island served in
Iraq and Afghanistan, he said. One lost a leg; another was the sole survivor
when a Humvee hit a roadside bomb.
“I think it’s offensive that my friends are ordered to go to Muslim countries
and defend Muslims there against the same radicals that attacked us,” he said,
“but peaceful Muslims can’t build a community center in New York City in their
own country."
Sharif Chowdhury did not attend the rally after honoring his daughter and her
husband, both Muslims who died in the World Trade Center, at the ceremony. But
he said that objecting to the Islamic center implied that all Muslims were
terrorists and violated religious freedom. “If you want to stop this,” he said,
“you have to change the Constitution.”
Opponents of the Muslim center gathered on West Broadway for a protest organized
by the Freedom Defense Initiative and Stop Islamization of America, both led by
the conservative blogger Pamela Geller.
Jan Loght, 58, a pharmacist from Arizona, said she was “insulted” by the planned
center and troubled by Islam. “If we allow them to build this, then that’s
saying we gave in, and Americans don’t give in.”
Most of the crowd chanted “No Mosque” or “U.S.A.” When Ilario Pantano, an Iraq
war veteran running for Congress in North Carolina, mentioned Muslims, some
shouted, “Kill them all!”
It was a Sept. 11 starkly different in tone and emotion from those past. For the
first time, the anniversary of the worst attack on American soil and New York’s
deadliest disaster served almost as a backdrop to politics. The rancor of a
ground zero riven by clashing views on Islam and the United States contrasted
with the heartbreak of the place.
For many, the politics were cause for a new kind of mourning — for the setting
aside of differences that many Americans felt on previous anniversaries.
“We need to get back to that commonality and spirit that we had after 9/11,”
said Julie Menin, the chairwoman of the local community board, who supports the
Muslim center.
Many 9/11 rituals went on unchanged. In the East Village, former workers from
Windows on the World — the restaurant atop the trade center that lost 73 workers
— shared a brunch at Colors, a restaurant some surviving workers opened after
the attacks.
People of many faiths, born in places from Egypt and Yugoslavia to Brooklyn,
passed around babies and pictures. Zlatko Mundjer, 38, who had tended bar at
Windows on the World, said no one was talking politics. “We are all family here
— we are neutral.”
Steve Harewood, 45, who had worked as a bartender, received a marriage proposal
from Paula Sternitzky, 46. They set their wedding date on the spot: Sept. 11,
2011.
Reporting was contributed
by Damien Cave, Helene Cooper,
Adam B. Ellick, Angela
Macropoulos, Colin Moynihan,
