Con una prosa sencilla y diáfana, el New York Times comenta la lección más honda del 11-S, hablando con mucha energía moral desde una orilla muy alejada de los ríos de interesada basura ideológica, comercial y publicitaria que difunden los medios de incomunicación de masas, cayendo como bandas de buitres sobre las tumbas profanadas de las víctimas.

Mi lectura personal de ese editorial: la lección ética profunda de quienes saben vivir y morir como hombres, unidos en comunión cívica con otros hombres que viven en la casa común de la misma patria.

Los EE.UU. tienen muchos defectos. Incluso defectos criminales. Pero no son Caína.

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Biografía NO autorizada de CJC.

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Este es el editorial del NYT:

September 9, 2006

 

Veterans of Sept. 11

 

One of the worst things about listening to those who rushed to ground zero after the attacks on Sept. 11 is that you can barely hear their stories. For many, the lungs hardly work. The cough, the ragged breathing, the confusion and even the bitterness make it hard for some of those who labored in that toxic cloud to explain how they feel forgotten. Like Steven Centore, a former federal worker from Flanders, N.Y., who became so emotional at a Congressional hearing in Manhattan yesterday that he had to be gently reminded of his own condition.

Sick from his time working at ground zero, Mr. Centore was forced to pay for his treatment, and the federal government offered only one thing, he said: a “screening” that determined he was indeed sick. “You mean I’m just a data point for you,” he recalled saying to the nurse filling out his forms.

People like Mr. Centore and maybe 40,000 others from across the country must be treated for diseases that become more obvious every week. As Mount Sinai Medical Center reported Tuesday, as many as seven in 10 of those who worked at ground zero and Fresh Kills on Staten Island have felt their lungs deteriorate because of their heroism.

What the veterans of Sept. 11 need now is a national response, which is not a strong suit these days in Washington. There are a number of partial efforts to help by city, state, federal and private sources. But somebody has to make sure that those who are suffering don’t fall through the many gaps. Recommendations worth considering include putting those without health care under Medicare. The federal government should also restore the Victims Compensation Fund, which originally focused on victims’ families and was phased out in 2003. This time the fund should pay for health care of these emergency workers. If something drastic is not done soon, there are lawsuits involving as many as 8,000 people that could end up costing taxpayers a lot more in the long run.

For some politicians, the message seems to have gotten through — especially as the nation remembers the attack five years ago this Monday. Members of Congress from the New York area have been pressuring to get more federal money for these responders. And Michael Leavitt, the secretary of health and human services, has promised to create a task force to provide some organization and to figure out the best ways to proceed. Creating a task force sounds like a delay rather than an answer, but the politicians from the Northeast who have been trumpeting this cause should now keep pestering Mr. Leavitt to move quickly.

As we pay homage on Monday to those who died on Sept. 11, 2001, it is worth remembering what happened on May 28, 2002. That evening — a scant 37 weeks after the attack — workers took down the last column from that smoldering mound and officially cleared the site. As one worker said of the herculean task completed by so many selfless people, “You found out who you were, what it means to be an American, what it is to stand up.”

They came when the nation was attacked. Taking care of them now is a national obligation.