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There are a couple other folks that should be contacted - they include Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (email - speaker@ assembly.state.ny.us), who not only represents the WTC area, but controls the budget process along with Governor Pataki and Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno (email - using form on his Senate website).
Also worthwhile of contact are:
The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which is overseeing the Lower Manhattan rebuilding and was responsible for selecting the IFC participants.
The Port Authority of NY/NJ (http://www.panynj.com)
And contacting either Senator Clinton or Senator Schumer might make a difference since they are rightfully credited for getting federal funding for rebuilding Lower Manhattan.
Posted by lawhawk at June 8, 2005 03:27 PM
Hmm, quite outrageous stuff on the 9/11 memorial, but I must wonder how factual and accurate it is. It seems overly inflammatory to be true - probably more half-fact/half fiction than anything. As for the memorial itself, I live in NYC and was here on 9/11. I don't think anyone who doesn't live here has anything to say about "ground zero" or "our collective experience." I'm well aware of the contempt most of America has for New York City (we're the blue state elitists, remember) and I find it continually offensive to have all the tourists of grief comming here to enjoy a little vicarious tragedy. We were here, we lived through it, it belongs to us, build your own memorial and stay away.
Posted by Mark McFreely at June 8, 2005 04:18 PM
First of all, I wouldn't take the word of a few people about what this exhibit contains. To some people any acknowledgemetn of America's unflattering history is anti-American. Sorry, kids, but this country was built on the backs of the poor and slaves, and the land was stolen from people who were conquered and killed. It's just the ugly truth. It doesn't mean America isn't great, yadda, yadda, but denying the truth doesn't make us stronger-- it makes us weaker, naive and unable to address or correct our own wrongdoings.
I too have much of the same feelings, Mark. I live in DC and actually live, like you do, with a real threat of terrorism hanging over my life. 9/11 wasn't something I experienced just through television, like much of the country, I had people like my sister there who were "missing" for a day. I want to tell all these people who have no personal ties to NYC or DC and who think they understand 9/11 to shut up. They do not own the pain of 9/11 the way that New Yorkers and DC people do. They do not love America more, but they think wrapping everything up in the flag makes them real patriots, that playing ostrich will keep the bad guys away. Well, I'm sick of it.
It is possible to love a country and criticize it at the same time-- blind, aggressive allegiance to this country is more dangerous to the "great experiment" than any outside threat.
Posted by barbarella at June 8, 2005 04:41 PM
"I want to tell all these people who have no personal ties to NYC or DC and who think they understand 9/11 to shut up."
I'm nominating that for most ridiculous comment on any military blog, anywhere, ever.
Posted by Greyhawk at June 8, 2005 05:27 PM
What a couple of idiots these guys are. Correct me if I am wrong but we are know as the "United" States of America are we not.
I suppose the only people who cared about Pearl Harbor were the citizens of Hawaii?
At least they correctly identified themselves as the elitist snobs they are.
I really hope we get our country back from these people one day.
Keep up the good work Greyhawk
Posted by Jason at June 8, 2005 05:46 PM
I think there's only one who can rally New York and the country into putting a stop to this insult ...yes, the one and only, "Person of the Year 2001", Rudy Giuliani.
You aren't a New Yorker, are you? Rudy is persona non grata here now.
I notice righties are only linking to right-wing propaganda about the memorial, which suggests to me we're getting a very slanted view of this story.
BTW, I was in lower Manhattan on 9/11, and I'm with barbarella. Pro-Bush jingoists don't get it.
Posted by maha at June 8, 2005 05:48 PM
Sorry Maha, Barbarella - by your scorecards Debra Berlingame's opinion matters infinitely more than yours - she lost a brother on 9/11. I'm open to discussion but you two have basically declared "closeness" to the impact centers to be the priority in determining legitimacy of any comments on the topic. Therefore on your logic I'm going to have to place increased faith in the linked account.
I'm also confused by your framing this as a "right-left" issue. Does your "New Yorkers/DC residents only" rule extend to people on your "right" in those cities?
Posted by Greyhawk at June 8, 2005 06:03 PM
"To some people any acknowledgemetn of America's unflattering history is anti-American. Sorry, kids, but this country was built on the backs of the poor and slaves, and the land was stolen from people who were conquered and killed. It's just the ugly truth. It doesn't mean America isn't great, yadda, yadda, but denying the truth doesn't make us stronger-- it makes us weaker, naive and unable to address or correct our own wrongdoings".
If you know the song, please sing along!!
"A-Men, A-Men, A-Men, A-Men, A-Men"
Posted by Robert at June 8, 2005 06:13 PM
I'm not a New Yorker. My niece was. Her husband went missing not for a day, but forever on 9/11.
Should I shut up.
Posted by Soldier's Dad at June 8, 2005 06:14 PM
Barbarella, if I may say something from my foreign perspective: acknowledging America´s "unflattering history" can become an obsession, too. There is a time and place for everything. This plan, if it is true, is simply tasteless. It is like having a reference to the plight of 19th century factory workers on a holocaust memorial because, after all, some jews were industrialists.
I agree, it is possible, even important, to love a country and criticize it at the same time, yadda, yadda (as you put it - I, too, have heard that one before). I certainly critize my own country a lot.In a healthy society, it´s a sign of strength.
But some of you revel in your "wrongdoings", you INSIST on advertising them to the world like it´s all there is, and then you wonder why America is unpopular? Washing your dirty laundry in public doesn´t make you admirable, it makes you repugnant. No other country does it that much.
Flagellantism is creepy.
Now, you may say it is none of my business. But they made it my business! I don´t think I have heard an anti-American argument (and I have heard them all) which did not originate in the US. And I´m not talking about "acknowledging" the ugly parts of your by-and-large admirable history, I am talking about the view that the US is fundamentally bad. I could believe that too, because every other day there is Richard "soft fascism" Sennett, or Susan Sonntag (RIP) or Benjamin Barber or Moore or Chomsky telling us how bad the US is. If those sandbox dissdents want to testify against their country, they are perfectly able to do it at home. But of course, there are books to sell and humanitarian prizes to be won. It´s disgusting.
If navel-gazing French or German intellectuals went on and on about their awful societies on American television, how long until you had enough? Of course, in France his behaviour could probably cost you your job, at least your reputation. And perhaps for once, the French have a point.
Countless visitors from other countries will visit that memorial and what will they take away from it? Just so that you can feel better about yourself? Because it will certainly not help the poor, or the indians. Who is this memorial for?
Posted by werner at June 8, 2005 06:26 PM
"I don't think anyone who doesn't live here has anything to say about "ground zero" or "our collective experience."
Don't recall that opinion when in the immediate time and months following 9/11 that the need to transfer and transfuse billions of dollars from across the country into NYC, anyone there stood up and said,'No thanks you. We'll do this all by ourselves.'
Posted by Don at June 8, 2005 06:42 PM
Well, Don, obviously you've forgotten that immediately after the 9/11 attacks that Afghanistan was invaded by the NY Giants, with close air support provided by the NY Jets.
The Washington Redskins, on the other hand, are a monument to man's racist inhumanity to man. But because they play in DC under terrorist threat it's okay.
Come to think of it, lets build the memorial in the form of a tee-pee, 110 storeys tall.
Posted by Mr Happy at June 8, 2005 07:12 PM
The fact that they are building ANYTHING on that site besides a simple memorial and park makes me ill.
I don't care how expensive land is in NYC, there's a time when you put profit asside.
Land is expensive here in Hawaii, but you don't see anyone proposing and office park on Ford Island, over the hulk of the Arizona.
Posted by Cal at June 8, 2005 07:47 PM
Regardless of your position on how this country earned, defended, and promotes freedom
it strikes me as odd to clutter up the memorial. The Vietnam memorial says it all - nothing is else is needed. To me the 9-11 memorial should be no different. Too bad there are too many cooks spoiling the broth.
On a somewhat unrelated note (although someone else started it) As an avid sports fan, I just don't get Mr. Happy's comments and all the others who bash the names of certain sports teams. I'm sure the Washington Redskins and Atlanta Braves did not select their names to diminish Native Americans. The Seminoles commemorate the Native American heritage in Florida. To say that they don't commemorate the heritage is like saying the folks in Green Bay look down on their meat packing industry, or the Brewers do not realize that Milwaukee was built by the brewing industry in the early 20th century. I suppose having two cities grow together side by side is to be frowned upon and so the Twins just want to diminish the most cosmopolitan city in the Midwest - sorry Chicago, I leave here now. And then there's the poor Yankees......
Posted by m.a. at June 8, 2005 08:29 PM
"I want to tell all these people who have no personal ties to NYC or DC and who think they understand 9/11 to shut up."
Then why is George Soros involved? AFAIK, his personal ties to NYC/DC are financial institutions.
And, on that note, we should probably dismantle Gettysburg. No American alive has "personal" ties to the Civil War.
Posted by Denise at June 8, 2005 08:33 PM
First of all, I am appalled that everyone seems to express an entitlement to the memorial. Let's remember what a memorial should be about: remembering the unfortunate victims of this tragedy.
Sceond of all, I don't really see the relevance of any appeal or references to the military. Apples and oranges. Unless we want to stipulate that all of Nagasaki be made into a "memorial" or that the US should in some way actually maek a memorial. These were citizens, not combatants. (And spare me the outrage, I am not seeking to make any moral equivalency arguments here or participate in an flagellation, merely point out that this is not a war memorial.)
The real problem is that America has had its collective head in the sand regarding terrorism that when a vicious strike everyone seemed to be falling over everyone else to overrespond. Should the entire foot print of the twin towers be made into a memorial. Something inside of me thinks that this is not only an overstatement but an actual capitulation to the intention of the terrorists, i.e. to rend the fabric of our society in a way that destroys our unique experiment in a free democracy.
By the way, I was in NYC on 9/11. This was a tragedy of grand proportions, but should not be treated as the end of the world. Are the relatives of the victims more worthy of deciding this than the citizens of NYC. Are the citizens of NYC more worthy of making the decision than the rest of the country?
These questions only point to the fact that after the initial coming together (a time when lending a helping hand and comforting each other outweighed these superficial discussions) we have been manipulated by our leaders and have fallen prey to our own petty fears and paranoia.
The memorial should pay tribute to the tragedy, but not be a testament to th death of our democracy because of fear.
Posted by eddie at June 8, 2005 09:01 PM
"Humility" will be the death of the West. It is pathetic that we cannot summon the fortitude to proudly and defiantly declare our way of life superior to the Islamo-fascists' culture of death. The United States is a light on a hill and should not shroud itself in deference to those who are offended by freedom.
9/11 was not intended as an isolated ego check. It was the first strike in a war. It's message was not simply, "Step back, USA." It was rather, "Fight, you pussies, or you will be destroyed."
This memorial should not be an apology for living, working, worshiping, and speaking freely. Instead it should be a big American beacon of freedom and proud, strong defiance against tyranny. Trump's defiant rebuilding of the Twin Towers is the American way and the best show of strong freedom. This sappy "We're sorry" Tower and museum is crap. I guarantee you I will never visit a 9/11 memorial that concedes any grievances held by or imaginatively attributed to terrorists.
I thought New Yorkers were tough guys who stood up for themselves. I guess that New York moxie went South.
Posted by ss at June 8, 2005 09:24 PM
Incredible how the these "New Yorkers" who proclaim "I was there!" are trying to take possession of what was undoubtedly a national tragedy. It is selfish, elitist--and typical.
I won't go into my own "9-11 credentials"--that is a ridiculous exercise. Suffice to say that, by the standards these people have promulgated, my right to comment on the event is as good as just about anyone who survived the event. And I say: This Soros-backed plan to hijack the site into some sort of sensitivity seminar is utterly revolting.
A related note: It has been my experience that the vast majority of those who espouse this ludicrous "New York is a special case" idea--which they apply to issues outside of the Trade Center fairly regularly--are not even FROM this town. They're usually transplants who figure their metrocard and New Yorker subscription qualify them as the gatekeepers to all that this great city is.
The basic disconnect is this: WE were hit on 9/11. Why should a memorial of that event involve anything other than the victims of that event? Does the Hiroshima flame feature exhibits of the Japanese atrocities at Shanghai or Nanking (or the Burma Road or...)? No--nor should they. Those should be chronicled elsewhere.
I would suggest that the left, in this instance, should find another outlet for the sentiments that they are entitled to (however wrongheaded many of us feel those sentiments may be). But please--leave Ground Zero to its victims. Find another soapbox.
Posted by Chris M at June 8, 2005 09:27 PM
"It is possible to love a country and criticize it at the same time-- blind, aggressive allegiance to this country is more dangerous to the "great experiment" than any outside threat.
Posted by: barbarella at June 8, 2005 04:41 PM"
There is nothing wrong with having allegiance to this country. The point that I and others are trying to make is that Ground Zero is a memorial and should not be used as a political tool by the moonbat left (or the right for that matter). Criticize all you want but can we all agree to leave Ground Zero out of the politics?
Posted by MJ at June 8, 2005 10:12 PM
I was not in NYC on 9/11, nor was I anywhere near a city with a population over 100,000. I did not lose any relatives or friends in the towers. I haven't even had any relatives or friends killed in the following military actions.
I still watched with horror and anguish the TV footage as my fellow Americans were murdered by some filthy terrorists. I watched as my countrymen jumped out of the upper floor windows to escape the heat. A nation wept together; regardless of whether or not it was a blue state or a red state that got attacked. Those outside of NYC and DC were just as affected by 9/11 as those that were there. We may not walk by and see the physical site every day, but we walk around with the emotional scars.
This was not New York's tragedy, this was America's tragedy.
Posted by Patriot Xeno at June 8, 2005 10:29 PM
Mark McFeely says; I don't think anyone who doesn't live here has anything to say about "ground zero" or "our collective experience." I'm well aware of the contempt most of America has for New York City
Forgetting that double negative, Mark, you ever ask yourself, "Why does most of America find New Yorkers contemptable?"
I bet you don't. Just like we could give a **** less about your, me first, lefti guilt trip masoleum to "Why do most Muslims find America contemptable"
Posted by Papertiger at June 8, 2005 10:40 PM
Don't be absurd, New Yorkers don't own September 11th. The people on those planes and in the towers were from all over the country. A few days after the attacks, I learned that one of my brother's childhood friends was killed -- something that my brother won't really talk about, even today. Then, few weeks after the attacks, I consoled a close friend of the family who lost a beloved nephew.
I don't remember New Yorkers refusing the direct aid or the money that came from all over the country. I don't remember them telling the military and intelligence personnel from the other 49 states, who have fought, sacrificed, and died in the war against al-Qaeda and the Taliban, that there was no need to bother. New York -- the city could handle this on their own.
Fortunately, I know enough New Yorkers to know that this opinions is not actually shared by the majority.
Posted by Spunky at June 8, 2005 10:56 PM
With all due respect to your points of view and what you both experienced that day - what an odd attitude to have, Mark McFreely and barbarella. To ask people to shut off (or shut up about) their innate empathy? Would you take that same attitude toward Darfur or the tsunami that hit Asia in December? Must we be directly involved in either of those events to have any human feeling about them? Besides, as others on this thread have pointed out, the people on the planes were from many different parts of the country. Perhaps some of those 'tourists of grief' had friends or family that perished that day?
My family has immigrated here from India and I remember the Indian press at the time filled with stories of Indian immigrants/diaspora there that day. It makes sense: we try to understand by relating to what we know. That is a very natural way to approach the unthinkable.
I don't understand the need for some on the right or the left to exclusively 'own' what happened. It's not about 'owning': a memorial is about remembrance.
Posted by MD at June 9, 2005 12:08 AM
I'm not a New Yorker. I'm from flyover country. But my college girlfriend from South Dakota was trapped in the basement of a Starbucks in lower Manhatten as the falling Towers sent plumes of ash and dirt down the street.
A young lawyer who I became friends with for a time as I edited his article for law review publication had an office in the Towers. I haven't seen his name on the list of dead and missing, so I assume he's okay.
I was in New York in the summer of 2000 with a friend. He spent the day in lower Manhatten, amid the Towers. I left early to beat traffic out of town. I watched the Towers disappear in my rear-view mirror, supremely confident that I would return in the future to get a view from the top. The notion that they would be in rubble one year later was unthinkable.
This is not New York's memorial--this is America's, this is mine.
Posted by ss at June 9, 2005 12:10 AM
Some of these comments bewilder me. It is clear that some of the “blame America” crowd think we should “absolve ourselves of our sin of deserving 9/11.” They are unable to understand how offensive it is to infect that place with images and ideology that has nothing to do with what happened that day.
How soon they forget the horror and the rage, the terror, the confusion, and again the rage that so many innocent men, women and children died because they decided to start that day in New York or Washington in pursuit of their dreams and hopes. Not a one of them “deserved” what happened to them that day. Those 19 terrorists will tell you it wasn’t “personal”… it was against America. But they err. It was personal, because it was against America.
Never forget…never forgive.
Posted by NOTR at June 9, 2005 12:41 AM
"I'm well aware of the contempt most of America has for New York City (we're the blue state elitists, remember) and I find it continually offensive to have all the tourists of grief comming here to enjoy a little vicarious tragedy. We were here, we lived through it, it belongs to us, build your own memorial and stay away"
Sounds like a bluenose to me. ;-)
Doesn't sound very "inclusive" either does it? LOL
Me I don't have any real grief with New York CITY
I have close friends there, on the morning I was quite worried about, they appreciated my concern.
I don't think this character represents the type of New Yorker who risked and/or gave their lives to save others that morning.
But he does represent the type of thought and behavior that prompted me to change my Party affiliation despite my families solid membership for almost 200 years.
Posted by Dan Kauffman at June 9, 2005 01:14 AM
The hate-America types will never get to desecrate the WTC site - now that the word is out. We Patriots will reclaim the memorial for America.
Posted by Jason Pappas at June 9, 2005 02:04 AM
Werner has it exactly right.
But some of you revel in your "wrongdoings", you INSIST on advertising them to the world like it´s all there is, and then you wonder why America is unpopular? Washing your dirty laundry in public doesn´t make you admirable, it makes you repugnant. No other country does it that much.
It is disgusting. But I'm not really sure it's self-hatred. I think the rest of us American yokels are the "Other" to the NYT/PBS crowd. They just love to put us proles in our place and display their righteous enlightenment. They need to rub our noses in shit so we'll be good little dogs. It makes them feel special.
Just my opinion.
Posted by random thought at June 9, 2005 06:15 AM
I AM FOR AMERECA WE WILL WIN!!!!!!!
Posted by uh at June 9, 2005 07:02 AM
Being a former citizen of Manhattan, and being an American, I state that, under the Constitutional declaration of the common defence and commonweal, I own Ground Zero. I own it as does every other American. Don't tread on me, pally. The American People went to war to defend and avenge the wrong done to the American citizens and citizens of other countries, expecting to be safe in their lives, who were murdered at the World Trade Center and The Pentagon on 9/11.
Don't tell me I have no call to prefer one memorial or another. Donald Trump may be right. Perhaps the best memorial is to put up two new TALLER towers and open them for business. This is America. I live in Tennessee now. Come after me.
Posted by Glenn Schnittke at June 9, 2005 08:32 AM
Lance Mannion knocks it out of the Polo Grounds with this post about lily-livered, passive-aggressive, John-Lithgow-in-Raising Cain-obsessively-doting-dad James Lileks and the other warbloggers who keep clutching 9/11 as if it were their personal awakening and blogging Call to Arms. I'm amused, amazed, and annoyed that bloggers thousands of miles away from the actual death and destruction chide the rest of us for "not getting it" and wanting to bury our heads in the sandtrap when, as Sir Lancelot notes, New Yorkers themselves have a saner, wider, calmer perspective as the years pass. And unlike so many of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders, New Yorkers don't have the luxury of or inclination to demonize Arabs and Muslims and hat-tip Michelle Malkin or run sceered every time a couple of Them materialize in our visual field. Every time we step into a cab or enter a store, there's a good chance that the driver or manager may be Pakistani or Iranian or Iraqi or Palestinian and they don't represent the Other, they're fellow New Yorkers, we all have get on each nerves here as best we can, and if we wanted to hang around nothing but white people concerned about their car insurance and those noisy skateboarders who have no respect for private property we never would have moved here in the first place.
His concluding argument--which I'm not going to spoil by quoting--strikes me as inspired and irrefutable.
Lance also courageously wades into the raging debate that is tearing apart the Koufax blog community much as Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem did to the NY intelligensia many moons ago, though perhaps my analogy is a bit too-too.
Posted by Wolcott at June 9, 2005 11:11 PM
The hate-America types will never get to desecrate the WTC site - now that the word is out. We Patriots will reclaim the memorial for America.
Posted by: Jason Pappas at June 9, 2005 02:04 AM
Hey Jason, fighting in Iraq?
Posted by Billy at June 9, 2005 11:13 PM
Wow, that is one good James Wolcott parody....oh, wait. I just checked his website. It's the real thing! Oh dear.
BTW, is it time for Vanity Fair to do another story on Imran Khan or one the Vanderbuilts yet?
Posted by MD at June 10, 2005 12:15 AM
Hard being exposed to a superior intelect, huh MD?
BTW, why aren't you in Iraq?
Posted by JB at June 10, 2005 04:15 AM
James Wolcott .... superior intellect? *snicker*
... *snicker* LOL
Note to JB: Learn to spell.
Posted by snicker at June 10, 2005 09:56 AM
Wolcott saud (sic) New Yorkers don't have the luxury of or inclination to demonize Arabs and Muslims
So you want to demonize American freedoms, so as to avoid the offending of or posssible clandestine desecration to the WTC memorial by your Arab and Muslim neighbors.
Good choice dihmi. Your fellow Americans will only be offended on that once in a lifetime trip from now on through the ages. Be sure and give Habib the cabbie a big tip and maybe he won't behead you.
Infidel dog
Posted by Papertiger at June 10, 2005 12:01 PM
I think the New Yorkers here are trying to tell the wingnuts here that the wingnuts don't have any lock on patriotism like they think they do.
Posted by Willysnout at June 10, 2005 08:24 PM
Thanks Willy. We always appreciate you saving folks from going to the trouble of reading anything by explaining it for them. I'm sure the New Yorkers would also thank you for injecting the name-calling they felt wasn't needed to get their point across.
The sad thing about you Willy is that you don't realize you're a sad thing.
Posted by Old Soldier at June 10, 2005 09:14 PM
Comes now the oh-so-typical wingnut liar "Old Soldier" to accuse me of "injecting" name-calling into this thread.
==========================
"What a couple of idiots these guys are"
- Jason, June 8
"we could give a **** less about your, me first, lefti guilt trip masoleum"
- Papertiger, June 8
"... the “blame America” crowd ..."
NOTR, June 8
" ... Sounds like a bluenose to me. ..."
Dan Kaufman, June 8
"The hate-America types ..."
- Jason Pappas, June 9
"They need to rub our noses in shit so we'll be good little dogs. It makes them feel special."
- random thought, June 9
"... Be sure and give Habib the cabbie a big tip and maybe he won't behead you."
- Papertiger, June 10
Posted by Willysnout at June 11, 2005 09:15 PM
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