(Note: This entry being moved back to the top
temporarily, since the Milblogfather
has a post up to which I'd like to lend
support.)
And a way to fight
it...
Like most of you, I've been dimly aware of the
brouhaha surrounding the International Freedom Center, planned by its
organizers to be a major element of the World Trade Center Memorial Complex.
Although it's obvious that no one needs a history lesson on this, the WTC
attack, and the attack on the Pentagon, were the straws that broke the camel's
back - they roused a slumbering American giant into the realization that her
terrorist enemies were deadly serious when they had declared war upon us. We
learned that day that that the depth of their inchoate hatred was, even today
with all that has happened since , almost impossible
to understand, as though it came from an alien kind of
intelligence.
For some, the
hole in the New York City skyline is a reminder of this attack, and of why we
are at war. But it is much more than a mere symbol - it is the site where nearly
3,000 actual people died. People who had families, and friends and dreams of
their own - people who had actual lives, cut brutally short because, at the end
of the day, other people disagreed with our freedoms, the friends we choose to
make and the way we interact with the world.
According the Wall Street
Journal
link above, the organizers of the IFC intend to take visitors to this sacred
ground, the scene of the worst attack ever upon our homeland
on:
" ...'a journey
through the history of freedom'--...(but) to the IFC's organizers, it is not
only history's triumphs that illuminate, but also its failures. The public will
have come to see 9/11 but will be given a high-tech, multimedia tutorial about
man's inhumanity to man, from Native American genocide to the lynchings and
cross-burnings of the Jim Crow South, from the Third Reich's Final Solution to
the Soviet gulags and beyond."
It's
rubbish of course, patent nonsense, so at this point, the rational human being
will ask himself, "Precisely what has this to do with what happened to America
on September the 11th, 2001?"
The
answer being, of course: "Exactly
nothing."
So why is it here, at this
scene of a national tragedy, this scene of atrocity? The only reason I can come
up with is that certain people are profoundly uneasy with the idea of American
citizens ever, and for any reason, viewing themselves as victims of anything.
This is a role reserved for certain
classes
of Americans perhaps, and for the poor oppressed peoples of Africa maybe, but it
is not the right of Americans as one
body. No - our roles to play are that of
oppressor, and slave-holder and genocidal empire-builder. These are the only
roles approved, and our response is supposed to be limited to shivering,
solitary, paralyzing guilt. It's doubly important for these kinds of people that
we be alone in this guilt, that we not have the strength of our numbers and our
convictions: Remember that sense of unity we had, right after the attack? That
feeling of striving with one purpose? These folks don't want you to ever feel
that way again, at least not without a generous (and divisive) dollop of guilt
about all the horrible things that have been done in the world.
Read the WSJ link and see who is
pushing this, this - agenda, there is no other word - and ask yourself again,
"What has this to do with honoring the actual people who died on
9/11?"
And now ask yourself, "So what
are we to do?" I mean, it's obviously a terrible idea, people are aware of it,
it should all go away. Right?
Not
necessarily. I've all too often seen it proven that a bad idea, like a lie, can
get half-way 'round the world before reason can get its shoes laced up. There is
a generation rising in the land who will have no personal memory of what
happened that day, and how it felt, and what it all meant -
they
might need a history lesson. We ought to act. We ought to speak
up.
And if you're not convinced, if
you are a reluctant warrior in these kinds of affrays, first remind yourself
that it didn't have to be this way: We didn't have to make this political. The
memorial could have very easily been exactly what it should have been - a
memorial to an awful event inflicted upon our people. An atrocity visited upon
us literally out of a clear blue sky. Something so horrible that it left us
groping for the language to describe what happened, trying and failing to find
the right words. A testament to the nearly 3,000 working stiffs (of many
nationalities) just trying to get through another working day, just trying to
get by. A testimony to the brave firefighters and police officers who charged
into a flaming hell to save as many lives as they could, excepting their very
own. It didn't have to be this way, this didn't have to be another battlefield
in the culture war.
And we should
not let it become one - there is a place to categorize all the evils of mankind,
and yes, perhaps even those evils for which we are collectively responsible, if
you're in to collective, transgenerational guilt.
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." - John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Ceasar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friederich Nietzsche
