This is why we can't have nice things
Hey, I didn't realise there was such controversy over the nature and contents of the proposed September 11th monument in New York. The original post at that site contains the line:
She asked that question ["Ground Zero has been stolen, right from under our noses. How do we get it back?"] because there are powerful forces in this country that believe Ground Zero should be the forum for their political ideology.
Why yes. Yes there are. And even if I bought 100% into that site's crap about the International Freedom Center's secret desire to turn it into a "we must understand how we brought this on ourselves exhibit", which I don't, it would still occur to me that the goddamn liberals aren't the only "powerful force" in the States that want to use Ground Zero as a "forum for their political ideology". Not only is that exactly what takebackthememorial.org is trying to do, it's what Bush and his government is doing 99 times out of a hundred when the word "freedom" spouts from their mouths.
But it gets better. This quotation, from this section of the site, is meant as a damning indictment of the IFC's goals and methods:
To the IFC’s organizers, it is not only history’s triumphs that illuminate, but also its failures.
Is this a joke? Did left-wingers secretly create this site to mock the right? It's this lust for certainty and superiority (in an "I know I'm absolutely correct" sort of way) in a world that does not correspond to human notions of logic, rightness or correctness that is going to destroy modern Western culture if anything ever does (and if it does, I'm hopeful it will eventually be replaced with something better).
You know what? That's it. Between this and various comments about the Holocaust American politicians have been bandying around recently (see here, and Orac also responded (and quite excellently) to a "fourteen-year-old Creationist" who displays the kind of hunger for certainty that makes political and/or religious fundamentalism so attractive to so terribly many people these days), I'm willing to call time.
Western civilization doesn't get to have monuments any more. Scrap the Holocaust museums. Tear down the Vietnam wall. Get rid of the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I don't care how important the cause was, or how terribly vital it is that we remember these events and no longer repeat them (I'm looking at you, Holocaust), having actual monuments these days just means multiple groups of jackasses have a tangible site to focus their jackassery on. So take away the monuments. Maybe they'll pick something else. Fine, take it away. If we wind up reducing civilization to rubble because the jackasses can't stop being fundamentalists, well, I guess it turned out there were too many of them and too few of the rest of us for our continent to survive.
And don't forget, all fundamentalists are esssentially, that is fundamentally, the same. Even the geeky ones.
She asked that question ["Ground Zero has been stolen, right from under our noses. How do we get it back?"] because there are powerful forces in this country that believe Ground Zero should be the forum for their political ideology.
Why yes. Yes there are. And even if I bought 100% into that site's crap about the International Freedom Center's secret desire to turn it into a "we must understand how we brought this on ourselves exhibit", which I don't, it would still occur to me that the goddamn liberals aren't the only "powerful force" in the States that want to use Ground Zero as a "forum for their political ideology". Not only is that exactly what takebackthememorial.org is trying to do, it's what Bush and his government is doing 99 times out of a hundred when the word "freedom" spouts from their mouths.
But it gets better. This quotation, from this section of the site, is meant as a damning indictment of the IFC's goals and methods:
To the IFC’s organizers, it is not only history’s triumphs that illuminate, but also its failures.
Is this a joke? Did left-wingers secretly create this site to mock the right? It's this lust for certainty and superiority (in an "I know I'm absolutely correct" sort of way) in a world that does not correspond to human notions of logic, rightness or correctness that is going to destroy modern Western culture if anything ever does (and if it does, I'm hopeful it will eventually be replaced with something better).
You know what? That's it. Between this and various comments about the Holocaust American politicians have been bandying around recently (see here, and Orac also responded (and quite excellently) to a "fourteen-year-old Creationist" who displays the kind of hunger for certainty that makes political and/or religious fundamentalism so attractive to so terribly many people these days), I'm willing to call time.
Western civilization doesn't get to have monuments any more. Scrap the Holocaust museums. Tear down the Vietnam wall. Get rid of the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I don't care how important the cause was, or how terribly vital it is that we remember these events and no longer repeat them (I'm looking at you, Holocaust), having actual monuments these days just means multiple groups of jackasses have a tangible site to focus their jackassery on. So take away the monuments. Maybe they'll pick something else. Fine, take it away. If we wind up reducing civilization to rubble because the jackasses can't stop being fundamentalists, well, I guess it turned out there were too many of them and too few of the rest of us for our continent to survive.
And don't forget, all fundamentalists are esssentially, that is fundamentally, the same. Even the geeky ones.
