Posted on 06/26/2005 7:49:36 PM PDT by CHARLITE
Rachel O'Brien has been concentrating on raising her three children since her husband was killed at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. She hadn't given much thought to what would happen at ground zero.
But when she heard about plans for a museum that would place the attacks in the historical context of mankind's quest for freedom, she got political — joining more than 900 relatives of victims to sign a petition opposing the plan.
"I have no remains of my husband, and to me that's sacred ground," said O'Brien, 45, whose husband, Michael, worked for Cantor Fitzgerald. "That's the last place he was, and I think that the whole area should be all about what happened on that day."
The debate over the International Freedom Center museum is playing out on talk shows, opinion pages and the Web. Victims' relatives protested the museum last week at ground zero, and more than 16,000 people have signed the Internet petition condemning it.
Critics say the institution is being hijacked by left-wing advisers who blame the U.S. for the world's wrongs — and will focus on events with tenuous connection to the terrorist attacks, such as segregation in America and the Holocaust.
"I don't think that there should be anything else there but a memorial to those people," said retired New York building inspector Edmund Caviasco, 75, whose daughter, Jean De Palma, died in the trade center collapse.
George Pataki said he was demanding "an absolute guarantee" from ground zero cultural institutions that they would proceed "with total respect for the sanctity of that site."
"We're not going to let it turn into something anti-American, anti-freedom or questioning the values of New York, the values of America or the values of freedom," Pataki said.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
""9-11 should not be something you treat with kid gloves," said Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International and a principal adviser to the museum. "It should be something you debate, that you talk about, that we explore, that we use as a way to think about our position in the world.""
figures.
Anti-Americans have infiltrated the arts, academia, the entertainment industry, the media, etc. This was inevitable.
Obviously, "We will never forget!" didn't have the same lasting power as "Remember the Alamo!". Too many who said they would "never forget" forgot.
Somebody has to have greater authority than them. They have to be fired, and replaced.
Congressman Billybob
Rachel O'Brien has been concentrating on raising her three children since her husband was killed at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. She hadn't given much thought to what would happen at ground zero.
Your question is answered. Conservatives tend to work for a living (sorry Howard), and are often independent. Liberals are usually joiners, and are actively pursuing their goals (not sure how some of them make a living).
We look up from our labors and they have sneaked in everywhere (a bit like termites).
Too many people don't want to have their comfortable world disturbed by reality.
Maybe we should see that a MUSEUM for 9-11 is located in a MORE friendly ENVIRONMENT....say a RED STATE.....in the SOUTH.....We'd rather go THERE to visit anyway!
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Isn't it telling that a museum that simply commemorated the dead would, in the eyes of one of its board members somehow be "jingoistic"?
"I don't think that there should be anything else there but a memorial to those people"
This is the thing. That is all the should be there. As even radical lefty Ron Kuby said, remembering those people, their lives, is enough to fill a building, if a building it will be.
Thanks for pointing that out- who is the ACLU guy?
tia
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
I know that Jimrob has a prohibition against violence in posts so I will refrain from suggesting that anyone who would desecrate the names of those who were slaughtered in that attack should be pummeled.
Where to begin on this one?
Let's see, I'll start with the name "International Freedom Center museum". That right there makes me want to puke.
Then the quote, "Creators of the museum say it will offer inspiring stories of mankind's progress toward liberty, and the controversy will dissolve when people understand the museum's goal of highlighting great moments in the worldwide struggle for freedom." Whose "progress towards liberty and struggle for freedom" are they talking about? Ours or the friggin terrorists?
Or the part that says, "But academic advisers to the museum — who include the heads of the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights First — envision something more complex and potentially controversial. Many see the International Freedom Center as a place to vigorously debate past and present issues of freedom, from slavery to the roots of the Sept. 11 attacks. "9-11 should not be something you treat with kid gloves," said Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International and a principal adviser to the museum. "It should be something you debate, that you talk about, that we explore, that we use as a way to think about our position in the world."
And I didn't know that Bernstein, the International Freedom Center's founder is also the president of Human Rights First, who has sued Rumsfeld over alleged mistreatment of U.S. military detainees! So they BOMB us and this POS Bernstein defends their treatment at Club Gitmo???
These libs must really get off throwing this crap in our faces. For anyone interested, here's where you can sign the petition against making that spot anything but a memorial to those who died there on 9/11:
http://www.takebackthememorial.com/
911 affected everyone in this country but when it comes to the memorial it should be designed or at least approved by people that lost loved ones on that horrible day....less is more ie: the Viet Nam memorial...simple but powerful
Just exactly who are THEY. Any names?
Agreed.
The Twin Towers were destroyed because this country has tolerated our enemies. Carter and Clinton are directly responsible for the rise and empowerment of Al Queda and the Islamist mafia. It is their squishy ethics that has permitted the rise of consummate evil. The idiot minions of these wimpy presidents are hard at work seeking to justify their cowardice.
Make no mistake. The real war against terrorism will not be fought with bullets. It is a war of ideas and the enemy seeks to destroy this great nation with a cesspool of lies.
The very idea that Ground Zero could be suggested as a site to advance morally bankrupt ideology is the clear work of the enemy. Such thinking must be rooted out of our society and consigned to the dungheap of failed ideologies.
Liberalism is, after all, a profoundly dangerous mental illness.
Has Kristen Breitweiser weighed in on this yet? I expect she'd support anything that put the blame on Bush.
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