AZ repuke wants to tear down 9/11 memorial... (must see these pics!)

[cynatnite]

http://hotair.com/archives/2006/09/24/photo-series-the-arizona-911-memorial

PHOENIX - The Republican candidate for governor says the state's recently dedicated 9/11 memorial should be torn down, calling it an insult to America because of wording that he says criticizes the United States and fails to adequately honor victims and military personnel.

The monument was "supposedly put in place to remember the losses of 9/11, an evil attack on our nation that killed thousands of innocent Americans," Len Munsil said Monday at a rally near the capitol. "Instead it reminds us of American failings and American mistakes, real and imagined before and after 9/11. This memorial is a tribute to moral relativism."

The 54 laser-etched inscriptions on an arc that circles the structure include many from a Sept. 11, 2001, timeline, while others trace events following the terrorist attacks. Topics range from the deployment of 216 Arizona firefighters to the World Trade Center to questions of whether the federal agencies could have uncovered the plot.

The memorial includes quotations like: "You don't win battles of terrorism with more battles" and highlights chronological events such as "Congress questions why CIA & FBI didn't prevent attacks" and "Erroneous US air strike kills 46 Uruzgan (Afghanistan) civilians."

Right below an inscription noting that President Bush addressed the nation the evening of Sept. 11, 2001, is one stating that an unidentified terrorist leader addressed the American people in 2004, Munsil said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060926/ap_on_el_gu/911_memorial_politics

edited to add compelling pics!

[ComerPerro]

1. If it doesn't stick to the RW mythology of 9/11, then its gotta go

[maxsolomon]

2. fine. tear it down.

its not like we've (collectively) learned the lessons of that day enough to memorialize them. iraq is proof.

"it is permissable to learn, even from an enemy".

[cynatnite]

3. kicking

:kick:

[MADem]

4. Quite frankly, though I despise his reasons, I agree with the concept

There are WAY too many artsy-fartsy HUGE memorials all over hell for every fucking occasion. They cost a fucking fortune to build and a fortune to maintain. And all they do is take up SPACE. The one that I despise the most is that Germanic piece of shit that sullies DC called the WW2 memorial. I have an old buddy who is a WW2 vet, who opined that the architecture of the thing "...made it look like the goddamn Germans won the war."

Simplicity is elegance. All this over-the-top architecture that has NO dual use (as if letting children play or regular folks picnic in a memorial "park" is somehow EVIL...shit, life goes ON) is very tiresome in my view. The best way to memorialize a person or event is to create a space where people want to come for reasons OTHER than shedding tears and feeling like shit. I think nothing would be nicer than a memorial 911 PARK in space-cramped NYC, where people can gather, maybe have concerts and events, and LIVE, like the dead folks would have liked to go on doing. A small area within the grounds can be set aside for contemplation, for those that HAVE to have that sort of thing. Absent that, put up a nice sculpture in a venue, like a cemetery, or an existing public park, that has more than one use.

It just seems to me that lately, we are becoming a culture of fearful whiners, excessively engaged in breast-beating, and almost perversely delighting in dredging up misery and pain. The stiff upper lip has been replaced by a "Never get over it, never move on" attitude. And we have to be reminded of this pain with gaudy architectural remembrances, much like that hideous representation of Saddam's hands and the crossed scimitars in Baghdad that honor the Iraqi dead in the war with Iran. The more money we waste on this shit, the more we "prove" that we are "really, REALLY sad" about it. Why not put the money into a 911 Memorial Homeless Shelter, or a 911 Cancer Research Fund, where it will do some GOOD?

And there WILL, like it or not, come a day when the sobbing will cease. We don't see people beating their breasts in absolute psychic devastation over the thousands who died in the Spanish-American War nowadays, do we? 3,549 Americans died during that conflict, as a result of wounds, disease, and a few hundred due to the sinking of the MAINE. And we were a MUCH smaller country back then, so the impact was bigger on our total population. And the reason we don't see displays of outward agony is because the ones who felt that pain are now dead, because time passes, and people do die.

But it's not like they didn't have a respectful memorial to commemorate their loss while they lived...they did--it just wasn't obscenely opulent.

And here's that memorial, in Arlington Cemetery, which remembers and honors more people than died on 911:



That's my view, anyway. As I said, simplicity is elegance.

Others may take a different perspective.