Many New Yorkers, still trying to make sense of the 2001 destruction of the World Trade Center, have had a single question as a museum was being built at ground zero: Too soon?
Now that the 9/11 Memorial Museum, as it's officially called, has opened to the public, they and others may find themselves asking something else: Too much?
The museum is an overstuffed answer to the appealing minimalism of the 9/11 memorial and its cascading pools, which opened in 2011.
— latimes.com
12 Comments
DON'T FORGET
Because if you do they can't justify preemptive wars, domestic spying, militarization of the police, indefinite detention of citizens without due process, no-fly lists and full body scans at transportation centers, trillion dollar "defense" budgets, etc., etc., etc.
So you are saying we should forget?
Truth would be preferable to the fiction we have been force-fed.
It's okay to forget.
Miles...just so I know what you're getting at, in a sentence or two, what specifically is the fiction you are talking about?
Aside for the questions that remain about 9/11, and there a a lot of them, it is the denial of the actions by this country that instigated the attack and have used the attacks to further specific agendas. Propagating the illusion that we are spotless innocents and that 'they' hate us for our freedoms is infantile. The museum is simply another way to perpetuate these myths.
The local FD now proudly displays a sculpture made out of WTC wreckage. I almost puked when I saw it. The valiant effort of responders has been twisted into a jingoistic display.
+miles.
Building 7 anyone?
The 9-11 Truther theories have all been dismissed. The act of planes and destruction was not itself an "inside job". There are no questions remaining about the mechanics of the attack. There aren't.
Yes, there are still questions about how this event was able to happen, politically and diplomatically. and the actions of the USA in the aftermath have been appalling and embarrassing.
But Miles your comment implies that the "inside job" theory of how the buildings were actually destroyed has any credibility. It does not.
Ok... got it.
I'm going to avoid going down the 9/11 "Truth" rabbit hole with you, but I will say that I think the museum was a bad idea on this site. I don't necessarily agree that a museum is wrong in concept, and I don't agree that having a museum somehow encapsulates the point of view that the USA are "spotless innocents" - I haven't visited it, so I can't offer an opinion. But I do think that the site is a sacred one because of the deaths that have occurred there, and a museum, and especially a gift shop, diminishes it.
I think this is another example of modern architects and planners being uncomfortable, and thus unwilling or unable to deal solemnly with symbolic content. This is the same problem with the Gehry Eisenhower Memorial design.
The fountains as they are are heavy with symbolism. They should stand on their own. Have the museum off-site. Besides, the museum building is inhumane and ugly.
Donna, there are lots of questions remaining including who knew what and when, ignored warnings from foreign intelligence agencies, stock option trades prior to the attack, Bin Laden's history with the CIA in Afghanistan, Bin Laden family ties to the Bush family, former CIA director Bush Sr.'s Carlyle Group, specializing in - wait for it - defense and energy), the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline, the use of 9/11 as a pretext to attack multiple sovereign nations, etc.
EKE, The perpetuation of one story eliminates all others. "Remember the Alamo" glorifies the death of Texans who were killed after they invaded Mexico. The 9/11 wreckage sculpture at my local fire house is as much - if not more - of a reminder of terrorism and the need to be vigilant than it is of the victims of the attack or the service of "first-responders", many of whom who were left without any medical care for a decade.
All of this precludes putting the entire event in proper perspective, i.e. our historical involvement in the Middle East and Central Asia. I just can't wait for the museum honoring veterans of the Iraq and whitewashing our invasion.
The expansion of the Vietnam Memorial is another case in point. Symbolic content does not tell the "official" story, or generate revenue.
I would suggest going to the pbs frontline website and watching a show called The Man Who Knew. John O'Neill was the FBI's leading expert on Osama Bin Laden's network. He actually had information from captured operatives who spoke of flight training etc. O'Neill eventually left the FBI after personality clashes with other station heads and his not being able to investigate the USS Cole attack. He got a great job as head of security at The World Trade Center. He was killed in the attack.
Going to see the museum tomorrow.
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