Freedom Center II
September 23rd, 2005
The International Freedom Center’s release of a report (in pdf) about its plans for the proposed museum at Ground Zero seems neither to have changed many opinions or dimmed the overheated rhetoric.
While some argue the museum will inevitably become a place to bash America, Bing, writing in America in Exile, a blog of “progressive friends,” opposes the center from a different angle — that 9/11 had nothing to do with freedom. “The people who died that day did not die for freedom. Their death did not advance the cause of freedom,” Bing says, adding “The Bush administration’s reaction to 9/11 didn’t advance freedom” either.
Supporting the center, Newsday disagrees “Freedom was an organizing principle of America. Our commitment to it is why America was attacked on 9/11,” the paper says. “What better place to examine its history and power”
And the Times editorial focuses on what it sees as efforts to censor the museum. “Since late June the Freedom Center has been caught up in a vitriolic protest …whose leaders claim for themselves the right of deciding for the rest of us what we should know and think about 9/11.”
Also irate at the process, Jeff Jarvis draws a different conclusion in “Buzz Machine.” With all the meddling and censorship, the term Freedon Center has become an oxymoron. So, says Jarvis, “If the IFC had the conviction of its principles of freedom, it would have rejected the demands of Gov. Pataki and the Lower ManhattanDevelopment Corp. to build the inoffensive center as an offense to free speech.”
By Gail Robinson on September 23, 2005, 8:36 amIn category: Arts, Civil Rights | No Comments »
