Was there ever a better
illustration of the rank hypocrisy of the Republican Party than this: they
are building a monument to "freedom"-- upon which they lavish their tearful
adoration-- that will exclude anybody they don't like.
The museum, the
"International Freedom Centre", is out of the new World
Trade Center. Gone. Excluded.
Rejected. Dismissed. Because in spite of the efforts of
"patriotic" Americans like George Bush, because it was being built in a
tax-payer funded government owned building, it would and could not guarantee
that it would only ever pander to and praise those patriotic values
espoused by the paragons of virtue, Tom Delay, Dick Cheney, George Bush, and
his fellow Republicans.
The law is clear: it would
have to actually allow for freedom of speech.
Yes, Governor Pataki put
the fix in, not only for the museum, but for every occupant of the new
building, who must now pass a litmus test of political Republican orthodoxy
before being allowed in. Naturally, some of the tenants have declined
to give enlightened people like Bill Frist or Donald Rumsveld a veto over
what sort of speech should be permitted there. The Republicans, you
see, identify mindless obedient conformity with true "patriotism".
A patriot does not stand
for freedom of speech.
Debra
Burlingame, sister of Charles, a pilot of one of the 9/11 planes, had
screeched that she must be the one who decides what may or may not go into the new World
Trade Centre because anyone who disagrees with her shrill views on the
meaning of 9/11 just isn't American like her, even if they too lost
relatives in 9/11.
This is so ridiculous, and repulsive, and absurd that it
strains credulity, as they say. The monument to American freedom must
be unfree, and cowards who cannot abide the slightest dissidence must control the
design of a monument to courage, and puritanical Republican harpies must control
the expression of democracy.
