What disgusts me is the dual cowardice that has pervaded the planning for rebuilding. Not only are they too cowardly to put up real tall buildings to replace the towers, they don't even have the guts to admit it, choosing instead to build a short building, and then to top it with a few hundred feet of dead latticework.
We are becoming smaller as a people. And we will never address that problem until we admit it. What really disgusts me is the lengths that our "leaders" will go to, to make sure we never discover it.
for the most part, I agree that cowardice is the prevailing tone sensed from what I've read. I also agree we should have some balls on this issue and build twice as high if technically possible. the new towers should embody a symbol of rebirth and not a simple bandaid.
as for our leaders... they are all crooks and sleazeballs... the lot of them. I never expect anything but disappointment from reading about or listening to politicians. the mere fact that Bush should be in jail for defrauding the American public with his "election" makes me sick on a daily basis... not to mention everything else he does.
I disagree with most of your second paragraph. Our leaders are certainly no worse than the voters who choose them. And those voters have made it clear that they will not accept any candidate who will not lie to them, flatter them, pander to their bizarre fantasies about how the world works, or hide from them the messy, unpleasant existence of hard choices and consequences. Naive people blast the "corrupting" influence of money in the process, but that's only possible because the voters allow themselves to be bought by slickly-produced compilations of sound bites.
And frankly, what disgusts me more than anything in either article I posted, is the number of people who run around ranting about how Bush "stole" the election. It seems at least as likely to me that the U.S. Supreme Court merely prevented the (Democratic) Supreme Court of Florida from stealing the election for Gore. Bush arguably did get more votes in Florida than Gore, which means he got more electoral votes than Gore, which means he was properly elected under what has openly been the law in thus country for more than two centuries.
Well... you've taken my simple statement of displeasure, extreme as it was, to a more complex level of analysis, which of course means, I will respond in kind. :)
On the point of voters compared to politicians... I totally agree, but that does not excuse the behavior of people who are supposed to lead the ignorant or naive. After all... that is the basic premise of leadership. A strong, leader should be able to enlighten without pandering to the cash cow.
On the point of the 'stolen' election... there is tons of evidence suggesting foul play in the Florida election. For one, an entire communities votes being disqualified due to a faulty punch card system. For example:
"With so many voting irregularities apparent even on the day of polling, it only stood to reason that the Democrats would seek to ascertain a more accurate vote tally. They have been criticized for having requested recounts in largely Democratic counties, but they did so primarily because that's where most of the problems occurred.
Interestingly, an investigation by the Orlando Sentinel revealed that these counties had been relegated some problem-prone voting machines, which were known to have an error rate five times higher than the more accurate equipment which was used in Republican dominated counties.
This may have been the Republicans' secret weapon, and the reason why Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, brother of the GOP Presidential nominee, was so sure Dubya would carry the state. It allowed Bush to squeeze out the maximum number of votes in friendly precincts while Democrats waged an uphill battle to record all the votes due them.
As has been previously reported, an analysis suggests that Gore may also have lost about 13,000 votes in Palm Beach County because of voter confusion over an illegally designed "butterfly" ballot.
After the election, Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan acknowledged that his anomalous blip of 3,704 votes in the staunchly Democratic county, with a large Jewish population, almost certainly resulted from confusion. Buchanan said he believed those votes were intended for Gore."
The complete article... http://www.midtod.com/election.phtml (http://www.midtod.com/election.phtml)
Granted, I am no expert on this topic and I have not wasted anytime in a futile pursuit of the truth. I do however firmly believe, where there is smoke, there is fire... any circus of controversy has some reason for existing. Some driving force suggesting a deeper truth exists. The truth behind a it may go either way and discovering it may prove impossible, but what stands is that something was wrong.
Given the Bush family history and Dubya's brothers position in FL... in my mind are the natural culprits to be questioned first. Obviously, innocent until proven guilty is the approach but that does not eliminate a natural mistrust of a suspect, even if it should.
I firmly believe the republicans have sought to gain power in this country by any means possible, at least since Reagan era, and probably before. I'm not suggesting this is a hidden agenda and obviously the goal of any political party is to be elected, but I question the lengths the republican party will go to and consider acceptable. From where I stand, republicans seek power even at the cost of what is good for the country and without regard for the consequences of their actions.
On a personal note, I have had a long history of intimate knowledge of high powered republican thinking. The Father of very close friend of mine sat on Reagan's cabinet in both terms and loved to pontificate at the dinner table. You would not believe the things that came out of his mouth. My step-dad is a reformed republican and frequently holds a one on one presidential audience as an economic expert. His once firmly republican stance now takes the tone of "they're a criminal party and would be locked up if evidence came to light" referring to the Reagan and both Bush administrations. This coming from a hardline conservative at the frigging dinner table.
The point of this story... I don't trust republicans for a second consider them to be evil or stupid by nature. Of course now the our phones will be tapped and very quiet helicopters will start hovering over our house again. :)
This is hardly anything new, though. The top 150 feet of the Empire State are also empty - recall that they were a last-minute add-on to make it taller than the Chrysler. The gimmick? The new structure was to be a mooring mast for dirigibles. Never mind the horrible windcurrents flowing over Manhattan due to the many other tall buildings about, or that passengers would have had to walk down a narrow, rope-type gangplank 1200 feet in the air to get to their destination. If I recall correctly from Rebecca Read Shanor's The City That Never Was, after several hours of maneuvering one dirigible did manage to get itself moored, just long enough to deliver a stack of newspapers. After that, the ESB's owners converted the structure into an equally untenanted observation deck.
Remember also that tall buildings have a nasty habit of failing to make a profit. That's why so many are rising in Asia and the Middle East: corrupt, insecure polities are perfectly happy to subsidize prestige projects, which is really all tall buildings are. Petronas, for example, is the Malaysian state oil company. Here, ESB was known for decades as the Empty State Building; WTC itself only reached full occupancy a year or two before the attacks, and for much of its history had to rely on state agencies to even begin to fill its vast square footage.
The Nordenson/Childs proposal at least puts the extra stories to good use: as a windfarm. And the basic form is, I think, quite lovely, although the drawing from the Times is still rather crude. (In fact, it seems to bear a bit of debt to Lord Foster's WTC proposal, which as a single building was spectacular.) The OxyBF tells me that the original Libeskind proposal for Freedom Tower was always highly doubtful: Libeskind has exactly zero experience will tall buildings, and not that much experience building real buildings of any kind (he's spent much of his career as a paper architect). He's also a monumental egotist, even on the scale of architects, and his wife apparently spends a good deal of time stage-managing him. Childs, by contrast, is a grownup, so his involvement is most welcome.
I can respect economic arguments for not building a taller tower. (For that matter, I can also sometimes respect building a taller tower as a marketing gimmick.) New York City may very well not need another ten million square feet of class A office space. As for people being unwilling to work above, say, the seventieth floor, I realize that has to be a consideration—I don't expect a developer to bankrupt himself just to make a point—but I think that that fear represents a diminution of the American people.
And that still doesn't address the second level of my disgust: if you're going to build a shorter building, then build a shorter building. Don't pretend that you're restoring anything. Don't let the people pretend that anything is being restored. If this is who we are, then let us face it head-on and decide if it's really who we want to be.
Honestly, do you really think that there would be latticework on which to build a wind farm if this tower were built anywhere except the site of the World Trade Center?
I'm in favor honesty in general and disillusionment in particular, but there are times when empty symbolism is very, very real. This is one of them.
There's also a different honesty at play now: a realization that the original WTC was a dreadful mistake. It was the product of some of the very worst urban planning ideas to come out of Le Corbusier's and Frank Lloyd Wright's sociofascist dreams. Nelson Rockefeller, the great proponent of WTC, was himself a frustrated architect of similar bent - he also foisted Albany's positively grotesque Empire State Plaza on New York's taxpayers. To demand that the WTC replacement repeat one of the fundamental errors of the original - occupancy to absurd heights - would do the city a great disservice, and as I mentioned before would constitute a grave misallocation of resources. But failing to build tall would fail to provide the greatness that the city also needs. Height is important.
That's why a solution like this is so commendable. It's still inferior, IMHO, to the Think! project for twin, delicate lattices - which was the leading candidate until a vulgar campaign by Libeskind's group persuaded the ever-spineless Pataki to intervene - but it's a terrific step forward. In my heart of hearts, I'd prefer a design that were mostly symbol, such as the Eiffel Tower or the Space Needle. But if the tower must at least partly pay its own way - and I don't think that's negotiable - this is a good way to do it.
In the abstract, I don't object to symbolism, or even latticework. But here, latticework is replacing live space with dead space. I don't like to think about what that symbolizes.
What makes occupancy at that height absurd? Is it anything more than the expense of building at that level?
But that's what's interesting - it isn't dead space, it's useful space. Just not inhabited.
And by absurd, I'm speaking of three things: the economics, the psychology (even before 9/11, lots of folks were uncomfortable working in very tall buildings), and the sheer vertical density at almost a pinpoint.
Another thought: the lattice will let light through. That's a lovely idea, isn't it? One of the tremendous problems with huge buildings is the shadows they cast, but that would be undercut if the lattice is light enough and the turbines given enough space.
I'm gingerly weighing in on this one. I don't want to see tall buildings there again, nothing can replace what was. However, maybe the reason for the new building only have 70 usable foors is because no one wants to work higher up than that. Many of the people I knew who worked there refuse to work higher than even a couple of floors, not to even mention 70 stories. Remember this is commercial and office space and if no one is willing to rent it, then whoever holds the lease loses. The latticework??? I have no idea why that is there and can certainly see your point that they want to have the tallest building but are fearful to do it. My personal belief is that if you build something as tall as or taller than what was there, you are asking for another attack.
I was wondering what you would have to say about this. I know that the destruction of the Towers affected you personally to a degree I could never imagine.
What was lost can certainly never be replaced. The question is, what do we do after that loss? I expect that you will never "get over" this; neither will I. For that matter, neither will this City, long after all eight million of us are gone. It's painful, but it's not entirely a bad thing.
While there must be a significant memorial at the site, I don't think we can dedicate all 16 acres to a memorial. We must mourn and remember, and we will, but I don't think we can only mourn. But, to me, failing to redevelop a big part of the site smacks of doing that.
There are certainly people who would be willing to work in the top floors; there are even some who would be eager to. But I suppose that there probably aren't enough to make it economically viable. If that's true, though, then build a shorter building.
Finally, you're probably right about how a taller building would be a target for attacks. I think that's why we have to build it. It would be a target because it would be a symbol of our pride, of our strength, of our prosperity. If we let fear stop us from expressing those things, I think we shrink, and I think we move closer to the day when we lose them.
I agree with most of your points. You are right that I will probably never get over what happened but I do agree that we, as a city, have to move forward. I'm not one of the family members who feels the whole 16 acres should remain untouched. I do understand that the space needs to be utilized. I would like to see the footprints set aside though.
I see your point about building something higher or the same height but it terrifies me. If it is seen as a target, the whole horrible experience may repeat itself. IMO, I don't think another major loss of life is worth making the point that we are not afraid but that's just me and you know I'm biased.
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
In other words, the rest of the Constitution is the mechanism through which We The People, as the source of sovereignty of the government, delegate the day-to-day powers of administration.
Your comment about Jefferson is particularly strange, as Jefferson is usually seen as the first "democrat" -- i.e., one who believed in popular sovereignty in this sense. It's why the Declaration of Independence says when it is time, "for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another," and not one government (emphases mine)
I have always believed that the preamble is a clue: It starts from a begining from the people and creates an entity that is seperate in order to facilitate its function. The responsibility for change is still 'understood' to be with the people but throughout the this country's history, there has had to be a shaking out of government. There has been alot done to affect the 'will' of the american people to exercise it's control.
I have to disagree with you on this, for the simple fact that the government is made up of people. Every congresscritter, every soldier, every judge, and every bureaucrat, is also an American. They were educated with us, they came from our midst, and they live in our neighborhoods.
And they are there because the voters put them there. Insofar as the process has been corrupted from an "ideal," it really is because most voters want it that way.
I read that article in the Times earlier today and I have to say that if 62 percent of New Yorkers are afraid to work in a real tall building, then what's the point of making one. The top 40 floors of the Sears Tower here in Chicago were vacated by almost all the businesses there after 9/11 and very few people have re-entered them since.
The lost rent is bankrupting the owners and causing the bank that's holding the mortgage to talk about reposssing the building and we didn't even have a terrorist attack here. Yeah, it would be nice to have a big ol' middle finger sticking out of the sky, but the reality is most people aren't ready to place their own lives on the line just to tell the rest of the world to fuck off. Considering how the people in the World Trade Center died, I don't blame them.
As for the economic arguments, I respect that the developers have to consider them. While I would not hesitate to work on the 100th floor—or the 150th, for that matter—I recognize that most Americans feel differently, and I also recognize that the world is not organized around things I want.
But to assert that the reason for building a new, tall tower is to "tell the rest of the world to fuck off" is to miss the point, I think. It's not for them, it's for us. It's about who we have become, who we are becoming, and what we're willing to be.
It's very easy to talk about pride, confidence, and strength when you think you're safe. What do you think it means if we hide those things the instant we are challenged, which is when we need them the most? If we veil our pride in America's achievements—our freedoms, our properity, our strength—because we fear others' responses to them, how long do you think we can maintain that pride? How much longer before pride turns to shame and guilt? How much longer do we have those things once we are ashamed of them?
I want a tower built, but not to tell the rest of the world anything. I want it because I want us to embrace who we are despite our fear, not to hide because of it.
We are obviously going to have to agree to disagree on this one. The building may be for us, but what we do, symbolically or otherwise, has a huge impact on the rest of the world. It is precisely because of the fact that so many of the things that we do are for us, without consideration of anyone else, that alienates us from so many other countries.
I thought the original World Trade Center was not only a big middle finger to the rest of the world, it was damn ugly, as is this new design. To me, it didn't denote pride, confidence and strength, it was a symbol of arrogance and brutality.
It said, "America is the biggest and most powerful and we will use any means to remain that way."
I would rather that this country show true, not symbolic, strength. Instead of cowering in fear behind racism and ignorance and selling our civil rights for security, we should continue to operate in the most honest and equitable traditions that this country is supposed to stand for. I would like us to embrace who we should be, open-minded, fair and helpful, instead of who we seem to be, self-absorbed, money-grubbing and violent.
As you say, we will have to agree to disagree. I thought the twin towers were the most beautiful buildings in New York City, mostly for the same reasons you didn't like them.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2003-12-10 08:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-10 08:34 am (UTC)We are becoming smaller as a people. And we will never address that problem until we admit it. What really disgusts me is the lengths that our "leaders" will go to, to make sure we never discover it.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-10 08:52 am (UTC)as for our leaders... they are all crooks and sleazeballs... the lot of them. I never expect anything but disappointment from reading about or listening to politicians. the mere fact that Bush should be in jail for defrauding the American public with his "election" makes me sick on a daily basis... not to mention everything else he does.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-11 07:39 am (UTC)And frankly, what disgusts me more than anything in either article I posted, is the number of people who run around ranting about how Bush "stole" the election. It seems at least as likely to me that the U.S. Supreme Court merely prevented the (Democratic) Supreme Court of Florida from stealing the election for Gore. Bush arguably did get more votes in Florida than Gore, which means he got more electoral votes than Gore, which means he was properly elected under what has openly been the law in thus country for more than two centuries.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-11 08:43 am (UTC)On the point of voters compared to politicians... I totally agree, but that does not excuse the behavior of people who are supposed to lead the ignorant or naive. After all... that is the basic premise of leadership. A strong, leader should be able to enlighten without pandering to the cash cow.
On the point of the 'stolen' election... there is tons of evidence suggesting foul play in the Florida election. For one, an entire communities votes being disqualified due to a faulty punch card system. For example:
"With so many voting irregularities apparent even on the day of polling, it only stood to reason that the Democrats would seek to ascertain a more accurate vote tally. They have been criticized for having requested recounts in largely Democratic counties, but they did so primarily because that's where most of the problems occurred.
Interestingly, an investigation by the Orlando Sentinel revealed that these counties had been relegated some problem-prone voting machines, which were known to have an error rate five times higher than the more accurate equipment which was used in Republican dominated counties.
This may have been the Republicans' secret weapon, and the reason why Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, brother of the GOP Presidential nominee, was so sure Dubya would carry the state. It allowed Bush to squeeze out the maximum number of votes in friendly precincts while Democrats waged an uphill battle to record all the votes due them.
As has been previously reported, an analysis suggests that Gore may also have lost about 13,000 votes in Palm Beach County because of voter confusion over an illegally designed "butterfly" ballot.
After the election, Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan acknowledged that his anomalous blip of 3,704 votes in the staunchly Democratic county, with a large Jewish population, almost certainly resulted from confusion. Buchanan said he believed those votes were intended for Gore."
The complete article...
http://www.midtod.com/election.phtml (http://www.midtod.com/election.phtml)
Granted, I am no expert on this topic and I have not wasted anytime in a futile pursuit of the truth. I do however firmly believe, where there is smoke, there is fire... any circus of controversy has some reason for existing. Some driving force suggesting a deeper truth exists. The truth behind a it may go either way and discovering it may prove impossible, but what stands is that something was wrong.
Given the Bush family history and Dubya's brothers position in FL... in my mind are the natural culprits to be questioned first. Obviously, innocent until proven guilty is the approach but that does not eliminate a natural mistrust of a suspect, even if it should.
I firmly believe the republicans have sought to gain power in this country by any means possible, at least since Reagan era, and probably before. I'm not suggesting this is a hidden agenda and obviously the goal of any political party is to be elected, but I question the lengths the republican party will go to and consider acceptable. From where I stand, republicans seek power even at the cost of what is good for the country and without regard for the consequences of their actions.
On a personal note, I have had a long history of intimate knowledge of high powered republican thinking. The Father of very close friend of mine sat on Reagan's cabinet in both terms and loved to pontificate at the dinner table. You would not believe the things that came out of his mouth. My step-dad is a reformed republican and frequently holds a one on one presidential audience as an economic expert. His once firmly republican stance now takes the tone of "they're a criminal party and would be locked up if evidence came to light" referring to the Reagan and both Bush administrations. This coming from a hardline conservative at the frigging dinner table.
The point of this story... I don't trust republicans for a second consider them to be evil or stupid by nature. Of course now the our phones will be tapped and very quiet helicopters will start hovering over our house again. :)
no subject
Date: 2003-12-10 11:59 am (UTC)Remember also that tall buildings have a nasty habit of failing to make a profit. That's why so many are rising in Asia and the Middle East: corrupt, insecure polities are perfectly happy to subsidize prestige projects, which is really all tall buildings are. Petronas, for example, is the Malaysian state oil company. Here, ESB was known for decades as the Empty State Building; WTC itself only reached full occupancy a year or two before the attacks, and for much of its history had to rely on state agencies to even begin to fill its vast square footage.
The Nordenson/Childs proposal at least puts the extra stories to good use: as a windfarm. And the basic form is, I think, quite lovely, although the drawing from the Times is still rather crude. (In fact, it seems to bear a bit of debt to Lord Foster's WTC proposal, which as a single building was spectacular.) The OxyBF tells me that the original Libeskind proposal for Freedom Tower was always highly doubtful: Libeskind has exactly zero experience will tall buildings, and not that much experience building real buildings of any kind (he's spent much of his career as a paper architect). He's also a monumental egotist, even on the scale of architects, and his wife apparently spends a good deal of time stage-managing him. Childs, by contrast, is a grownup, so his involvement is most welcome.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-11 07:49 am (UTC)And that still doesn't address the second level of my disgust: if you're going to build a shorter building, then build a shorter building. Don't pretend that you're restoring anything. Don't let the people pretend that anything is being restored. If this is who we are, then let us face it head-on and decide if it's really who we want to be.
Honestly, do you really think that there would be latticework on which to build a wind farm if this tower were built anywhere except the site of the World Trade Center?
no subject
Date: 2003-12-11 08:25 am (UTC)There's also a different honesty at play now: a realization that the original WTC was a dreadful mistake. It was the product of some of the very worst urban planning ideas to come out of Le Corbusier's and Frank Lloyd Wright's sociofascist dreams. Nelson Rockefeller, the great proponent of WTC, was himself a frustrated architect of similar bent - he also foisted Albany's positively grotesque Empire State Plaza on New York's taxpayers. To demand that the WTC replacement repeat one of the fundamental errors of the original - occupancy to absurd heights - would do the city a great disservice, and as I mentioned before would constitute a grave misallocation of resources. But failing to build tall would fail to provide the greatness that the city also needs. Height is important.
That's why a solution like this is so commendable. It's still inferior, IMHO, to the Think! project for twin, delicate lattices - which was the leading candidate until a vulgar campaign by Libeskind's group persuaded the ever-spineless Pataki to intervene - but it's a terrific step forward. In my heart of hearts, I'd prefer a design that were mostly symbol, such as the Eiffel Tower or the Space Needle. But if the tower must at least partly pay its own way - and I don't think that's negotiable - this is a good way to do it.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-11 09:01 am (UTC)What makes occupancy at that height absurd? Is it anything more than the expense of building at that level?
no subject
Date: 2003-12-11 11:22 am (UTC)And by absurd, I'm speaking of three things: the economics, the psychology (even before 9/11, lots of folks were uncomfortable working in very tall buildings), and the sheer vertical density at almost a pinpoint.
Another thought: the lattice will let light through. That's a lovely idea, isn't it? One of the tremendous problems with huge buildings is the shadows they cast, but that would be undercut if the lattice is light enough and the turbines given enough space.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-10 12:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-11 08:58 am (UTC)What was lost can certainly never be replaced. The question is, what do we do after that loss? I expect that you will never "get over" this; neither will I. For that matter, neither will this City, long after all eight million of us are gone. It's painful, but it's not entirely a bad thing.
While there must be a significant memorial at the site, I don't think we can dedicate all 16 acres to a memorial. We must mourn and remember, and we will, but I don't think we can only mourn. But, to me, failing to redevelop a big part of the site smacks of doing that.
There are certainly people who would be willing to work in the top floors; there are even some who would be eager to. But I suppose that there probably aren't enough to make it economically viable. If that's true, though, then build a shorter building.
Finally, you're probably right about how a taller building would be a target for attacks. I think that's why we have to build it. It would be a target because it would be a symbol of our pride, of our strength, of our prosperity. If we let fear stop us from expressing those things, I think we shrink, and I think we move closer to the day when we lose them.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-11 10:14 am (UTC)I see your point about building something higher or the same height but it terrifies me. If it is seen as a target, the whole horrible experience may repeat itself. IMO, I don't think another major loss of life is worth making the point that we are not afraid but that's just me and you know I'm biased.
The United States Government.
Date: 2003-12-10 10:32 am (UTC);-)
Re: The United States Government.
Date: 2003-12-10 11:57 am (UTC)We are the Government, and the Government is Us. For better or worse.
Re: The United States Government.
Date: 2003-12-10 03:24 pm (UTC)Re: The United States Government.
Date: 2003-12-10 05:42 pm (UTC)Here's the Premable:
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
In other words, the rest of the Constitution is the mechanism through which We The People, as the source of sovereignty of the government, delegate the day-to-day powers of administration.
Your comment about Jefferson is particularly strange, as Jefferson is usually seen as the first "democrat" -- i.e., one who believed in popular sovereignty in this sense. It's why the Declaration of Independence says when it is time, "for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another," and not one government (emphases mine)
Re: The United States Government.
Date: 2003-12-11 12:36 am (UTC)Re: The United States Government.
Date: 2003-12-11 07:54 am (UTC)And they are there because the voters put them there. Insofar as the process has been corrupted from an "ideal," it really is because most voters want it that way.
Re: The United States Government.
Date: 2003-12-11 02:41 pm (UTC)no subject
The lost rent is bankrupting the owners and causing the bank that's holding the mortgage to talk about reposssing the building and we didn't even have a terrorist attack here. Yeah, it would be nice to have a big ol' middle finger sticking out of the sky, but the reality is most people aren't ready to place their own lives on the line just to tell the rest of the world to fuck off. Considering how the people in the World Trade Center died, I don't blame them.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-11 09:08 am (UTC)But to assert that the reason for building a new, tall tower is to "tell the rest of the world to fuck off" is to miss the point, I think. It's not for them, it's for us. It's about who we have become, who we are becoming, and what we're willing to be.
It's very easy to talk about pride, confidence, and strength when you think you're safe. What do you think it means if we hide those things the instant we are challenged, which is when we need them the most? If we veil our pride in America's achievements—our freedoms, our properity, our strength—because we fear others' responses to them, how long do you think we can maintain that pride? How much longer before pride turns to shame and guilt? How much longer do we have those things once we are ashamed of them?
I want a tower built, but not to tell the rest of the world anything. I want it because I want us to embrace who we are despite our fear, not to hide because of it.
no subject
I thought the original World Trade Center was not only a big middle finger to the rest of the world, it was damn ugly, as is this new design. To me, it didn't denote pride, confidence and strength, it was a symbol of arrogance and brutality.
It said, "America is the biggest and most powerful and we will use any means to remain that way."
I would rather that this country show true, not symbolic, strength. Instead of cowering in fear behind racism and ignorance and selling our civil rights for security, we should continue to operate in the most honest and equitable traditions that this country is supposed to stand for. I would like us to embrace who we should be, open-minded, fair and helpful, instead of who we seem to be, self-absorbed, money-grubbing and violent.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-11 11:29 am (UTC)