09 December 2006Photography
Memorial Controversy?


I first heard about the memorial on NPR and it was just strange to hear a news story about something so close in a town I pass all the time. The jist of the storaty was not that the memorial was that, but that it was causing contoversy. I don't really see it. Maybe it's because I was against this war from the beginning, like most sensible people who saw it for what it was. But it seem to me that if you're against this war memorial, you'd have to be against every war memorial. You'd have to be against the WWII memorial on the National Mall, and the Viethnam memorial and the Korean War Memorial in the same place, and, well, all of Arlington National Cemetary which is essentially a massive war memorial. You get the point.

The controversy stems not from the memorial itself. It doesn't take ad absurdum logic to see that. The ontroversy is because of the poltical viewpoint of the people who erectred the memorial. See, it's ok to put u
p a memorial, but only if you support the war being memorialzied.

I have more photos of the memorial on Flickr

Posted by andrew at December 9, 2006 12:47 PM


Comments

J. Says:

[I]n such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, not to be on the side of the executioners.
(Albert Camus)

There never was a good war or bad peace. (Benjamin Franklin)

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
(Dwight D. Eisenhower)

Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.
(Hermann Goering)

December 9, 2006 02:56 PM
Andrew Writes:

It's always instructive to quote from the Third Reich playbook when thinking how our leaders bring us to war.

Eisenhower is also quite useful:

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

or for that matter, Frank Luntz:

It's not substance; it's language. And when they heard the language that they wanted to hear and they were able to apply it to an idea that at least they were open to, you watched a marriage of good communication and good policy. That was the eureka moment: I watched people nod their heads; I watched them look to each other, and they were willing at this point to fight for this position.

December 9, 2006 03:52 PM




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