Freedom! Freedom! Bullshit!!!

After 9/11, Bush told the American people that the evil-doers attacked us because they hate freedom. Some of us understood that this was just propaganda, but we all cut the boob some slack.

Now, four years later, we recoil at the cheap, meaningless, jingoistic, and dishonest rhetoric.

"Freedom itself is under attack."

"A lot of young people say, 'Well, why America? Why would anybody want to come after us?' And the answer is because we love freedom, that's why. And they hate freedom."

Right...

"Freedom" is an easy catch-word for Bush, language that at once provides cover for Bush's unrelated invasion of Iraq and obscures the true nature of the jihadist challenge -- all while effectively claiming ideological high ground from which to beat back and silence any opposition or debate. No wonder people who truly prize their freedom resent the expropriation of the word itself.

No wonder the families of 9/11 victims felt that the victims were taking a back seat to ideology and politics.

I was glad to see in The NY Times today that Governor Pataki has canned the idea of a propaganda center at Ground Zero. The International Freedom Center was intended to help the War President frame the terrorist attacks as an attack on "freedom" and the Iraq War implicitly as a defense of freedom.

"The I.F.C. cannot be located on the memorial quadrant," Mr. Pataki said in a statement issued shortly before 5 p.m. That quadrant, at the southwest corner of the trade center site, contains the footprints of the twin towers. It is regarded by many as sacred ground, too hallowed for a museum dealing with 9/11
in the context of greater geopolitics and social history.

When he says "geopolitics and social history", he means "Bush's dirty politics and war propaganda." I think Pataki knew we would understand.

You can't sell bullshit here anymore, Mr. President.

| +Save/Share | |