Needs To Be Said
by digby
Jack Shafer at Slate takes on the notion that the site of the WTC is “hallowed ground:”
“When we speak of Ground Zero as hallowed ground, what we mean is that it belongs to those who suffered and died there—and that such ownership obliges us, the living, to preserve the dignity and memory of the place, never allowing it to be forgotten, trivialized or misappropriated,” Krauthammer wrote. But if Ground Zero belongs to those who suffered and died there, why is Larry Silverstein building on it? Because he acquired the site. The place is not sacred. It’s profane. Just look at the property records. All of this talk about hallowed ground is a lame attempt to leverage ownership of 9/11—something that can’t be owned, I’ve already insisted—and to commandeer the collective memory of the attacks. Don’t the people who can’t stop talking about hallowed ground realize that they’re the ones who are needlessly politicizing the slaughter? I’m all for remembering the murdered, preserving dignity and memory, and even building memorials. I don’t defile graveyards. I don’t desecrate churches, synagogues, mosques, or Buddhist temples. I don’t burn Qurans. I respectfully observe funeral motorcades. I blaspheme, but that’s my own business. But I draw the line at spiritualizing the WTC site and its vicinity. We honor the dead not by fetishizing the memory of their gruesome death but by respecting the living.
But there’s not nearly as much money in it.
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