You prefer a big hole in the ground instead?

Karol - You do realize the IFC was started by cronies of Pataki and Bush.

But I guess you think Pataki and Bush are anti-American.

In fact - you think anyone who doesn't believe what you believe is anti-American.

That's a pretty slanderous statement to throw around. Last time I checked - Americans were allowed to hold different beliefs. And just because you think torture in Abu Ghraib is wrong, doesn't make you "anti-American". In fact - it makes you a patriot.

DL, Please find where I've called anyone un-American.

Right here, where you accuse them of "America Bashing"

http://haloscan.com/comments/downtownlad/112805057842582575/#87179

Please show me where the IFC have ever "America Bashed".

In fact, prior to that bitch Debra Burlingame, going on a witch-hunt in the Wall Street Journal, most people thought of the Freedom Center as a jingoistic, Bush-backed, propaganda ploy. Nobody, i repeat nobody, considered it anti-American or an american-bashing institution.

But if you repeast lies often enough, people start to believe it.

DL, that's cute how you included that sentence 'Not everything is about partisanship. And if fucking morons can't understand the difference between an America-bashing museum' but not the sentence that immediately follows it '(or even a museum of positive American achievements completely unrelated to the tragedy of 9/11) on the site'. Is setting up a straw argument the best you've got

Karol - I'm not just referring to your comments. The entire conservative blogosphere has maligned the IFC museum and the Drawing Center with charges that it is "anti-American".

Want to read some???

http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&q=IFC+%22anti-american%22

Sorry - but it's not a strawman. Conservatives said the same ugly things about the Vietname memorial project:

"Others have called this Wall, “the Black gash of Shame and Sorrow” basically because the use of black granite put into such a stark angular form reminds them of just that, i.e. a gash in the earth that represents a war where many fellow Americans had to give up their lives."

http://mtmt.essortment.com/vietnamveterans_rjgd.htm

Daniel Liebeskind came up with an amazing blueprint for Ground Zero. He made sure that cultural centers (i.e. art, dance, theater) would be at the site to buffer the monument from the rest of Manhattan and help heal the site by bringing life to downtown. By bringing NEW YORKERS to downtown.

Congratulations. That idea has just been killed. Now we'll just have tacky tourists at the site.

DL, I don't care what other people say. If you can't argue with just what I'm actually saying, then you don't have much of an argument. And tourists will always go to Ground Zero. Get over yourself, this isn't just about New Yorkers.

Read this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/30/arts/design/30zero.html

Culture is indeed dead at Ground Zero. Frank Gehry, perhaps the best architect in the world, will probably have his arts center shelved as well.

New York had a chance to build a thriving site at Ground Zero - a square that would have been one of the most dynamic places in the world. That would have been a huge middle-finger to Osama Bin Laden. It would have been a message that New York could not be taken down.

But that dream is dead. We won't have a dynamic square. Now we have a huge graveyard. Notch up a victory to Bin Laden.

Karol - I can make fun of tourists. That is in jest. But it is NOT in jest, when I lament the fact that New Yorkers will not go to Ground Zero.

This is my neighborhood. They could have built a great neighborhood there. That would have been a real tribute to the victims. I have studied architecture and urban planning a great amount. To have a thriving area, you need a combination of retail, offices, residential, culture, etc.

But everything has to be political. Charges of "anti-american" had to be wrongly thrown at excellent institutions. So the blueprint of Ground Zero is slowly being stripped away.

Ground Zero is going to become a vast wasteland. You think it's going to be populated at night? Why would anybody in their right mind have a reason to go there? Conservative bloggers are making sure that any signs of life at Ground Zero are not allowed to be built. That is very, very sad.

Do people from Kansas care that Ground Zero will be devoid of life? No. But most New Yorkers cared. That's why Bloomberg supported these sites. That's why the Community Boards downtown supported these sites.

New Yorkers no longer have a voice on what happens at Ground Zero.