[Dialogue] The symbol of Ground Zero. A metaphor for the mess we are in!

[KroegerD at aol.com]

This Hole in the Ground
By  Keith Olbermann
MSNBC Countdown  
Monday 11 September 2006 
Half a lifetime ago, I worked in this now-empty  space. And for 40 days after 
the attacks, I worked here again, trying to make  sense of what happened, and 
was yet to happen, as a reporter. 
All the time, I knew that the very air I breathed  contained the remains of 
thousands of people, including four of my friends, two  in the planes and - as 
I discovered from those "missing posters" seared still  into my soul - two 
more in the Towers. 
And I knew too, that this was the pyre for hundreds  of New York policemen 
and firemen, of whom my family can claim half a dozen or  more, as our 
ancestors. 
I belabor this to emphasize that, for me this was,  and is, and always shall 
be, personal. 
And anyone who claims that I and others like me are  "soft,"or have 
"forgotten" the lessons of what happened here is at best a  grasping, opportunistic, 
dilettante and at worst, an idiot whether he is a  commentator, or a Vice 
President, or a President. 
However, of all the things those of us who were here  five years ago could 
have forecast - of all the nightmares that unfolded before  our eyes, and the 
others that unfolded only in our minds - none of us could have  predicted this. 
Five years later this space is still empty. 
Five years later there is no memorial to the  dead. 
Five years later there is no building rising to show  with proud defiance 
that we would not have our America wrung from us, by cowards  and criminals. 
Five years later this country's wound is still  open. 
Five years later this country's mass grave is still  unmarked. 
Five years later this is still just a background for  a photo-op. 
It is beyond shameful. 
At the dedication of the Gettysburg Memorial - barely  four months after the 
last soldier staggered from another Pennsylvania field -  Mr. Lincoln said, 
"we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow  this ground. The 
brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have  consecrated it, far above 
our poor power to add or detract." 
Lincoln used those words to immortalize their  sacrifice. 
Today our leaders could use those same words to  rationalize their 
reprehensible inaction. "We cannot dedicate, we can not  consecrate, we can not hallow 
this ground." So we won't. 
Instead they bicker and buck pass. They thwart  private efforts, and jostle 
to claim credit for initiatives that go nowhere.  They spend the money on 
irrelevant wars, and elaborate self-congratulations, and  buying off columnists to 
write how good a job they're doing instead of doing any  job at all. 
Five years later, Mr. Bush, we are still fighting the  terrorists on these 
streets. And look carefully, sir, on these 16 empty acres.  The terrorists are 
clearly, still winning. 
And, in a crime against every victim here and every  patriotic sentiment you 
mouthed but did not enact, you have done nothing about  it. 
And there is something worse still than this vast  gaping hole in this city, 
and in the fabric of our nation. There is its  symbolism of the promise 
unfulfilled, the urgent oath, reduced to lazy  execution. 
The only positive on 9/11 and the days and weeks that  so slowly and 
painfully followed it was the unanimous humanity, here, and  throughout the country. 
The government, the President in particular, was given  every possible measure 
of support. 
Those who did not belong to his party - tabled  that. 
Those who doubted the mechanics of his election -  ignored that. 
Those who wondered of his qualifications - forgot  that. 
History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a  government cannot be 
taken away from that government by its critics. It can only  be squandered by 
those who use it not to heal a nation's wounds, but to take  political 
advantage. 
Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained  sense of being American 
first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats.  Nor did the media. 
Nor did the people. 
The President - and those around him - did that. 
They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that  to them, 
"bi-partisanship" meant that their party would rule and the rest would  have to follow, or be 
branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or  intellectually 
confused, as appeasers, as those who, in the Vice President's  words yesterday, 
"validate the strategy of the terrorists." 
They promised protection, and then showed that to  them "protection" meant 
going to war against a despot whose hand they had once  shaken, a despot who we 
now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee,  hated al-Qaida as much 
as we did. 
The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped  into supporting a war, on 
the false premise that it had 'something to do' with  9/11 is "lying by 
implication." 
The impolite phrase is "impeachable offense." 
Not once in now five years has this President ever  offered to assume 
responsibility for the failures that led to this empty space,  and to this, the 
current, curdled, version of our beloved country. 
Still, there is a last snapping flame from a final  candle of respect and 
fairness: even his most virulent critics have never  suggested he alone bears the 
full brunt of the blame for 9/11. 
Half the time, in fact, this President has been so  gently treated, that he 
has seemed not even to be the man most responsible for  anything in his own 
administration. 
Yet what is happening this very night? 
A mini-series, created, influenced - possibly  financed by - the most radical 
and cold of domestic political Machiavellis,  continues to be televised into 
our homes. 
The documented truths of the last fifteen years are  replaced by bald-faced 
lies; the talking points of the current regime parroted;  the whole sorry story 
blurred, by spin, to make the party out of office seem  vacillating and 
impotent, and the party in office, seem like the only  option. 
How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical  advantage of the unanimity 
and love, and transmuting it into fraudulent war and  needless death, after 
monstrously transforming it into fear and suspicion and  turning that fear into 
the campaign slogan of three elections? How dare you - or  those around you - 
ever "spin" 9/11? 
Just as the terrorists have succeeded - are still  succeeding - as long as 
there is no memorial and no construction here at Ground  Zero. 
So, too, have they succeeded, and are still  succeeding as long as this 
government uses 9/11 as a wedge to pit Americans  against Americans. 
This is an odd point to cite a television program,  especially one from March 
of 1960. But as Disney's continuing sell-out of the  truth (and this country) 
suggests, even television programs can be powerful  things. 
And long ago, a series called "The Twilight Zone"  broadcast a riveting 
episode entitled "The Monsters Are Due On Maple  Street." 
In brief: a meteor sparks rumors of an invasion by  extra-terrestrials 
disguised as humans. The electricity goes out. A neighbor  pleads for calm. Suddenly 
his car - and only his car - starts. Someone suggests  he must be the alien. 
Then another man's lights go on. As charges and suspicion  and panic overtake 
the street, guns are inevitably produced. An "alien" is shot  - but he turns 
out to be just another neighbor, returning from going for help.  The camera 
pulls back to a near-by hill, where two extra-terrestrials are seen  manipulating 
a small device that can jam electricity. The veteran tells his  novice that 
there's no need to actually attack, that you just turn off a few of  the human 
machines and then, "they pick the most dangerous enemy they can find,  and 
it's themselves." 
And then, in perhaps his finest piece of writing, Rod  Serling sums it up 
with words of remarkable prescience, given where we find  ourselves tonight: "The 
tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and  explosions and 
fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes,  prejudices, to be 
found only in the minds of men. 
"For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion  can destroy, and a 
thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout  all its own - for the 
children, and the children yet unborn." 
When those who dissent are told time and time again -  as we will be, if not 
tonight by the President, then tomorrow by his portable  public chorus - that 
he is preserving our freedom, but that if we use any of it,  we are somehow 
un-American ... When we are scolded, that if we merely question,  we have 
"forgotten the lessons of 9/11" ... look into this empty space behind me  and the 
bi-partisanship upon which this administration also did not build, and  tell me: 
Who has left this hole in the ground? 
We have not forgotten, Mr. President. 
You have. 
May this country forgive  you.
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