Artifacts of 9/11

So, as I am reading the NY Times this morning I stumble across this piece about how they are storing artifacts from the twin towers in a hanger out at Kennedy Airport. Steel girders, trucks, fire engines, cabs, subway cars, stuff like that. Some other group is saving personal items like wallets and glasses and bank cards. Kind of like the stuff we saw in the Holocaust museum here in DC.

The first thought that came into my mind after the audio portion of the pieces played was are the people in Iraq and Afghanistan saving rubble from the attacks by US troops for later installation in a museum to the carnage Amerikan troops are leveling on them on a daily basis? Probably not.

Today, they dedicated a memorial to the attack at the Pentagon. They have been setting up stadium(ish) seating and stuff for the past week. One day, all of the artifacts they are saving in New York will be installed in some kind of museum on the site where the towers once stood. There is already something out in that field in PA. Why do we build these kinds of things? Memorials to horrible times in our history.

We went into downtown DC yesterday because my partner wanted to climb the steps up the Washington Monument, which you cannot do anymore. Post 9/11 deems it unsafe. Instead, we wandered our way down the reflecting pool to the WWII memorial, the Wall, and the Lincoln Memorial. Having memorials and monuments to past presidents who accomplished something great makes a bit of sense to me, but having memorials to carnage and death is morbid. "Lest we never forget" but I guess we do because we do it again, and again, and again. WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and  Iraq (twice). 

Seems to me we should be building memorials to peace and tranquility instead. Then maybe we would look upon those things and actually do something to make that our reality. If the monuments to war work to keep us fighting another one, seems like a peace memorial would work as well. So, how about spending tax dollars on a PEACE memorial and park in every major city in the world. Manifest peace instead of war. Manifest goodness over evil. Manifest acceptance instead of misunderstanding. Manifest something other than war.

We could do it... if enough people would say "I'm mad and I am not going to take it anymore!" just like that guy in the movie Network.

Find peace in your own lives today. Find acceptance, find joy and love and hope. We've had enough of war and hate and misunderstanding.