IFC's Statement of Mission and Vision
The International Freedom Center is envisioned as an integral part of the living memorial to September 11 at the World Trade Center site. It shares the mission of the World Trade Center Memorial to "strengthen our resolve to preserve freedom, and inspire an end to hatred, ignorance, and intolerance."
To accomplish this mission, the Center will celebrate freedom as a constantly-evolving world movement in which America has played a leading role. Visitors from around the globe will come to understand that the story of freedom is a narrative of hope, and that September 11 is an essential element of this story, powerfully illustrating that new challenges to freedom will always arise, that freedom's work remains unfinished, and that there is a place for all of us in this work.
The Center will carry on its work through three major components:
Museum exhibits will tell personal stories and explore crucial themes in the history of freedom, detailing the contributions of countless individual men, women and children throughout the ages, including the heroes of September 11.
Educational and cultural programs related to the exhibits will stimulate a global conversation to advance freedom's cause.
A service and civic engagement network will offer visitors opportunities who have been inspired by the IFC's exhibits the chance to act on behalf of freedom within their own communities and around the world.
The "history of freedom" has nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks.
Such a museum may have a purpose, but it should not be located at Ground Zero, the final resting place of victims who were never recovered from the ruins. The site is hallowed ground. It belongs to the heroes of 9/11, not "the contributions of countless individual men, women and children throughout the ages."
From the Times editorial, "Freedom or Not?":
The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation will soon decide whether ground zero will continue to include an International Freedom Center, or whether families of some 9/11 victims will be able to censor those plans. Yesterday, the Freedom Center submitted a report that specified in greater detail how it would be run and what it hoped to present in the way of programming. This became necessary when Gov. George Pataki capitulated to a misguided outcry from critics who fear that the center's main task will be to present anti-American views of 9/11.
In this case "some" includes:
Nearly 50,000 signatures on the petition including over 2200 9/11 family members are joined by over 106,000 of New York’s firefighters (Uniformed Firefighters Association, Uniformed Fire Officers Association and the Firemen’s Association of the State of New York) and police officers (Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association-PBA) and NY Reps. Fossella, King, and Sweeney in denoucing the IFC’s existence at Ground Zero.
UFA–22,000 (active and retired firefighters)
UFOA–7,150 (active and retired firefighters)
FASNY–27,400 (active and retired firefighters)
PBA–50,000 (active and retired police officers)
The editorial board at the Times clearly does not want to acknowledge that tens of thousands of Americans support the removal of the IFC from Ground Zero.
More from the Times editorial:
The development corporation has long claimed that the site of the World Trade Center would become, besides a place for remembrance, "a premier cultural district," with - among other things - international programming "that could highlight the values of tolerance, diversity and understanding among nations." Those phrases essentially describe the stated mission of the Freedom Center, which was one of four institutions invited to play a role in the cultural development of the site.But since late June the Freedom Center has been caught up in a vitriolic protest called the Take Back the Memorial movement, whose leaders claim for themselves the right of deciding for the rest of us what we should know and think about 9/11.
The Times continues to bash 9/11 family members with their condescending and spiteful words.
What gives the editorialists at the Times the right to claim for themselves that they should decide the makeup of the 9/11 memorial?
Why should their vision be given more credence than that of anyone else?
Isn't it just as valid to say that the Times is caught up in a vitriolic effort?
The Freedom Center, as portrayed in this new report, is not perfect. Its programming sounds hopeful but vague - a list of intentions rather than well-defined exhibits. Its list of advisers and directors is broad and politically diverse. But there is nothing in these plans to frighten anyone.
A September 8, 2005, editorial in the New York Post revealed a bit about the "politically diverse" nature of the IFC's advisers and directors.
For example, the family advisory committee, established to represent the concerns of "some" 9/11 family members, is clearly stacked in favor of the IFC.
* One of its co-chairmen: Paula Grant Berry — who has served as IFC vice chair, even as the center put forth plans to host "educational" programs that will permit criticism of America's record (or be worthless educationally).
* The other chairman: Tom Roger, who also backs the IFC.
* Another member: Robin Theurkauf, a Yale professor (Exhibit A) and anti-war activist (Exhibit B).
The Times is spewing its usual Leftist propaganda rather than putting forth the facts.
There are plenty of IFC advisers and there is plenty in the plans to legitimately frighten 9/11 families and their supporters.
Protesters worry about what the Freedom Center may become in 25 years. But we worry about what ground zero will be like in 25 years without it. If the corporation banishes the Freedom Center, it will be rejecting its own best intentions and any hope for a meaningful cultural presence at the site. Given the political cowardice we've seen so far, ground zero may become nothing but a graveyard, instead of a place where visitors are invited to both remember the victims of mass murder and celebrate the possibilities of life.
It is utterly disrespectful to the victims and the heroes of 9/11, and their surviving family members, to deface Ground Zero with an anti-American oasis.
The USS Arizona Memorial in Honolulu, Hawaii, commemorating the attack on Pearl Harbor, contains no such facility.
Why at Ground Zero?
Gettysburg National Military Park honors the over 51,000 soldiers killed, wounded, captured or missing during the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. There is no lack of respect for the sacrifices made on the battlefield back in 1863.
Why at Ground Zero?
Are these memorials diminished because they are "graveyards" and not places where visitors are invited to celebrate?
The fact is the IFC does not belong where the towers fell.
It's a big country. The self-loathing liberal elite can take their International Freedom Center somewhere else.
NOT AT GROUND ZERO.
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