"Tight Constraints on Pentagon's Freedom Walk:
Event Remembering 9/11, Troops to Be Kept 'Sterile,' Limited to Preregistered"
Pretty much everything, in my opinion. On the Freedom Walk website, it states:
The America Supports You FREEDOM WALKis an event that allows citizens the opportunity to remember the victims of September 11, honor our American servicemen and women, past and present, and commemorate our freedom.
Fine, I've got no problem with remembering the victims of 9/11. I've also got no problem honoring our servicemen and women, although I also wish they weren't dying in vain for Bush's and Rumsfeld's Folly. The way I see it, the question is not WHETHER to honor 9/11 victims and our servicemen and women. The question is HOW do we honor them? And FOR WHAT do we honor them?
To put it bluntly, is this march being organized for ALL Americans, or only for those who happen to support the Bush Administration's highly ideological interpretation of 9/11? Is this Pentagon-sponsored event designed for the majority of Americans who now oppose the war in Iraq, or only for the minority who still support it? And what are we saying about the lessons of 9/11 with this "sterile," "tightly constrained" Freedom Walk? How does something like the following paragraph, for example, fit the definition of "freedom?"
One restricted group [at the march] will be the media, whose members will not be allowed to walk along the march route. Reporters and cameras are restricted to three enclosed areas along the route but are not permitted to walk alongside participants walking from the Pentagon, across the Memorial Bridge to the Mall.
OK, so what we have here is a march that honors freedom by keeping the media highly restricted, by "tightly constraining" people and keeping the route "sterile." Now, can someone please tell me how on earth that constitutes "freedom," at least as we normally have thought about it in America the past 230 years? Is that what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they spoke of "liberty?" And can someone please enlighten me as to how all this control and secrecy honors the victims of 9/11?
See, I could have sworn that the terrorists actually won if we reacted by constraining our own freedoms and by placing ourselves under self-imposed siege in response to their attacks and threats. But, of course, that's not what anyone in the Bush Administration and the neo-con right wing intended by this "sterile," "tightly constrained" march. Oh no, definitely not. And it couldn't just be a coincidence that this "sterile freedom" march is coming from the same right wing minds that want to tell us what to do with our own bodies, when we can die, what we can believe, and whom we can love. Right?