There is a proposal to create a temporary monument on the site of the WTC called Towers of Light. This would use spotlights pointed straight up, giving a ghostly impression of the towers. I think it would be a beautiful and touching monument, except…
…except for those God-damned Nazis and there use of spotlights to create a Cathedral of Light for their Nuremberg rally in 1936. So, instead of appreciating the Towers of Light for what they would be, I get chills thinking about them.
God damn those bastards. I don’t want them ruining this. May they rot in such a forsaken part of Hell that even the hijackers look at it and say, “Sucks to be YOU.”
Drop, I agree that it sucks there’s a negative precedent to the skyward lighting but letting what the Nazi bastards did in the past influence the way we pay our respects to these victims today is akin to changing our lifestyles to suit the fear caused by the terrorists. It means they’ve won. Not to be crass but we didn’t quit using ovens after what we discovered at the end of WWII.
I like the Towers of Light memorial idea. I think it’s a beautiful expression of the sorrow and hope we’re all experiencing now and I’ll be dammed if I’ll let some scumbags from 70 years prior ruin it for me.
I understand the Nazis also buried their dead, too. So let’s go ahead and never have another “horrible” burial service.
Oh, yeah. And the folks who used to worship Baal used to sacrifice their firstborn in some kind of open flame. So let’s tear down the Statue of Liberty because of that “horrible” open flame that’s part of it.
It’s the symbolism, guys, not their daily practices. I don’t associate “burying their dead” and Nazis like I do “columns of light” with Nazi rallies. Maybe I’m just showing my age. When I was a kid WWII was still a fresh memory for the people around me. I’m more inclined than you to see Nazi symbolism in totally innocent things.
Geez, dropzone, how old are you anyway? If you were a kid when WWII was fresh in people’s memory, you have to be in, what your 50’s or older? I had no idea…
Born nine years after VE Day. For perspective, nine years ago Bill Clinton was about to be elected. Hurricane Andrew had just come and gone. American troops were sent to Somalia. Seems like yesterday to me, and I think 1945 seemed much the same way to my parents.
The Luxor hotel in Las Vegas is a pyramid-shaped building that shines a really bright light directly up into “space” at night. Allegedly, planes flying near LA can see it at night.
There is precedent, folks. How many of you would use a Swastica in a religious ceremony today? Well, until Hitler & Co. got ahold of it, the Swastica was a perfectly innocuous symbol in many cultures, particularly Native American religions.
Gaaak! Spare me the Wagner, and not for political reasons.
Actually, I’ve said my piece on the subject, made my decision to support the memorial despite my prejudices, and am just going to sit back and watch where the thread goes. To keep it going I’ll ask:
As displaying the swastika is illegal in Germany, can Buddhists still use it there?
Of course it doesn’t. It still has become, outside of certain communities, a symbol of evil. Relatively few know that it’s a religious symbol stolen by the Nazis, and would never be proposed for any public display by the government. The reaction of Germany to the swastika is exactly what I was referring to, although it’s happened here in the states, too. (Swastika Estates comes to mind: A housing development built before WWII, or even, I believe, before Hitler came to power. It was in the news not too long ago)
So, not using designs similar to the Cathedral Of Light for memmorials is quite understandable, and being pissed at the Nazis for making it so is even more understandable.
Bear in mind that the Buddhist swastika–which they swiped from the Hindus, who brought it when their Indo-European ancestors swept into the subcontinant, while another branch of the Indo-European clan became the Germans–has an opposite orientation from the Nazi swastika, i.e.,clockwise versus counterclockwise.
I think the Towers of Light is a fine idea, Nazis be damned!
It sounds like a very nice idea (Speer’s Cathedral of Light didn’t spring immediately to mind, but now I won’t be able to drop the assocition, thanks) but how would it work? I’d think that the amount of ambient light in late-night NYC would neutralize any spotlight not visible from Neptune. Also, I thought it was pretty much a given that there would eventaually be a new construction on the WTC site. Where would the spotlights go then? On top of the new building(s)? And wouldn’t a pair of spotlights that bright be incredible light pollution for the people around the site? And wouldn’t continuous beams that bright provide a risk for eye injury in the stupid and/or the sites’ neighbors?
I ask too many questions; now I sound like a heartless bitch. I probably should have stopped with “Yeah, that’s a nice idea” and moved on.
