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The TIME Magazine “Person of the Year” award goes to the man or woman (and sometimes group or idea) the magazine’s editors believe “had the greatest impact during the past twelve months, for good or for ill.” And for 2011, they chose: “The Protestor” because the Occupations and the Tea Parties, the Arab Spring and Summer, anti-drug cartel rumblings in Mexico, marches in Greece, and dissent in Russia, were all signs of what the TIME managing editor called “this contagion of protest” that he concluded “is changing the world for the better.” As we like to say in New York: “From your mouth to God’s ear…” America is too great for small dreams. — Ronald Reagan There is nothing wrong in America that can’t be fixed with what is right in America. — Bill Clinton
Click on the image above to play the original Twin Towers Alliance animation… O, let America be America again — The land that never has been yet — And yet must be — the land where every man is free. — Langston Hughes The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem. — Walt Whitman The collage above isn’t suggesting that we should go backward in time, but that “At World Trade Center, the twin towers’ disgraceful replacement“ TTA op-ed published in The Star-Ledger, New Jersey’s largest newspaper, 5/10/2012 FREEDOM TOWER FOLLY MSNBC or BSNBC? PROFILES IN VANITY COMING FULL CIRCLE TWINS FOR A REASON A COUNTRY THAT KEEPS ITS PROMISES Nothing can be built to last on a foundation of lies — not a country, a life, or a World Trade Center. Efforts to avoid a reckoning will only make it more costly when it comes. We can’t afford to get it wrong, but we can still get it right. If those we elect to serve our best interests can shamelessly ignore us, deceive us, and rob us over something so sacred to our country, and get away with it, where will it stop? It will not, until we stop it. The Twin Towers and the lives within were destroyed by evil beyond our control, but contrary to all the official propaganda, the future of the World Trade Center is quite certainly within our control. If some people can run into burning buildings to save lives, isn’t just standing up for the good of our country the very least the rest of us can do? Rebuilding extrraordinary, state-of-the-art Twin Towers matters as few things ever will. What is so painful about the consolation prize at Ground Zero is that it is no prize. The Twin Towers actually stood for life’s peak experiences — even after they were no longer the tallest buildings in the world, they were still among the most popular and the most awe-inspiring… That’s why Hollywood loved them. An 1982 ad boasted that the WTC’s observation deck was the tallest outdoor deck on earth and concluded with the warning: “And in the evening, please don’t touch the stars.” We, the People of the United States, never agreed to stop reaching for the sky. That’s who we are. That’s what we do.
The Twin Towers were the exclamation points at the end of an exciting city, in an exciting country, with an exciting future. Now there is little to get excited about. But new Twin Towers would be exciting and impressive in a very big way. It is absolutely not too late to build the World Trade Center we all deserve, but this is not primarily a fight over buildings. Above all, it is a demand for responsive and responsible government, in place of high-handed and dismissive government. Democracy is breaking out all over the world and being trampled here. The WTC land was originally taken by eminent domain for a public purpose and it remains a public, not private, holding today — one that is being built with massive public funding. This is a struggle against pervasive abuse of power. It is a barometer of our country’s resistance. When the media can keep the overwhelming support for new Twin Towers out of the press, and politicians can ignore what a super-majority of Americans want; when we are overruled even when we agree, it’s time to admit that we have a democracy in name only. But if we show that the American people can and will put rogue officials and media hacks in their place, that would set the country on a bold, new trajectory and finally bring our nation’s decade-long losing streak to a splendid end. We need to unite to rescue our country. If officials are serious about rebuilding America,the place to begin is here!
Einstein said: “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” Pedro Lasch, an Art Professor at Duke University, has spent almost a decade imagining and illustrating the Twin Towers using a variety of media to situate them strategically around the world. His vision includes to a website that extends his creation into cyberspace. He sponsored a competition that encouraged others to imagine the Twin Towers all over the world and he got some really incredible responses. He submitted a report on the results to a German art initiative that included it as part of their annual publication. Click on the link above to visit the submissions gallery page on the Go Global site and here to read the story behind the competition. Don’t leave the wonderfully whimsical site before visiting the “Projected Sites” page. “All your strength is in your union, all your danger is in discord; Therefore be at peace henceforward, and as brothers live together.” — The Song of Hiawatha This is a great video tribute to who Americans are and what we stand for. The song was written by Ray Powers, a TTA supporter from the beginning, and his lifelong friend, Jeff Tacopina, who became a firefighter in honor of the brother he lost on 9/11/2001. It is a powerful reminder of the spirit of unity that was our only candle in the darkness after the attacks. |
