anyone else getting this reaction to Olbermann's essay?

[ourbluenation]

Why does he blame * for the hole in the ground????

Why does he blame * for no memorial????


christ

:banghead:

[thereismore]

1. KO said "who left this hole in the ground?" not "who made it". nt

[Sadie5]

2. No reaction yet

I posted it on a mixed board. The Repigs will no doubt have something to say about it. They always get so excited when I post something like this.

[helderheid]

9. what board (if I may ask)? Can we help you out?

[ourbluenation]

27. be my guest...

http://o.forums.go.com/abc/latenight/jimmykimmellive/thread?threadID=1271169&forumStart=0

[Avalux]

3. I hate to say it, but the symbolism is lost on a lot of people.

I did worry after I listened to him and read the transcript that people just wouldn't understand (or wouldn't have the capacity) to get it; it would go over their heads. Seems as if it did from the feedback I'm reading about and hearing.

[movonne]

12. But why don't the Dems start writing comments..we could out do them...

[immoderate]

22. The message is: "Nothing gets fixed."

The Trade Center is a hole in the ground. New Orleans? Forget it. The electrical grid, the roads, the railroads -- nothing is being taken care of anymore. :scared:

--IMM

[orpupilofnature57]

4. Not to mention the hole in our Democracy ,the only memorial we have is

the memories of a pre-Shrub America.Keith's chiding was articulate and concise ,let freepers eat that freedom-fry.

[MrModerate]

5. After you bandage your forehead and take some aspirin . . .

Quietly point out that -- since Bush took on the role of savior of the nation after 9/11 -- the stalled recovery is a *symbol* of his failed responsibilities.

You might have to also define "symbol," depending on the density of the person you're speaking to.

[kaygore]

6. They do not get the true nature of leadership--look at what they

are calling leaders.

True leaders bring out the best in us.

True leadership would have made sure that a gapping hole was still not there 5 years later.

[The Straight Story]

7. I heard hillary blamed on a smoke break today

"She is the senator from NY, why hasn't she done something with the site there?'

[OzarkDem]

14. Getting federal funding for memorial & reconstruction were Pataki's job

he and the GOP Congress and Bush were in charge of it. If Pataki can't pull the strings, then blame Bush and him.

[orpupilofnature57]

17. Right On !

[The Straight Story]

19. I replied:

bush is decider, and since he has not decided there should be one there isn't :)

Meant to add that in original post but someone called me while typing it up and I just clicked post.

[jumpoffdaplanet]

18. REmind them the rethugs control congress

Then tell them to vote democratic, so that when dems control congress, hilary will have power to do something.

[Wilber_Stool]

8. You know, of course,that you're talking about people

that believe that soap opera charactors a real.

[bettyellen]

10. response: it's symbolism. and avoidance of the facts of the speech.

bring it on back to substance.

[Lex]

21. Abstract thinking is not possible for freeper-types.

I think it has something to do with their overall inability to think critically.

[Bluebear]

11. Send them a link to the definition of "metaphor"

[MoonRiver]

13. * IS responsible, through deliberate negligence (LIHOP) for that hole.

But I doubt that is what Keith meant. He was talking about the fact that it has not been replaced by the new buildings.

[Occulus]

15. it's coming from people who don't understand the similie and the metaphor

Literal languagists. You say what you mean and you mean what you say.

Werll, actually, reailty isn't like that at all. I've always hated that phrase, because all too often, similie and metaphor aren't representative of a 'real' situation. In Olbermann's case, the hole in the ground is symbolic, and that was how he was using it. He wasn't actually expecting * to personlly fill that hole with goodness and light (although, if * were very clever, he would state publicly that the 'towers of light' were, while they were there, a far better memorial than anything else). By blaming * for the hole in the ground, he was- to EDUCATED people- also referring to failed policies, faile ideaology, and a general, smarmy contempt toward the American people on the part of this maladministration.

He could as easily have referred to NoLa, and the Katrina recovery, except that it wouldn't have been the correct context. But then, against the backdrop of 'disasters from which we haven't yet fully recovered', perhaps it would have been an apt comparison after all.

And it ALL goes right back to 'reading isn't cool'. If you read a lot, you're weird, strange, and contemptible. This, frum thuh peepel hoo lernd how too reed with foniks and not books.

[nebenaube]

24. not to mention...

That * can't milk it if they had built something there to replace the towers...

[Firenze777]

16. remind them too

that it's taken bush longer to beat "the flintstones" in afghanistan than it took the US to beat the nazis and the japanese on two battlefield theaters. oh, and that the tsunami relief is further along than our own gulf coast.

[Lex]

20. Too stupid to even understand the point.

That's a typical right-winger as far as I can tell.

[SammyWinstonJack]

23. No, but I figured that is how the morans would take it. My first thought

being; that would be exactly those questions the morans would be thinking. They are so easy to figure out, their train of thought is so predictable. :evilgrin:

[tigereye]

25. I think his message was symbolic, not necessarily literal

there was a very good rundown of the history of the site itself and reasons why nothing has been built in a recent and very long NYT article. The Port Authority and the lease holder seem to have a lot to do with why nothing has happened, plus the competing desires of the different stakeholders....

[razors edge]

26. someone posted some freep responses

here earlier, similar, but also saying that KO shouldn't blame bush because the state, city, Silverstein can't agree.

I say bullshit, a real leader who cared about it would lock them all in a room with bread and water, don't come out till you have a plan. If you change your mind later too damn bad, half of america hates it too damn bad.

[kerstin]

28. I think he was exposing the big lie --

the lie that the brutish course undertaken by Bush & Co. post-9/11 is undergirded by their desire to seek retribution for the deaths of the victims. The fact that they have left this jagged, weeping wound intact belies that lie. They have no intention of ever filling that hole, much less building upon it. On the contrary, they have every intention of keeping that graphic bodily insult alive and festering.

That hole is there for a purpose. It's meant to retraumatize all who look upon it and each time we do, we are viscerally reminded that we now live in the "post-9/11 world," a world that hews to no standard of decency and that is devoid of reverence for all that's gone before.