Ron, it seems to me that you are attempting to dictate what we should think. It would be easier if you would realize your opinion is but one of many reasonable, sincere, heartfelt opinions of how the site should be used.

As to the "sacred ground" argument. Only two institutions have the authority to confer that status officially--governments and religious institutions. Many people want to see memorials evoke in the observer/visitor, both national authority and religious authority. Others believe they should be kept separate, ie that a memorial be either a national memorial, or a religious memorial. In the case of the WTC site, it will definitely be a national memorial, but my guess is, it will also have some element of the international makeup of the victims. Now, perhaps the little church at the WTC, which was used by the rescue workers, etc. will be included because of the role it played. Is this appropriate? Some will think it is, some will think it is pandering to a particular religion, and think it isn't appropriate at all.

One thing I do find odd, is that this debate isn't occurring in terms of any of the other people "vaporized" on the day. Those who died in Pennsylvania and the Pentagon. I really do think that the spectacle aspect of the WTC is the reason for it.

I visited the site last summer, and yes, it is very disturbing. But I don't think I was disturbed in the same way many Americans are who visit the site. I really wasn't disturbed as much at the loss of life factors, because it was just too abstract for me on a personal level. I am too distant from it, because I didn't know anyone personally who was killed in the attack, and so haven't suffered that loss. The survivors and the victims families all have my empathy and compassion, but I do get angry at the very selective ways the memorializing is being done politically. For instance, 90 some streets in NYC are being renamed to honor mostly firefighters, police and paramedics lost in the attack by Hizzoner the Mayor. Now, I just think that is wrong. I think it would be appropriate to do a city memorial for those city rescue workers who lost their lives, but I don't think this perpetual memorializing of the most popular victims--the NYC rescue workers--are being memorialized while all the other victims (especially those who died in PA & DC) are ignored. Another aspect of the memorializing is the focus on widows, at the expense of all the widowers. That really bothers me too. Lots of families were left without mothers as a result of the attacks, yet we rarely hear about the fathers and children left behind, because it doesn't fit with the mythologizing about the events. We feel much more comforted to see weeping widows, than weeping widowers. We feel much more safe seeing widows struggling than widowers struggling, because that matches our gendered worldview of "how it is supposed to be" in these circumstances.

I was disturbed at many levels when I visited the site. I was disturbed that such a colossal building as the WTC existed (and feel the same way about all the giant skyscrapers, which I think are anti-human in scale, and should be outlawed). I was disturbed at the folly of the US foreign policy as a result of it, now exposed in the gaping hole in the landscape. That was one of the many incongruities and ambiguities that surfaced for me that day. I was disturbed at how the site was being used for Republican political gains--this probably disturbs me more than any other aspect of the controversies surrounding the WTC site. Hell, even the merchandisers hawking WTC tourist wares all around the site didn't bother the way Republicans using the WTC as "holy ground" for political gain are bothering me. Do you suppose it is any coincidence that the mass media propagandizing about the whole thing is tilted towards the Republican tendency to *insist* this is sacred ground now, and the justification for *their* unjust, illegal, and immoral global war?

Those are just some of the reasons why I don't want to see the site mythologized as holy ground--because of the ways it is being used politically to create the Republican nationalist mythology by the Republican mayor of NYC, the Republican governor of NY, and the Republican president of the US. I can't even stand the thought of how they are trying to coopt the memorial for their Republican nationalist agenda at the expense of the victims families at this point, much less the at the expense of lower Manhattan.