A few blocks away from Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan stood a truck whose paint job made a political statement about September 11th: “No one wants to remember. No one wants to forget.” It sums up the mixed emotions of America on this day in 2013. But Pamela Geller is definitely one of the people who wants to remember and fight for the dignity of the families that lost loved ones on 9/11 in 2001, especially in Manhattan’s Ground Zero. That is why she organized a memorial service and press conference and gathering at the southwest corner of Zuccotti Park, the former site of the Occupy Wall Street encampment.
The fact that the City of New York did not give Geller a permit to stage an event inside the park did not deter her anymore than the lack of a permit deterred the many motorcyclists who came to Washington this 9/11 to honor the memory of veterans and those who died at the Pentagon, in Shanksville, Pennsylvania or at New York’s World Trade Center. And Pamela didn’t need a roaring Harley to have an impact, just her voice and those of her fellow speakers.
“9/11 is a day of mourning…when war came to America,” she said, meaning it wasn’t to be papered over by a politically correct administration that is trying to make us believe it a “day of service” when people go rake leaves in the park or serve meals to the elderly, even though those are worthy efforts for another day.
Understanding the subtle attack on our cultural standards, Geller called the housing of human remains in the museum underground as being “reprehensible,” and called for an actual Tomb of the Unknowns at ground level so that all can see the history. And she called for the federalizing of the 9/11 Museum in New York so that there would be no admissions fee (currently $25), a fee charged even to the families of those who died that day. In comparison, virtually all major public sites in Washington, D.C., have no admissions free.