Great.
Why was "Freedom" dropped? Corny? Bush-y? Disagreement over whether they hate us because of our freedom?
Americans are asking "Why do they hate us?"I hope it was because "One World Trade" is dignified and traditional.
They hate what they see right here in this chamber: a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.
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96 comments:
Pretty cool that its 1776. Maybe liberty tower would be good.
My god, it's full of symbolism...
what's great about taking 11 1/2 years to build a building taller than the Empire State? They should nane it Fading Glory Building. It us a testiment to our inability to do great things anymore.
Why was "Freedom" dropped?
Maybe because calling this the "Freedom" tower, this huge-budget, tax-subsidized, uninspired, white elephant of an office building, that will house a bunch of multi-national financial firms— is just too much bitter irony, even for our degenerate age.
Numbing us to "One World"...Government.
Numbing us to "One World"...Government.
You should compare & contrast Bush's speech with Obama's to the OSU grads last week Professor. Bush was saying th terrorists hate our freedom and dem elected govt while Obama thinks some in this country hate it.
Sounds like Bloomie.
If there's one thing he hates, it's freedom.
Spires and antenna on the top of buildings shouldn't count. It should be the height of the top occupied floor.
"Freedom Tower" was stupid.
But "One World Trade" is also creepy. Largely creepy because true.
I like One World Trade. I'm not sure why. Freedom appears more complex to me than it did before. Freedom is what it is all about. It's the ultimate goal for a warrior, IMO.
"One World Trade" is matrixy. There's no escaping, it says. All submit to the neoliberal order.
Freedom appears more complex to me than it did before.
Everything is gray.
Small "c" communists think they are the "one." Muslims see it as the prime directive of the Qu'ran. Obama calls himself "The One" and his detractors say "teh won." Althouse flashes back and makes a fork gesture with her fingers while saying "Cool!"
American taxpayers pay for it.
Bill is correct. Mentioning the Empire State Building (15 months construction time) in the same breath is pathetic.
When did Obama call himself "The One"? Not saying it didn't happen, but I've never seen him or heard him say it. Linky?
Big Infidel Tower
Meh. I look at the building and the skyline and think, "They knocked down two; we put one back up."
And I agree that the spire is cheating. They could have made it 100 feet tall and put 1/4 mile tall spire on the top. 1776 feet? You didn't build that!
phx said...
"Freedom appears more complex to me than it did before. Freedom is what it is all about. It's the ultimate goal for a warrior, IMO."
I agree with your last statement. However, what is the freedom the warrior seeks? For some, it is the freedom of their fellow citizens to live their lives as they see fit. For others, it is their 'freedom' to oppress and impose their will upon their fellow citizens. Is that the complexity you speak of?
I oppose Obama because I see much more of the latter 'freedom fighter' in him than the former.
When did Obama call himself "The One"?
His machine did. And that makes the propaganda his. This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow, and our planet began to heal. We are the Ones We've Been Waiting For
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=molWTfv8TYw
Oh, Darrell. Darrell Darrell. That's your evidence to back up the previous Big Claim?
At the Oprah for Barack Obama rally in Des Moines, Iowa, Winfrey said, "For the very first time in my life, I feel compelled to stand up and to speak out for the man who I believe has a new vision for America," and told the audience of 15,000 said, "I am here to tell you, Iowa, he is the one. He is The One!"<
And harogate, fuck you and the ass you rose in on. Want a link for that?
True. I forgot Oprah and Obama were the same. You're embarrassing.
Darrel's "fuck you" is the best he's got. Freedom!!!!
Harrogate calls Obama The One each night before he goes to bed. You can just smell it.
harrogate throws a squirrel in the debate.
See that's what passes for argument all too often around here. "Obama calls himself the one." A fucking ignorant thing to say and then when the ignorance is pointed out all he's got is insults.
Obama campaign propaganda machine. He signs off on every embarassing word. He owns them. Oprahs appearance was to introduce Obama at his rally. Every word was written or approved by his staff.
Read Darrell's first comment, Mark. That was the squirrel. Don't be stupid.
Squirrel-throwing should earn you a 50 comment timeout in the penalty box.
Yes, it should.
Right. The big issue here is whether Obama ever referred to himself as "The One." Not like it's "why did anyone see the need to rename the 'Freedom Tower.'"
50 comments I say.
One World is the meme of this thread. Obama's Leftist ass monkeys like harrogate calling him The One is a perfect fit.
I began by talking about the name if the building. So did others . Then suddenly this dumbass starts railing against Muslims and Obama and says he "calls himself the one." So don't be an idiot Mark.
I'm not saying Darrell should have chased your squirrel, or even that his original point added much to the conversation. Your's on the other hand seemed intended to actively derail it.
And thanks for the insults. Shows your good faith.
Ritmo has caused squirrels to go on the endangered species list
Nope no intention to derail. Just wondered if he could back up his claim. The idiocy with which he followed was the idiocy with which he followed.
On the subject of the building, I still don't like the new name any better than the old, which was banal as it gets, but the new name is more appropriate in my view. Very unfortunately appropriate.
harrogate said...
When did Obama call himself "The One"?
It started when he said, "I Won".
The parody came naturally in the face of such a pompous ass.
Back on-topic, I hope, "Freedom" really is one of those unfashionable ideals these days, isn't it? I wonder if there's a way Google could tabulate the number of times a day new pages were posted containing the word "Freedom" v. the number of new pages containing the phrases "Social Justice" or "99%" or "fair share"?
Damn I'd love access to that data.
Ahh edutcher with the pathetic rejoinder. Less squirrel, more sad panda.
Mark I bet there's more reference to Freedom than to any one of those, and probably even if you put the three together they still don't match up.
50 comments. Keep trying to push it down the road to stupid, harrogate.
Mark are you on drugs? Or just a very fucking bad reader? If the first, detox. If the second, access to data isn't going to do you much good is it. Freedom!
Obama's "We are The Ones we've been waiting for" provides 129 times more substantiation than anything Lefties like harrogate were able to say about attaching "Mission Accomplished" to Bush.
Note: "Mission Accomplished" was provided by the Navy for the USS Abraham Lincoln's just completed mission--a routine occurence when the ship returns to port.
As far as I know, Harrogate is right regarding Obama and "The One". It really isn't a matter of opinion. Either he said or he didn't. No harm in saying, "You're right. My bad!" so that we can all move on dot org from this.
harrogate said...
Ahh edutcher with the pathetic rejoinder. Less squirrel, more sad panda.
That's what you've got? All of it?
Of course, it's always tough trying to knock down the truth.
The first time Choomie opens his mouth as POTUS, and he makes an ass of himself and an object of derision.
Live with it because you own it.
PS That's why so many people refer to him as Teh Won, ninny.
Small "f" fascists hate freedom. They often end their comments with the phrase "Freedom!" thinking they are being ironic. And clever. No one ever sees them as such.
PPS Is it me or are our little trolls losing that air of gay insouciance we have come to know and love and sounding more and more bitter and desperate as they realize, as several have noted, this really does make Watergate look like a third rate burglary?
Edutcher, yes because people who hate him calling him that is exactly the same as "he calls himself the one." In dumbass land anyway.
Did Obama's followers ever call him The One? Did Obama ever tell them to knock it off and stop photoshopping halos around his head? No. He owns it then.
Again, harrogate, you're off-topic and insulting. This leads me to think you are trolling.
But congrats, enough people have been stupid enough to chase your rodent that the original topic is done. Can you give me a number on how that monetizes?
Mark once again horrible reading and what a coincidence, that your horrible reading aligns you with your little political cadre. Sad business. I've responded to the topic more substantially than the squirrel throwers and more than you have, actually. Also, it seems you see yourself as a thread monitor of sorts which is also sad.
How about naming it "The-Destroy- This-And-We'll-Build-A-Dozen-More Tower?"
So Harrogate, why do you think they changed it from "Freedom Tower" to "One World Trade"? Maybe I missed your analysis, being slow and all.
I think they changed it to that because it really is becoming One World Trade. They think that's dignified as Althouse suggested. I think it's creepy. But a lot more appropriate than "Freedom Tower"
It might stand for a long time, and calling it "Freedom" might be embarrassing in the future when we don't have any.
(I haven't read the 50+ comments of drunken stupidity that preceded mine.)
But the question is why you think it's more appropriate? Obviously some body of people who made the decision thought so too, and that's the thinking that I would like to see elucidated.
Data, my friend. Don't hand me self-evident truths if you ain't got 'em.
It's more appropriate because multinational corporations are well past the ascendency phase and now in the catbird's seat on the issue of trade. It is now "Luddite" or "quaint" or "protectionist" etc., to challenge the model I'm describing and yes, this is all self evident and doesn't need explaining.
Soren, I think you're right, that people who are making these decisions aren't at all comfortable with the word "Freedom" -- it's not that they think we won't have any in the future, but the idea that really the idea that we have it now is somehow embarrassing.
At a guess, I think that's harrogate's bottom-line argument; "Freedom" is an illusion, while in reality everyone is subject to a global capitalist system that oppresses us all. Hence "One World Trade" is unfortunately more appropriate than "Freedom Tower".
Asking him to spell it out seems to be too much to ask from him though.
Ah, I spoke too soon. Sorry.
So really, you weren't trying to divert the conversation with "When did Obama call himself The One"?
We could actually discuss whether we should agree that your thesis is correct. Or we could call each other names and you wouldn't have to think much.
I would bet that some people think that "Freedom Tower" is too provocative--inciting future attacks and making the building unmarketable. I wouldn't link that if I could because internet opinions like that don't require that.
I dont see how the "One World Trade" name can be interpreted any other way---it's a reference to multinational economy. The difference of opinion is whether one agrees with the consolidations that have happened but to deny the consolidations seems awfully slow. Even our crayon media figures on both sides love to say "it's a global economy now"
Maybe government officials can bring in a Imam to bless the building for its dedication. And he can curse it like that Imam did at the SEALS Team Six funeral.
Who is denying that ours is a global economy? My friend, before retiring I worked in Trade Finance; that industry has been around since at least the 16th century, and arguably since the Crusades.
It's been a global economy for a long, long time.
I just still don't get why "Freedom" should be a dirty word. Why it is seems pretty clear (power, control, protecting privelege, etc.) but why we should accept it is another matter.
Oh, its one of those...
I was thinking it was the tower that had generated all the comments.
1,776 comments... you have just over 1,700 to go.
So Lem? What is your brilliant analysis/contribution to the topic? You seem to have forgotten to do anything but bitch and whine.
Second question--have you ever seen any thread here?
"Freedom" in the name does give the false impression that you could destroy freedom by destroying the tower. And it would take 23 years to rebuild next time.
How about calling it "The 4.3 billion ounce Big Gulp?" Nobody would want to destroy that.
You seem to have forgotten to do anything but bitch and whine.
I missed the orientation class.
They rejected my design of a 2000 ft middle finger with a happy face painted on the fingernail. The perfect symbolism for both NY and the nation.
"Why do they hate us?"
Why the hell do we care?
Wiki:
In 2009, the Port Authority changed the official title of the building from "Freedom Tower" to "One World Trade Center," stating that this name was the "easiest for people to identify with."
Apparently Americans don't identify much with freedom anymore. Sounds right to me.
Compromise: "One Free World"
Well, the Americans the Port Authority think of as Americans may have a hard time identifying with "Freedom".
I have no beef with the guys on the line at the Port Authority. But the apparatchiks with the offices with the great views of the harbor are scum.
Ask any of the people who risked everything to save lives on 9/11/2001 whether they believe in freedom, and if you don't ask in the right way you're likely to lose teeth.
Freedom has been won every generation by the refusal of Reformation inspired Christian men to surrender to the next World Empire that covets the land they call the New World.
The offer to conquer and rule us for our own good remains on the table.
The best answer is still, "nuts."
bpm4532: Spires and antenna on the top of buildings shouldn't count. It should be the height of the top occupied floor.
There are ways to measure the height of a building but the most common way is by measuring the highest architectural point so spires can be counted but not antenna. I learned it from a civil engineer.
As I say, harro and the rest of the infestation around here have gotten nastier, not more supercilious as the Choom Gang's second term wears on.
One would tend to believe even they know the jig is up (no pun).
Disagreement over whether they hate us because of our freedom?
Americans are asking "Why do they hate us?"
Yes, a really interesting question . Why do similar liberal democracies like Australia or Switzerland not similarly aggressively pursued?
"They hate what they see right here in this chamber: a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other."
This is, of course, a lie: grandiose, self-serving, delusional bullshit.
Robert Cook said...
"They hate what they see right here in this chamber: a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other."
This is, of course, a lie: grandiose, self-serving, delusional bullshit.
Oh. The irony!
Those who are negatively comparing One World Trade Center to the Empire State Building should learn something about the history of each building.
The designers of the Empire State Building didn't have to worry about major terrorist attacks. But obviously any redesign of the World Trade Center after 9-11 would have to.
For a long time after the 9-11 terrorist attack, the New York City Police Department, the New York City Fire Department, and even Larry Silverstein, the leaseholder of the property, were opposed to building any new super-tall buildings on the site for obvious reasons. So the first design competition for architectural proposals didn't have any really bold skyscrapers.
There was a public outcry against that, so they went back to the drawing board. The aforementioned stakeholders eventually agreed to accept a super-tall building, but only if it were made terrorism-proof.
And that took another design competition, and more modifications after that. Years passed before they got a design that all the stakeholders could live with.
The first 10 stories of the building have no windows at all. The walls are reinforced concrete two feet thick, set back from the street to minimize the effect of a truck bomb.
Other safety features include 3-foot (91 cm) thick reinforced concrete walls for all stairwells, elevator shafts, risers, and sprinkler systems; extra-wide, pressurized stairwells; a dedicated set of stairwells exclusively for the use of firefighters; and biological and chemical filters throughout its ventilation system. The building is no longer 25 feet (8 m) away from West Street, as the Twin Towers were; at its closest point, West Street is 65 feet (20 m) away. The windows on the side of the building facing in this direction are equipped with specially tempered blast-resistant plastic, which looks nearly the same as the glass used in the other sides of the building.
All vehicles will be screened before they enter the site via the underground roadway, including for radioactive materials. 400 closed-circuit surveillance cameras will be placed in and around the site, with live camera feeds being monitored around the clock by the NYPD. A computer system will use video-analytic computer software designed to detect potential threats such as unattended bags and retrieve images based on descriptions of terror or other criminal suspects.
The designers of the Empire State Building didn't have to prepare for such eventualities.
And finally, one major reason there is only one tower is that there no room for it. The 9-11 Families had insisted that no buildings be built on the footprints of the original Twin Towers. Those footprints remain as the site of a memorial to those who had died.
Admittedly, when you look back on all these counter-terrorism features, the Freedom Tower doesn't really seem to be evoking freedom.
National Review's Deroy Murdock had called it "Fear Tower." I had suggested the name "Bunker Tower."
They could have designated the height in meters and avoided the 1776 thing. So be grateful for small favors.
Better than "New World Order Tower", I guess.
Late on a Friday night, guys come to Althouse to bitch at each other.
Sad.
Nini said...
Disagreement over whether they hate us because of our freedom?
Americans are asking "Why do they hate us?"
Yes, a really interesting question . Why do similar liberal democracies like Australia or Switzerland not similarly aggressively pursued?
Because they've already gone dhimmi?
Although, in the case of the Swiss, with every male between 18 and 60 in the army, with his service weapon in the front closet (the true well-regulated militia), the crazies have some reservations about going all-out.
Oddly enough they chose the "one" designation because there are not yet, but could be, two. And, since there are not two or more they stuck with one. Freedom tower is too cheezy a name, as the Professor guessed, for a major building in Manhattan the number two center of financial activity in the world. Those who believe it is some one worlder's dream name are spending too much time on blackhelicopter.org.
"Previously dubbed ...as a reminder ..."
What's in a name? Quite a bit, evidently. Both architecture and urban design, the new buildings and the park in which they are set are a huge improvement over the original WTC. For those who didn't live or work in lower Manhattan before 2001, you may not remember how barren and dreary it all was. The outdoor plazas between the old towers were bleak and uninviting, and not surprisingly usually abandoned. All the activity was in the underground shopping concourse, that ran underneath most of the old buildings and was almost everyone's means of accessing them. It was typical of the urban design of the period -- bulldoze everything that was there before, pave it all over and fill it with a bunch of uninspired buildings -- made all the worse by its gigantic scale.
The new WTC avoids all of that. The memorial park works beautifully both as architecture and urban design, and that success is rooted in the decision to introduce trees, running water, open space and a sense of scale into the development. It works as a grander but similarly powerful statement as the Channel Gardens and skating rink at Rockefeller Center, and like that great uptown space, is freighted with lots of symbolic overlays. But unlike Rocky Center the buildings don't try to dominate the design -- they are not it's main focal point and the design avoids having one -- but work with it to create a grander space.
A commenter above notes the many design features of the new tower dictated by security concerns. I suppose there was no avoiding them, but as with all such security issues, they have a quality of fighting the last battle rather than what will likely be the next one. Quite apart from there own merits, those security features were required for marketing reasons, to overcome the hesitancy that tenants would have had to relocate to an area and a high rise that comes with its own built-in bull's eye. Similarly, I think the choice of name for the building (1 WTC vs Freedom Tower) was influenced more by those marketing considerations than issues of political symbolism.
The anchor tenant of the new tower is Conde Nast, and they will certainly add a nice twist to the usual mix of banker/lawyer/broker that, along with tourists, have been the day-time population of the area for decades.
"Better than 'New World Order Tower,' I guess."
I guess so, too. But it's neck-and-neck, in terms of what's closer to the mark.
I couldn't give a shit. The America of the past would build towers in 12-15 months. That's how New York rose in the first place.
"'Why do similar liberal democracies like Australia or Switzerland not similarly aggressively pursued?'
"Because they've already gone dhimmi?"
No, because they're not lobbing bombs, sending killer drones, and putting soldiers on the ground all over the fucking place killing people, destroying cities and towns, making people into refugees, among all the other ancillary horrors of aggressive war.
Blogger Richard Dolan said...
"Previously dubbed ...as a reminder ..."
What's in a name? Quite a bit, evidently. Both architecture and urban design, the new buildings and the park in which they are set are a huge improvement over the original WTC. For those who didn't live or work in lower Manhattan before 2001, you may not remember how barren and dreary it all was. The outdoor plazas between the old towers were bleak and uninviting, and not surprisingly usually abandoned. All the activity was in the underground shopping concourse, that ran underneath most of the old buildings and was almost everyone's means of accessing them. It was typical of the urban design of the period -- bulldoze everything that was there before, pave it all over and fill it with a bunch of uninspired buildings -- made all the worse by its gigantic scale.
It actually got better in the last decade of its life, after Battery Park City and the World Financial Center were built on the landfill on the other side of West Street. The pedestrian bridges over the 10-lane street connected to the WTC via the Plaza, forcing people onto the west end of the area. And it could do that because of the original problem with the Plaza -- as the land sloped down from Church Street west to the Hudson River, the Plaza remained at the same level, so what was street level at Church was 1 1/2 stores above the street at Greenwich and three stories above the street at West. The 9/11 Memorial Park eliminated the "Great Wall of West Street" problem, though due to security concerns, even though the park it open now, you still have to go to Vescey Street on the north or Albany Street on the south to get through the area.
(As far as the name goes, I think the idea was to maintain some sort of bond with the original WTC designations. Personally, I wouldn't have minded if they had changed it back to the name of the original 1908 Twin Towers -- Hudson Terminal -- but that would probably have been going a bit too retro for everyone).
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