Lincoln Memorial

WAKE UP, PEOPLE! HOW THE F DON'T YOU SEE THAT THE ULTRA-RIGHT IS PULLING THE US INTO A PIT OF FASCISM?!?!?!

UGH! I'm just so frusterated with these sheep following a despot in quasi-democratic clothing just because they want to tell me what I can do with my body, or need to carry their Uzi to school, or are desperate for the Rapture to happen, and SOON. One-issue idiots who turn a blind eye to what they'd otherwise be storming the White House for. Go to Hell. Just go to Hell right now. Yeah, I'm ready for the Rapture, all right, just so I don't have to DEAL with you toadbiters anymore.

Case in point: The Lincoln Memorial. First, it was promoting the idea of the Grand Canyon being formed not by geologic forces but by the Hand of God at GCNP bookstores. Now, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility informs me that the Bush Administration has approved $200,000 to make a new video for the Lincoln Memorial, citing it doesn't show enough conservative ideology. Extreme right-wingers are upset that some high school students in 1994 made a video about the Lincoln Memorial and GAVE it to the National Park Service to show at the Memorial. They dared to show people demonstrating at the Memorial for such anti-Lincoln things as EQUALITY and PEACE. Lincoln must be turning in his grave that his memorial would be used for such things. Reverend (and I use the term loosely) Louis Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition says that this video "gives the impression that Lincoln would support abortion and homosexuality." Well, having seen the TVC website, I must say that anything not prostrate in front of the right-wing agenda promotes homosexuality in their eyes. The whole thing is one giant homophobic masogonistic rag.

The TVC website says, "Absent from the video were any Promise Keepers marches or Marches for Jesus rallies at the capital. The video was totally skewed to present only a leftist viewpoint." Well, despite the fact that the Promise Keeper's March had nothing to do with EQUALITY, which is what the objectionable material was about, it also wasn't included because it wasn't held until Nineteen-Ninety-freaking-SEVEN, and the video has been at the Lincoln Memorial since 1994. The earliest I can find a March For Jesus in Washington D.C. was in 2000. But even if I'm wrong about that, apparantly neither the Promise Keepers OR a March For Jesus was held at the Lincoln Memorial.

How DARE those liberal baby-eating Satan-worshipping fornicating High School students not go forward in time to film footage of something not taking place around their subject matter!! Don't they KNOW that we aren't allowed to be smart enough to actually think about target audiences, unless we're tobacco executives and toy marketers, both going for that lucrative adolescent market? The NERVE of them!

Well, I managed to watch the video, and I must summarily disagree with that foul-minded imbicile. Yes, there was footage of Equal Rights Ammendment, abortion, gay and lesbian rights demonstrations and Vietnam War protests. Again, demonstrations for EQUALITY and PEACE are not viable material for a video about the Lincoln Memorial? Are we both thinking of the same president, here? Are the conservatives saying that we SHOULD have been in Vietnam? THAT must explain why we're in Iraq. Yeah, that's it. There was also a brief second of a sign about passing the Brady Bill. Ok, that's not about equality,I'll give you that. One second about a demonstration asking for safe streets does NOT justify spending two HUNDRED thousand dollars to put GWB's mug and rallies FOR war in a new video. (Edited to add: After further reflection, it is patently obvious why a tiny bit of footage about a demonstration for the Brady Bill was included: Brady was shot with a gun during an attempted Presidential assassination. Lincoln was shot with a gun in a Presidential assassination. Yes, that DOES have to do with Lincoln! I recant my "give you that.") ALso in the video was lots of footage of Dr. Martin Luther King's famous speech at the Memorial, various flyers promoting the sale of slaves, numerous clips of past presidents (I think I saw Ford and Reagan in there) and dignitaries visiting the Memorial, numerous nationalities showing the diverse appeal Lincoln has, and a very poignant shot of a one-armed navy man saluting the statue. Terrible that, showing a man having paid a price of war, saluting a man who knows the horrors of war himself. Never find that in THIS America now.

The National Park Service has a headquarters building not one mile from my house. They are hurting for money. Heavily. Having seen what's happened to America's public lands under both Bushes and Reagan, I think the added benefit to making the NPS find TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS to replace a video that some high school students managed to scrape up enough money to produce on their own, is that it can't use that money to do it's real job of preserving, protecting, and teaching about its charges.

See you on the way to Hell, Bush.