Libraries for Trivializing 9/11

Today's Seattle Times reports on an organization called "The September Project" which enlists public libraries in an effort to trivialize the 9/11 attacks. Participating libraries will dedicate this September 11 to programs designed to change the subject from the mass murders that took place three years earlier.

In the midst of the war on terrorism, and in the heat of a presidential campaign, The September Project has a simple goal: Start a national conversation about democracy, citizenship and patriotism.

The September Project web site says nothing about the actual events of September 11, 2001. The subtext is clear. The significance of 9/11 is not that 3,000 people were slaughtered or that Islamic extremists declared war on us. The significance is the (fictitious) suppression of civil liberties in Ashcroft's America, and especially the hysteria that libraries are being targeted.

"People are so eager to talk to someone, anyone, to figure out what's going on," said Marsha Iverson of the King County Library System.

Other librarians are planning to use the day to trivialize the Constitution:

"This seems like a wonderful way to use the tragedy to get something positive going," said Jean Pollack, a children's librarian
...
Pollack had been wondering how children perceived the 2001 terrorist attacks, and if she could do anything to ease a discussion into it. Now The September Project has her focused on the task. Perhaps the children could recite the Bill of Rights while juggling?

The Seattle Times report mentions that The September Project's founder is Prof. David Silver of the University of Washington. But for some reason it doesn't mention Silver's anti-military agenda. His faculty home page contains the single word, "peace". Follow the links and you get to his report on the Feb. 15, 2003 protest to keep Saddam in power:

It was one of the most peaceful, pro-America anti-US government foreign policy protests possible. It was 80-100,000 people marching, drumming, pouring through the streets of downtown Seattle, Washington. There were thousands of red, white and blue signs reading "No War in Iraq," Impeach Bush," "Say 'No' to Hoily War," and "Drop Bush, Not Bombs."

I hope somebody tells Prof. Silver and the librarians who participate in The September Project that the now liberated libraries in Iraq will finally have the same freedoms that the libraries here can only pretend are being taken away.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at July 12, 2004 12:17 PM