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Race Changes to 9/11 Flag Statue
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
FDNY Whistleblower: Media Nixed News of Race Changes to 9/11 Flag StatueNew York City firefighter Kevin Okane says that reporters from all the major news organizations were present when a clay sculpture of three of his FDNY brethren raising the American flag over Ground Zero was unveiled on Dec. 20 in Brooklyn.But only one reporter bothered to mention that the racial make-up of the trio had been altered, he told NewsMax.com in an email complaining about the cover-up on Monday. For the next three weeks the mainstream press breathed not a word of the fraudulent tribute, even as firefighter Okane struggled in vain to get coverage of what he and many of his brethren felt was a politically correct travesty that cheated three rightful FDNY heroes out of their due."I called one newspaper after another," Okane told NewsMax.com Friday. "Nobody wanted to cover this story." On Tuesday NewsMax.com broke the story of the hero firefighter's complaint; how he and his brethren were livid that higher-ups in the FDNY had decided to tamper with reality to reflect - not the world famous photograph of the three Caucasian fireman who actually performed the deed - but a more politically correct version that replaced two of the white firemen with an African-American and a Hispanic. (See: Racial Changes Made in Ground Zero Firefighter Tribute)After the NewsMax report, the story caught fire on talk radio in venues like Al Rantel's KABC broadcast in Los Angeles. By Thursday the Weekly Standard had its own version of the story on its web site, where it was picked up by Fox News Channel's Brit Hume.But it took till Friday for the story to explode, when WABC radio's Sean Hannity featured a full hour interview with firefighter Okane and civil rights activist Lawrence Guiyot, who argued that replacing the white firefighters was a good idea. (Okane and Guiyot will continue the debate on Fox News Channel's cablecast "Hannity & Colmes" Friday night.)Minutes after Hannity's interview ended, the Associated Press picked up the news that NewsMax.com reported three days earlier, sending the story richocheting around newsrooms all across the country."Given that those who died were of all races and all ethnicities and that the statue was to be symbolic of those sacrifices, ultimately a decision was made to honor no one in particular," Fire Department spokesman Frank Gribbon told the AP.But the three firefighters who actually raised the flag - Dan McWilliams, George Johnson and Billy Eisengrein said through their lawyer that they were "disappointed.""It's become something political as opposed to historical," attorney Bill Kelly told the AP.The bogus sculpture unveiled in December will be cast in bronze in April and put on permanent display at FDNY headquarters unless enough public pressure is brought to bear, Okane told NewsMax."My fear is that the word won't get out and that this fraud will be erected and future generations will come to regard this politically correct sculpture as a historic fact." http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=2002/1/11/193627
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Gun Control Disarms Victims, NOT Criminals
Lord Lowrider the LoquaciousMember:Secret Select Society of Suave Stylish Smoking Jackets She was only a fisherman's daughter,But when she saw my rod she reeled.
I can't come to work today. The voices said, STAY HOME AND CLEAN THE GUNS!
Pack slow, fall stable, pull high, hit dead center.
Politicians, like diapers, should be changed often and for the same reason.[This message has been edited by Pup (edited 01-12-2002).]