Usually, when you see a chain-link fence around a building, construction equipment within the enclosure and OSHA regulation, safety and warning signs, it means that either the building is in need of repair or is about to have changes made to it, or is about to be altered in some way, or torn down.
The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, located at the west end of Washington Mall, adjacent to the Potomac River, was built to last 1000 years plus. Patterned after the Parthenon in Ancient Greece, it is a “Temple” of our nation – perhaps the primary temple associated with “America” by visitors from foreign lands. Directly above Lincoln’s seated statue are these words written in the white marble wall:
“In this temple
as in the hearts of the people
for whom he saved the Union
the memory of Abraham Lincoln
is enshrined forever.”
For a proper definition of the word ‘Temple’ when the Memorial was built, we must turn, not to a modern dictionary, but rather to the dictionary in contemporary use with the Memorial’s construction and dedication, Webster’s unabridged dictionary of 1905, in use at the time, defines ‘temple’ for us (see attached photocopy of the pertinent page therein).
Turning next to a very old book, we find the word ‘Temple’ throughout God’s Holy Word, always used in a sacrosanct, never a ‘commercial’, sense. By turning the Lincoln Memorial into a museum underneath, it will come to be known in the common parlance as “The Lincoln Museum”, and at the same time they are turning it into something ‘commercial’ (large souvenir shop, movie theater, etc.)
Beginning at 2 Samuel 22:7, we find the word ‘temple’:
In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried to my God: and he did hear my voice out of his temple, and my cry did enter into his ears.
And again we find:
Nehemiah 6:10
Afterward I came unto the house of Shemaiah the son of Delaiah the son of Mehetabeel, who was shut up; and he said, Let us meet together in the house of God, within the temple, and let us shut the doors of the temple: for they will come to slay thee; yea, in the night will they come to slay thee.
Psalms 27:4
One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple.
Psalms 29:9
The voice of the LORD maketh the hinds to calve, and discovereth the forests: and in his temple doth every one speak of his glory.
Isaiah 6:1
In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the LORD sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.
Amos 8:3
And the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord GOD: there shall be many dead bodies in every place; they shall cast them forth with silence.
Malachi 3:1
Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the LORD, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts.
Matthew 12:6
But I say unto you, That in this place is one greater than the temple.
John 2:19
Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
1st Corinthians 3:16
Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
1st Corinthians 6:19
What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
2nd Corinthians 6:16
And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
What is happening to our nation’s ‘Temple” – the Lincoln Memorial? It is being converted into a commercial purpose – Disneyland zigzag entrance lines like at the airport for ticket sales to get in to a basement ‘museum’ and an Imax movie theater included in the admission price, souvenirs for sale in the ‘gift shop’ on the way out (vacuuming still more dollars out of the tourists pockets).
The primary player in this ‘rape’ of our national treasure is a man by the name of David M. Rubenstein, a multi-millionaire who made his money in real estate. He doesn’t need more money. For some reason, however, he is possessed with a pounding, driving compulsion to do this to our nation’s Lincoln Memorial. He began his drive to put a chain-link fence around the people’s Lincoln Memorial and move in heavy equipment by first ingratiating himself to the Memorial’s guardian, Jeff Reinbold, superintendent of National Mall and Memorial Parks. Rubinstein did so by offering to help Reinbold with a frustration he had, namely not being able to solve a drainage problem with the reflecting pool. Rubenstein told him to go ahead with the repairs he wanted in the manner in which he wished to carry them out and if Congress continued to ignore his request for the funds to do so, he would pay for it.
His ultimate desire was to get to Lincoln Memorial. If Rubenstein had simply approached Mr. Reinbold out of the blue and told Reinbold he wanted to put a chain link fence around the nation’s Lincoln Memorial and have his own way with it, the Parks Superintendent would have looked at him like he was crazy, and may have all but had him arrested.
The rich man lusted to have his way with the Memorial to denigrate it and despoil it – change it from that which it was meant to be and has been – sacrosanct – into something of his own personal choosing and fancy. He first won over the Memorial’s guardian (Parks Superintendent) by using his money to patch up the Park Superintendent’s bruised ego (despite repeated requests, he couldn’t get the Congress to allocate the funds to install and improve a much needed drainage system for the reflecting pool) by saying to the Park Superintendent, “Go ahead and have the work done, and if Congress doesn’t pay for it I will! A few rides in the rich man’s black stretch limo, invitations to lavish cocktail parties, and a couple steak dinners later, the Park Superintendent decided that what Rubenstein and his architect wanted to do with the Lincoln Memorial was the best thing he heard of since sliced bread. He even issued the following public statement accolading the man with all the money in the black stretch limo, “Thanks to the National Park Foundation and its generous donors…” (Among these donors is David Rubenstein who lavished $26 million) “… visitors will be able to view this dramatic architectural feature, learn about how the memorial was built, and how its meaning has evolved over the last century.”
They want to turn the Lincoln Memorial into a memorial not just about the Great Emancipator of the slaves, but fill his statutory hall with busts and statutes of all the major civil rights leaders to date.
“Visitors will also learn about the significance of the site as an international icon dedicated to the achievements of Abraham Lincoln and individuals such as Marian Anderson and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who have shaped the history of the memorial.” (National Park Service website article February 20, 2023)
“For more than a century, the Lincoln Memorial has been the crucible of American democracy, an enduring platform for free speech, the site of civil protests that STILL SHAPE society, and the scene of national celebrations,” Will Shafroth, president and CEO of the National Park Foundation, said. “Thanks to generous donors, the National Park Service will ensure the Lincoln Memorial continues to make history for another 100 years.
Given the overwhelming size of Lincoln’s statue, and the impracticality of fitting in additional statues of the same size, Lincoln’s statue which was sculpted to go together in pieces, will have to come apart in pieces to be stored in a warehouse with the rest of our history that they are seeking to dismantle and store away.
The shift will be subtle at first. If they move too fast, there will be backlash, but if they gradually shift the focus by rebranding the nation’s symbols, its heroes, and its history, they will deprive America of its foundations. There will be no American identity. In fact, there will be no United States as we know it.
The Parks Superintendent did not hatch such a scheme to fence off the Memorial. The rich man would have seen that he was being used for someone else’s agenda. Rubenstein would have been too smart for him and would have walked away. The rich man is the smart one. The civil service employee is the dumb one. He has been seduced by money for his project, and has then become the rich man’s patsy – even voluntarily accolading the rich man in a public statement, “Thanks to the National Park Foundation and its generous donors, visitors will be able to view this dramatic architectural feature, learn about how the memorial was built, and how its meaning has evolved over the last century.”
How could this Parks Superintendent be so stupid? He needs to be fired, and President Trump (who has to be elected 3 times in order to serve twice) will be the one to do it. Just think of the stupidity of the Parks Superintendent. He is supposed to be the watchdog. Of course, if you want to silence a watchdog, you take along a can of dogfood and first feed the dog. Talk about human stupidity!
Albert Einstein said there are only two things that might be infinite; the universe and human stupidity, and he confessed he wasn’t sure about the universe.
Are all of us ‘deplorables’ stupid as well to be taken advantage of in such a manner – to have the Lincoln Memorial, our national treasure become a plaything, a mistress of a rich man to have his way with as he pleases?
We have been had – all of us – not just the Parks Superintendent. Like ‘Old Man Potter”, played by Lionel Barrymore in the Christmas time move “It’s a Wonderful Life”. Potter rode around in his black carriage – modern “Potters” ride around in black limousines, laughing like Potter laughed at Jimmy Stewart with his decency and unselfishness and unwillingness to sell his fellow townspeople down the drain for money.
If the rich man wanted to build a “Lincoln Museum”, the nation has plenty already, including a marvelous one in Philadelphia – plaster hand cast of Lincoln’s hand; plaster face mask cast of Lincoln’s face, all the walls lined with glass cases of memorabilia – even the gloves and top hat Lincoln wore at his inauguration.
The Park Superintendent became the rich man’s lobbyist, he turned a blind eye to the several acre empty plot of ground right across the street from the Lincoln Memorial (see enclosed photo of this available acreage belonging to the National Park Service). Why tunnel under the Lincoln Memorial when you can build in the daylight right across the street? But of course, in so doing, everything that is taught by the statues and movies and quotations carved in marble or brass are still secondary to, and in the shadow of, Lincoln and his memorial. They seek an equivalency!
The rich man’s money can’t purchase any of these priceless artifacts for his own subterranean museum. The rich man has the entire western Mall to build a Lincoln Museum if he truly wants to donate one. And he can build it in the sunlight above ground. Good Heavens, there’s museums there and everything – an American History Museum at the west end of ‘museum alley’ just before you get to the Washington Monument. He could put the few things he would be able to scrape in there, or pay for and build a 3rd floor addition or put it underground and use his architect’s renderings of this cancerous growth (cellar door) that he was going to put on the Memorial on the American History Museum.
But guess what? But if it was offered (space on the Washington Mall), he wouldn’t take it. He would walk away with his money. Why? That’s the question – why? What is this truly about? Why must he tunnel under the Lincoln Memorial itself? The answer lies very deep in mind of the rich man.
On Saturday evening (June 15th), my wife and I attended a concert (the purpose of which was to raise money for hunger) at which a child prodigy (think – a young Mozart) 9 years of age, played. Having done some investigative photography at the Memorial the day before (6-14), the desecration of our Lincoln Memorial was on my mind.
There happened to be seated next to me at our dinner table a man who had worked in behavioral health (mental health) for Montgomery County, Maryland, a bedroom of Washington, DC, prior to his retirement. He was unaware of what is going on at our nation’s Lincoln Memorial. He agreed that there are plenty of Abraham Lincoln museums throughout the nation.
He was aware of the one in Philadelphia that I had visited (I attended a function of the American Society for Justice a number of years ago there). It had all that one could hope to have of Lincoln memorabilia.
Why tear apart the Lincoln Memorial to install a museum in the basement?
Continuing my discussion with the mental health expert, I opined that we don’t tunnel under the Washington Monument to install a museum to George Washington. We go to Mount Vernon (and many other places in the nation) to learn the history of George Washington.
Why does the architect’s design show the south side’s exterior columns removed? Is it simply a “cut-away” used to show the statue? Or are they planning to remove the south wall of the Memorial? Good Heaven’s! Remember the Park Superintendent curiously said, “Thanks to the National Park Foundation and its generous donors, visitors will be able to view this dramatic architectural feature, learn about how the memorial was built, and how its meaning has evolved over the last century.”
When he speaks of “DRAMATIC ARCHITECTURAL FEATURE”, he surely is not talking about the elongated basement entrance way. Many people have basement doors. If he is referring to the entranceway only, and the architect’s representation of the upper part is but a schematic cut-away, the entranceway itself begins a cancerous growth on an otherwise perfectly balanced iconic Memorial (temple) that houses Lincoln’s seated statue.
When I visited the Memorial in person and took photographs last week, this answered a question for me – all along the south side they have installed heavy oak planking covering and protecting the graduated step down of the side of the Memorial. They didn’t put it there to protect from bird droppings. What’s going on?! Are they afraid that heavy blocks of marble might slip and fall as they attempt to lower them with a crane? What’s going on?
And when the nation expresses consternation and surprise, they reply that a poster showing the architect’s proposed renovations was posted in plain public view on the temporary distal end of the walkway that has been installed so that tourists can still go up and down during construction. Yes, but who would believe that it is what it looks like? Who on earth would do such a thing to the Lincoln Memorial? And to think that the current administration has sanctioned it and even given it their blessing. If President Biden were to have a stroke and pass away tomorrow, I think the democrats would prop him up in a chair and re-elect him!
I hope I am wrong, but even if I’m wrong, this is the most idiotic thing that has ever been endorsed by the dear old National Park Service. This kind of cogitation is the same kind as that which mistakes a mule for a horse and enters the mule in a steeplechase contest.
The child prodigy played his next set after which he received a standing ovation. I took advantage of the pause in the music to pick the brain of this behavioral health (mental health) expert by sending up the trial balloon of a thought and I asked, “Suppose there was a man who as a child was a rebellious teenager who would have spray painted the Memorial, now as a grown adult (who still has a rebellious teenager inside him), does he decide to denigrate the Lincoln Memorial by spending millions of dollars employing air compressors and pneumatic drills to take down columns and walls, and be proclaimed a “heroic benefactor” in the process?”
My new friend seemed to find that tenable, but not completely dispositive of the motivation. The child prodigy continued his next set during which I found myself attempting to come up with a motive – the true driving force behind this ‘rape’ of a national treasure.
There came another break in the playing. Turning to this mental health expert, I said: “If Freud were here…” He sat up and paid attention at the mention of the name. I continued, “Freud was always linking human conduct to the basic physical urges. Perhaps he would tell us that this millionaire had become bored with having his way with his mistresses and his physical, sexual urges, moved to a higher plane in his brain and he lusted after the pure white virginal Lincoln Memorial to rape it as his mistress.” In a flash, the behavioral scientist came back to me, “I think you have it!!”
Yours very sincerely and respectfully,
R. Martin Palmer
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