Today Kansas City celebrates and mostly misinterprets the "War To End All Wars" at a monument that looms over downtown but still remains widely misunderstood.
To wit . . .
CHECK OUR TKC TOP 5 FORGOTTEN LIBERTY MEMORIAL FACTS FOR THIS TRAGIC KANSAS CITY CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION!!!
More than anything we hope this will be a change-up from the chest thumping mainstream media coverage that mostly forgets or misreads local history or the significance of the monument built across the way from a train station that took so many soldiers to their doom over the years . . . Either way, here's a few not-so-fun facts that will be probably be overlooked . . .
WWI Sparked Horrific Large Scale Chemical Attacks That Persist To This Day
The legacy of WWI continues to haunt the globe, mostly for the worse . . . The use of toxins as weapons dates back thousands of years, however, the first large scale use of chemical weapons was during World War I.
This week, Syria bombed its own people and many reports indicate the use of a chemical nerve agent which has sparked international outcry that not only risks U.S. intervention but also threatens to move the world closer to an all out war in this hotbed of ancient global conflict.
Again, the theme from today's festivities is confused with patriotism when the lessons of WWI are far more complex and horrific than simple flag waving.
Liberty Memorial Was Once An Infamous Kansas City Anonymous Hookup Location
The militaristic and glorious current condition of Liberty Memorial is a departure from its decrepit condition during the 1980s and early1990s when it was a premier location for prostitution, drug deals and dangerous anonymous causal sex.
After all, many visitors notice that Liberty Memorial kinda looks like a gigantic phallic symbol pointed toward the sky.
As Kansas City entered the age of AIDS there were CDC concerns raised regarding some of the very same issues which plagued San Francisco bath houses . . . The restoration of the monument ended the crime and public sex problem for the most part but talk about security in the aftermath of 9/11 continues to confront the site.
Liberty Memorial Loses Money!!!
Behind the scenes but still a part of the public record . . . City leaders have considered handing over control of Liberty Memorial to the National Parks Service and continue a desperate search to find some way unload the MASSIVE costs of this memorial that helps drown Kansas City in even more debt.
Kansas City WWI Celebrations Often Overlook Tradition Of American Military Diversity
Upon the restoration of Liberty Memorial, a great many local activists rightfully argued that the stories of African-American soldiers were excluded from the institution . . . Former Council Member and local leader Sharon Sanders Brooks shows us: "This is the front of a t-shirt which I will be wearing today at the National World War I Centennial Celebration at The Liberty Memorial here in KCMO. This image is from A World War I Military Recruiting Poster. The caption reads - Colored Man Is No Slacker. The poster was released in 1918."
While representation isn't yet equal, there is far more inclusion than at the time when the museum was newly restored thanks to the work of locals like the former Council Lady.
WWI Laid The Groundwork For Hitler
History buffs think this is common knowledge but for the most part people forget that WWI should have killed Hitler but didn't. Instead he survived and helped spark an even more horrific slaughterer inspired by vengeance, in part, against the remarkably unfair and ill-conceived WWI Treaty of Versailles which was concocted by some of the very same imbecile politicos, dignitaries and generals whose memory we celebrate today.
Still . . .
More than anything we remind Kansas City denizens that Liberty Memorial is, at its heart, an antiwar tomb-like tribute serving as a message from the grave to the living that the cost of war is ALWAYS the death of the innocent despite the best laid plans of hapless leaders and sheepish crowds who unquestionably follow them to the slaughter.
You decide . . .
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