As you rightfully point out, Ken, those who are dead by State means (mainly
war), they are constantly with us. The dead person is not a sole, private
family matter. I remember well the way in which the right wing in this
country protested and resisted the creation of the Vietnam Memorial - which
brought the names of America soldiers back into the public light of day. The
right did not want us - as a nation - to cope with the origins and terrible
consequences of that miserably conceived war.
Such will also be true of the dead in Iraq. (Pity the well paid
mercenary/contractor/ soldiers who don't get no acknowledgement).
It is an interesting query to wonder if the dead are ever completely
released from their public contract into a purely family matter. Say whether
German, Israeli, Cambodian, American, Iraqui, Palestinian - I am sure most
of know the 20th Century list of offenders and offended.
Greek plays wrestled with this often enough.
I am not sorry, Ken, if my proposal blew it all back up in your face, or if
it gets in the way of removing yourself from 'outrage fatigue.' Such as it
is for those of us who might want to pretend we are not implicated in all of
this, and somehow can gratuitously disengage from this or any other
disaster at will.
No matter how silent, inevitably, we remain implicated
Stephen V
http://stephenvincent.net/blog/
> Stephen Vincent wrote:
>> Dear Ken and Laura:
>>
>> It's curious, Ken, that the first image your mind is a 'Swastika'! It does
>> not surprise me, or I find it 'predictable", as I suggested, that you would
>> confuse or equate an act of compassionate acknowledge for the Iraqi dead
>> with Nazi behavior on my part. I would go a little deeper into your
>> 'analytical well' before making such a knee-jerk, offensive assumption.
>>
>
> Fine. Temporary or permanent, what is the qualitative difference
> between Krylon and envelopes. Both acts are incredibly disrespectful.
> Next step: I would never have gone to Bitburg the way that
> jellybean-fressing moron in the White House did back in the 1980s. I
> would not treat their resting places as sacred ground in the sense I
> would the unmarked graves of Dachau or Buchenwald. But neither would I
> use those graves to make some political point.
>> The war is the real outrage - and so many of us - among the dead and the
>> living - have been silenced. How to make art and poems that move beyond the
>> silence is the issue.
>>
>
> Yes, it is an outrage, but to be perfectly frank, I am
> outrage-fatigued. If you have any left, fine. I don't.
>
> k
>
> --------------------
> Ken Wolman rainermaria.typepad.com
>
> There's a lot of wisdom here among the employees,
> Some of us have street smarts and some have Ph.Ds.
> We're all bored and tired but we've all learned ways to cope
> Some of us drink after work, the rest of us smoke dope.
> --Austin Lounge Lizards, "Industrial Strength Tranquilizers"
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