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.

Yes, part of the idea is to bring an acknowledgement of the 'living' dead,
both of the forces of Occupation in Iraq, as well as the probably close to
one million Iraqis who go unacknowledged by American, British and Australian
governments.  The Bush Administration even refuses to publicly acknowledge
and picture dead soldiers as they return to this country. Another form of
amputation of public memory.

And Laura, these are temporary stenciled envelopes over the grave stones.
Yes, it is meant to be provocative. But the stone and memory of the soldier
is not being permanently desecrated, but 'temporarily', as I stated. To let
the living dead on both sides of this occupation and war be acknowledged
together. Both victims of this insanity.

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.

Stephen V
http://stephenvincent.net/blog/







> Stephen Vincent wrote:
>> Re Hiroshima:
>> 
>> Yesterday I was thinking of a provocative act. To make white cloth envelopes
>> with stencils of pictures and names of the Iraqi civilian dead. These would
>> be temporarily, and periodically placed over the grave stones of soldiers in
>> American, Australian and United States' military cemeteries.
>> 
>> There would be huge, righteous outcry/outrage from certain, predicatable
>> public sectors. But the act would level the dead and/or 'living' fields. In
>> fact, I would call it an homage to the "living dead."
>> 
>> It might also speaking to the living, albeit amputated outrage that I
>> suspect many of us feel about this war, as well as a few other disastrous
>> incursions in the 20th and 21st century.
>>   
> 
> The first image that comes to mind is of spray-painting swastikas on
> graves in Jewish cemeteries.  The second image is of an Abu Ghraib of
> the dead.  The idea of violating any human being's grave is revolting
> and anti-human/humanist, secular or otherwise.  I have a real problem
> with "bringing the war home" when that vacuous slogan from the Sixties
> extends to invading the resting places of people who have died in
> combat, whether or not you or anyone likes the war.  Even Americans,
> oddly enough, deserve the amnesty of the grave.
> 
> Ken
> 
> --------------------
> 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"