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To
the editors of the New York Times
from Marshall Weber
Dear
Editors,
While some type of memorial for those who perished in the horrific
attack on the World Trade Center should be considered in the future,
to aggressively erect (I use the world literally and purposefully
here) a light polluting "Batcall" seems hasty and ill conceived.
As
the civilian casualties in our war in Afghanistan mount and surpass
those murdered in the WTC Towers it seems a little callous of us
to go beyond the necessary memorial services with a flippant spectacle
such as the Towers of Light.
Of
course, the fact that the Towers of Light are directly plagiarized
from the Cathedral of Light spectacle that Nazi architect Albert
Speer designed for Hitler's triumphal Nuremburg Rally in 1934 should
not surprise us. We are an amnesiac nation and the creators of the
New York version are, like Speers, young, enthusiastic architects
who seem completely oblivious to the cynical use of their luminous
war-swords. Monumental hubris, after all, is typical of the occupations
of both architects and professional rich kids like George and Osama.
Speers'
version had two rows of sky lights instead of just two towers, but
the similarity is startling right down to the duality of design,
and the technology utilized. Then as today, columns of light are
penetrating the skies, announcing a purifying crusade to both the
gods and the world.
Substitute
Bush for Hitler, substitute Moslems for Jews, substitute detainment
camp (or occupied territories) for concentration camp, remind yourself
that the actual word that our illegally unelected president used
in his first public speech after 9/11 was "crusade," then check
your history books and recall that Bush's grandfather Prescott (an
infamous anti-Semite) made quite a bit of the family money by bonding
the shipping lines that supplied early Nazi Germany with the steel
it needed to pursue World War Two (with his Nazi sympathizer buddy
Averill Harriman and the Morgan bank ) and you've got the ingredients
for World War Three.
Proud
to be a New Yorker!
Marshall
Weber
Marshall
Weber is an artist and teacher currently living in New York City.
He holds both a BFA and an MFA (in Performance/Video) from the San
Francisco Art Institute. Weber was co-founder of Artists Television
Access in San Francisco and recently co-founded Booklyn Artists
Alliance in New York City. Weber has spent the last decade working
on a body of public artworks that evoke the tensions between theological
and political identities. The Booklyn Artists Alliance is a national
artist run non-profit organization that publishes, distributes and
curates exhibitions of artists' books and related installation and
performance art work. www.booklyn.org
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