Monument and festival proposed to honor U.S. draft dodgers
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER STAFF AND NEWS SERVICES
NELSON, B.C. -- Artists and activists in this picturesque lakeside town have announced plans for a bronze monument and festival to honor U.S. draft dodgers who fled to Canada.
"This will mark the courageous legacy of Vietnam War resisters and the Canadians who helped them resettle in this country during that tumultuous era," said Isaac Romano, director of Our Way Home, a celebration set for July 8-9, 2006.
At a news conference last week, Romano said those to be honored range from draft-card burners during the Vietnam War in the 1960s and early '70s to immigrants who have fled from military barracks to escape the current war in Iraq.
Dennis Klein, a sculptor and teacher at Kootenay School of the Arts, and artist Naomi Lewis have been chosen to make a memorial depicting Canadians embracing the hands of American resisters.
"I've met so many draft resisters over the years, and some of them are local peers of mine that are artists and others are a part of the community," Klein said.
"It would be nice to honor them and all those that actually took a step towards peace."
A heritage design adviser, Robert Inwood, is working to find a site and raise money for the monument in Nelson, a town of about 10,000 with a lively arts community at the west end of Kootenay Lake about 410 miles east of Vancouver, B.C., and 150 miles north of Spokane.
As it says above Artists and activists plan on honoring.....Artists and activists - who fricking cares. That's like asking the "Dixie Chicks" for thier political opinion...
