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Comment by jronald | Hacker News Reader

Coopting memorials this way bothers me, especially in the case where the person being idealized would have been against it. I do appreciate the relevancy of the memorial being used. Using the location and its history as a running point for a demonstration / gathering would have been more impactful as well as being respectful to the purpose of the memorial.

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>>"They fused it to part of the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument, a memorial to Revolutionary War soldiers."

I'm not sure that the Prison Ship Martyrs would have minded. And I disagree that hosting a "demonstration / gathering would have been more impactful as well as being respectful". It certainly wouldn't have been more impactful, as I am fairly confident that I wouldn't have even heard of it had that occurred. As for disrespecting the monument, I can imagine war heroes preferring temporary or even permanent defacement of their memorial as preferable to the memorial remaining in tact while freedom is destroyed instead.

> Using the location and its history as a running point for a demonstration / gathering would have been more impactful

Would we know about it on HN?

Agreed. I love the sentiment behind this, but lets not deface existing monuments/memorials.

I'm not sure Snowden would be against it, if it stood a good chance of getting people talking about the upcoming reauthorization of the Patriot Act on June 1.

Hell yeah he would be for it, he was willing to stoop to an extended penis joke in his interview with John Oliver: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEVlyP4_11M

My statement regarding approval was referencing the article: "The artists admit that Snowden probably wouldn’t approve of the project, since he never wanted the leaks to be about him, but they hope he’d understand why they did it."

Considering it was intended to be a temporary art installation, the MIT Hacks reference seems appropriate: " It is a traditional courtesy to leave a note or even engineering drawings behind, as an aid to safe de-installation of a hack."-nightworks

The difference is that this was intended to be temporary and decisions were made to ensure safe removal, which I appreciate, but no instructions were left to a staff, possibly unfamiliar with the removal procedures, leading to risk of damage to the monument.

I also think it unfair to assume the victims for which the memorial was for would believe this is a valid usage - while the theme is close, the artists are equating Prisoners of War losing their life in a situation they had no control over ( at that point), versus a situation very much in the hands of snowden (ignoring the injustices, there are and have been many decision open to him). Having researched a bit more, equating the situation of a single person, to the thousands (~11,500) who were effectively murdered due to the inhumane conditions of their captivity is distasteful at best.

This is an opinion I know, and I appreciate this is a civil conversation if unpopular. I urge more reading on the memorial itself and its reason.

I'm still trying to decide how I feel about the presentation and the underlying messages that episode delivered. On one hand, I believe it is sadly necessary to present the issue in such elementary terms to the people who wouldn't otherwise give a shit. I don't think it trivializes the problem - it just makes it more accessible to the ignorant (at best) or WorldStarHipHop-filming (at worst) voting population.

On a tangent, I think Jon's demeanor was a bit to jerkish for my taste. I appreciate the desire to not look like a softball interviewer, but some of his jokes and remarks and mannerisms were embarrassing either in its insult to Ed/Julian or in its pure unfunny character.

My support for Edward Snowden is unstinting. Nevertheless, I think what they've done here is wrong. In my opinion, they desecrate another monument, and they have no business doing so.

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