Art/Culture

Hollywood Celebrities vs. Washington Lobbyists

Posted by on September 17, 2008 at 2:07 pm. 1 Comments :

Last night I attended the Barack Obama fundraiser at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills. No, I did not pay $2,500 to see Barbra Streisand serenade the candidate and 800 of his closest Hollywood friends. But I did mingle with these elitists outside of the lobby as the overflow crowd waited to enter the ballroom. I spent much of the two hours handing out my McCain – NOPE stickers to amused guests who didn’t seem too perturbed by the long delay.

From my perspective as an outsider, it was like a big party. The enthusiasm and the turnout surprised even the hosts, who had to deal with a crowd that was 50% bigger than anyone anticipated. And at these prices, that kind of demand is startling. Everyone was excited and festive and more than gracious to this lowly artist who obviously was not in their social strata. It was gratifying to personally put my artwork into the hands of folks like Magic Johnson, Sarah Silverman, and Obama’s campaign manager, David Axelrod.

The distinction between this crowd and the one for John McCain that I encountered a few weeks ago at the Beverly Hilton Hotel (yep, McCain came to Beverly Hills too), was pronounced. McCain’s event, which reportedly earned about $3 million (1/3 of Obama’s take), was subdued and sparsely populated by dour looking people in dark suits. Although Hollywood was represented by actor-elitists Robert Duvall and Jon Voight.

News reports of the Obama/Streisand event have predictably focused on the glamor and the locale. There is a built in presumption on the part of the press that this sort of program is somehow disrespectful to those Americans who are undergoing hardships brought on by the economy or natural disaster. However, Obama’s remarks touched on these matters and he reminded his well-to-do audience that “This is not a reality show.”

“This should be a celebratory evening. We’ve got 48 days to go in a campaign, a campaign that started 19 months ago, at a time when a lot of folks thought we might not get here [but] I’m not in a celebratory mood,”

~~~

“[This campaign] is about those who will never see the inside of a building like this and don’t resent the success that’s represented in this room, but just want the simple chance to be able to find a job that pays a living wage.”

Clearly Obama has the American people on his mind. Nevertheless, the media is still portraying the event as a gathering of elitists and allowing McCain to mock the affair and paint Obama as out of touch for having a party while he (McCain) was visiting workers in Ohio. What the press is leaving out is that McCain held his own fundraiser on Monday at the exclusive InterContinental Hotel in Miami. This was the same day that the stock market crashed 500 points. Tickets for his event were $50,000 a piece (twice what Obama’s campaign was charging), and it was attended by a small group of Washington and Florida insiders and lobbyists. Why is there no outrage at this demonstration of McCain’s insensitivity to regular, hard-working Americans? Is it the “liberal” media?

The hypocrisy is veritably dripping from McCain’s wrinkled brow. He criticizes Obama for having Hollywood friends while ignoring his own Tinseltown pals (see Friends of Abe). He blasts Obama for holding a gala just one day after his own ritzy and twice as costly affair in Miami. He promotes his visit with workers despite having voted against their interests (i.e. unions, minimum wage, healthcare, etc.) for 26 years.

When it comes to assessing politicians based on their associations, voters need to ask themselves who has better comprehension of their lives, their aspirations, their ordeals, their hopes. Is it…

Lobbyists, who have devoted their privileged existences to enriching themselves and their multinational corporate clients?
Or is it artists, many of whom started with nothing and achieved success through their creative ability to produce work that regular people can relate to and find inspiration in?

Lobbyists, who are successful when their selfishness and greed produce a transfer of billions of dollars of America’s wealth into the private accounts of profiteers?
Or artists, who are successful when their talent and insight produce empathy, understanding, and, at the very least, entertainment?

Lobbyists, who serve a narrow and powerful clique of clandestine country clubbers?
Or artists, who serve millions of average Americans who feel a personal affinity for them and their work?

For the record, this is not the first time McCain has taken swipes at Streisand. On October 19, 2002, McCain appeared on Saturday Night Live to do a spoof wherein he tortured a selection of Streisand numbers. It was actually pretty funny, but the message was repugnant. At the climax he says…

“Do I know how to sing? About as well as she [Streisand] knows how to govern America!”

If the last 26 years is an example of how well he governs, frankly, I’d rather listen to him sing. The obvious extension of his joke is that anyone who does any job other than serving in Congress is unqualified to have an opinion about what our government does in our name. So McCain has exempted this singer and businesswoman from participation in our democracy. Would he also exempt farmers and teachers, and welders? This is the real elitist bullshit. If we’re qualified to vote them into office, then we’re qualified to comment on the job they are doing. Even if we’re merely artists. (See my essay on Creativism And The Rise Of The Art Insurgency).

Hollywood Celebrities vs. Washington Lobbyists? It’s not even close!

In Defense Of The Pre-9/11 Mindset: Reprise

Posted by on September 11, 2008 at 8:55 am. 2 Comments :

[On September 11, 2006, I wrote an essay about how the American perception of its place in the world supposedly shifted after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. I reprint it here today because, sadly, it’s still true.]

In September of 2004, Vice President Dick Cheney, in a sinister demonization of Democrats, warned that…

“if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we’ll get hit again, and we’ll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States, and it will fall back into the pre-9/11 mindset, if you will, that in fact, these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts and that we’re not really at war.”

The Pre-9/11 Mindset is much maligned as mindsets go. Disdain is heaped upon it as if it were a discarded hypothesis. There is now a stigma associated with a worldview that was perfectly acceptable 24 hours prior. And a cadre of power hungry fear merchants is restlessly hawking the notion that everything we thought we knew has withered into irrelevance. The Post-9/11ers propose that an imaginary line has been drawn that illuminates the moral and intellectual differences between those who stand on one side or the other. So what exactly does it mean to be 9/10ish?

I remember clearly what was on my mind. I was still upset that a pretend cowboy, whose intellectual marbles rattled around vacantly in his 2 gallon hat, had gotten away with stealing an election. I was recalling, with renewed appreciation, an era of domestic surplus and international cooperation. Or as The Onion headline put it when Bush was first elected, “Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over.”

9/11 was undoubtedly an unwelcome milestone in American history. But the idea that everything changed on that day is shallow and puerile. The history of human civilization reveals that we simply do not change that much from one century to the next. And the events that actually do precipitate change are rarely the ones we presume them to be. There was terrorism before 9/11. There were birthdays and funerals and parking tickets and snow cones and life’s everyday extraordinary spectrum of pleasure no matter how painful.

What changed was that a nation that was once perceived to be inviolable and courageous was now seen as vulnerable and afraid. Like a child lost in a crowd, America was searching for a guardian, but what we got was no angel. As President Bush took to the mound of rubble for his megaphone moment, he was not alone. He was accompanied by a media that sought to construct a hero where none stood. I must admit that it was an ambitious undertaking considering the weakness of the raw material. They took an inarticulate, persistently mediocre, dynastic runt, who on September tenth was considered by many to be Crawford’s lost idiot, and transformed him into a statesman overnight. The enormity of this achievement underscores the power of the media.

My Pre-9/11 Mindset was thrust into fear on that transitory day because I knew that the imbecile we were stuck with in the White House was incapable of reacting appropriately to the threat. I remember vainly trying to persuade previously reasonable people that if they thought Bush was a moron the day before, there was nothing in his breakfast that infused him with wisdom on that sad morning.

What transpired since has, regrettably, proven me right. We toppled the Taliban but let the 9/11 commander escape. Now the remnants of the Taliban are rising again and creating havoc in an unprepared and unstable Afghanistan. We were misled into an unrelated conflagration in Iraq via fear and deception. Now tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians have been liberated – liberated from the confines of their physical bodies. It’s too bad that these liberated corpses will be unable to march in the parades celebrating their liberation. A world that had nothing but sympathy for us after 9/11, is now repulsed by our arrogance. At home we are paying for our adventures by burdening the next few generations with a record debt. And we pay a much greater price in the cost of lost liberties, courtesy of a despotic cabal in Washington that has more trust in fear than it does in our Constitution.

The historical revisionists that cast the Pre-9/11 Mindset as a pejorative are blind to its inherent virtue. The Pre-9/11 Mindset honors civil liberties and human rights. It recognizes real threats and inspires the courage to face them. It demands responsibility and accountability from those who manage our public affairs. It condemns preemptive warfare and torture. The Pre-9/11 Mindset is not consumed with fear, division, and domination. It is rooted in reality with its branches facing the sunrise.

The Pre-9/11 Mindset is superior in every aspect to the Post-9/11 apocalyptic nightmare that has been thrust upon us. Its adoption is, in fact, our best hope for crawling out from under the shroud that drapes our national psyche. Vice President Cheney also said that…

“Terrorist attacks are not caused by the use of strength. They are invited by the perception of weakness.”

If that’s true, then the terrorists must have perceived the weakness of the Bush administration and considered it an invitation to launch their attack. How do you suppose they perceive us now? They’ve seen the passage of the Patriot Act that limits long-held freedoms. They’ve seen our government listening in on our phone calls and monitoring our financial transactions. They see us lining up at airport terminals shoeless and forced to surrender our shampoo and Evian water. They see us mourning the loss of our sons and daughters who are not even engaged in battle with the 9/11 perpetrators. They see us as fearful and submissive. Is this not emboldening the terrorists for whom this perception of weakness will be seen as yet another invitation to attack?

Yes, I have a Pre-9/11 Mindset and it is not a yearning for a simpler bygone era of harmony. You could hardly call the maiden year of this century simple or harmonious. I have a Pre-9/11 Mindset because I’ve had it all along; all through the Post-9/11 defeatism and scare-mongering; through the war posturing and false bravado; through the sordid attempts to divide Americans and vilify dissenters; through the bigotry and arrogance of those who believe that their way is the right way and the world will concur as soon as we’re done beating it into them. I have a Pre-9/11 Mindset because I have not let the Post-9/11 Mindset infect my spirit with its yearning for a bygone era that more closely resembles the Dark Ages than the Renaissance.

Pre-9/11 Mindset Post-9/11 Mindset
Enduring Peace Perpetual War
Prosperity Poverty and Debt
Civil Rights The Patriot Act
Human rights Torture
Accountability Corruption
Reality Fear

I have a Pre-9/11 Mindset because I have a mind, and I use it.

McCain And Palin: Stars In Their Eyes

Posted by on September 4, 2008 at 4:03 pm. 5 Comments :

For months now, John McCain has been belittling Barack Obama as inexperienced and unprepared to be president. Much of the criticism has targeted his speech making prowess and charisma, which McCain characterizes as the hollow trappings of celebrity. There was even an ad that attacked Obama as the “biggest celebrity in the world,” and juxtaposed his image with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. McCain himself said that:

“The bottom line is that Sen. Obama’s words, for all their eloquence and passion, don’t mean all that much.”

But now, the day after Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, the “pit bull in lipstick,” debuted at the Republican National Convention, the campaign, the Party, and the media have all adopted a new view of celebrity. While it was a pejorative when directed Obama, for Palin it elicits the sort of applause and acclaim that is ordinarily reserved for … well, celebrities. Consider this sampling of the press:

Chris Wallace – Fox News: “I don’t think it’s overstating it to say being right here on the floor that a star was born tonight. A new star in the political galaxy.”
Michael Barone – U.S. News & World Report: “Sarah Palin’s speech to the Republican National Convention last night was a home run. A star was born.”
Margaret Carlson – Bloomberg: “On Wednesday night, a political star was born.”
William Kristol – New York Times: “A star is born.”
Karen Breslau – Newsweek: “A populist star is born.”
Art Moore – WorldNetDaily: “A star is born. The country ‘fell in love with Sarah Palin tonight.'”
Rich Lowry – National Review: “After that, you feel like asking not: How did she rise so fast? but Where has she been so long?”

And that’s not all. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper, MSNBC’s Pat Buchanan and Joe Scarborough, and Fox News’ Brit Hume and Dick Morris, all used some variation of the “Star is Born” theme to describe Palin’s debut. And all it took was one speech for the GOP establishment, and the media at large, to succumb to the charms of a heretofore unknown political neophyte who, two years ago, was the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, population 6,000. One speech to transform the perception of this newcomer into someone qualified to be a 72 year old heartbeat from the presidency. Just one extensively rehearsed, meticulously stage-crafted speech.

So now Republicans, who demeaned Obama for attracting positive attention and adoring fans, is boasting that they have their own idol at whom to stare glassy-eyed. Now the media is abuzz with glowing notices for Palin’s opening night. And yet the McCain/Palin camp is still bashing the press as biased, despite the unfiltered adulation that is being blasted at them from all sides. The press is being castigated for doing what any professional journalist would acknowledge is their job. Politico’s Roger Simon is one of the very few who see the irony in this. He penned a must-read column that sarcastically explains “Why the media should apologize.”

“We have asked pathetic questions like: Who is Sarah Palin? What is her record? Where does she stand on the issues? And is she is qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency? […] Bad questions. Bad media. Bad.”

In her address last night, Palin spoke of “dramatic speeches before devoted followers” and wondered what happens “when the cloud of rhetoric has passed… when the roar of the crowd fades away.” But no one in the press observed that she might as well have been talking about herself, even more than Obama. After all, Obama has been on the campaign trail for 19 months developing the devotion of his supporters, but Palin has achieved the task after a grand total of four days and one speech. Four days during which she has been sequestered from the public by the campaign which has not offered her up for a single press conference. Despite the many controversies swirling around her appointment, she has so far only sat for an interview with the hard-hitting People Magazine. There is talk that she will appear on a Sunday morning news program this weekend. Guess which one. Fox News Sunday!

The result of all of this is that the two arguments McCain has used most aggressively against Obama – his experience and his celebrity – have both been rendered inert. Palin has less experience and, contrary to Obama’s multitude of stirring public addresses, Palin still has – and, I repeat – just one speech. The fanatical fawning of faithful Republicans is bad enough, but not unexpected. From the media, however, it is just plain creepy. Is anyone paying attention?

America’s Barack

Posted by on August 29, 2008 at 3:57 pm. NO Comments :

America Is Back!

History was made on August 28, 2008, when Barack Obama accepted the nomination of the Democratic Party to run for President of the United States. On the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, the manifestation of that dream has come to pass. The fulfillment of this dream is a declaration that we can come back from the dark days of division that characterized the past eight years, and much of the past two hundred. And it is evidence that the people, when inspired, will rise up to take back their country. Barack Obama is merely the reflection of our own hopes and dreams. We are America, and…

America’s Barack

Get Your America’s Barack Stickers and T-Shirts today.

An excerpt from Obama’s acceptance speech:

“For eighteen long months, you have stood up, one by one, and said enough to the politics of the past. You understand that in this election, the greatest risk we can take is to try the same old politics with the same old players and expect a different result. You have shown what history teaches us – that at defining moments like this one, the change we need doesn’t come from Washington. Change comes to Washington. Change happens because the American people demand it – because they rise up and insist on new ideas and new leadership, a new politics for a new time.”

With that declaration I was transformed from a contrarian bent primarily on defeating John McCain, to an affirmative supporter of Obama. My journey meandered through an attempt to draft Russ Feingold, to an advocate of John Edwards new found populism, to settling for an Obama candidacy that seemed at the time to be too conciliatory.

I dedicated myself to expressing my opposition to McCain via my art and words. (see McCain – NOPE). I have developed quite a collection of anti-McCain/Republican pieces. But, until now, I have not created a single piece that was “pro” anything.

That’s changed. I now have a candidate that I can forthrightly support. Someone who represents ideals that have driven my activism for years. My new work reflects that optimism. It’s a strange feeling for me. I know that a speech that articulates the views I cherish does not necessarily evolve into the actions and accomplishments I seek. But it is critical that the words be spoken. The goals cannot begin to be realized without the vocal intention to pursue them. And Obama is saying the right things.

Another speech by Martin Luther King included a phrase that shaped my life as an artist:

“We must be prepared to match actions with words by seeking out every creative means of protest possible.”

I’m not sure that King meant the arts when he said “creative,” but that’s the way I chose to read it. And it’s one of the first recollections I have of perceiving art as an act of conscience and rebellion. Prior to that I drew a lot of superheroes and hot rods (I was twelve, at the time). I had become radicalized, and I knew that at least part of my work had to be devoted to making a better world.

If Obama continues to speak the sort of truths, and to address the sort of aspirations, that call people to unite for the high ideals illuminated in his acceptance speech, he will radicalize a new generation that will compel him, and his successors, to follow through on the dreams that he, and King, and millions of other compassionate citizens of the world have yearned for.

We ARE back. The people are back. Compassion is back. Justice is back.

America’s BAraCK

Vote For John McCain For A Prison-Tested President

Posted by on August 27, 2008 at 4:37 pm. NO Comments :

Running for president requires great strength and stamina. The race is long and treacherous. John McCain has been forcefully pushing his argument that he is better qualified for the job than his opponent, Barack Obama. In fact, McCain contends that Obama is not qualified at all. The latest McCain ad says that Obama is “dangerously unprepared” to be president. So what makes McCain so ready to be Commander-in-Chief?

Purely from paying attention to McCain’s press releases and stump speeches, the primary qualification he possesses is his experience as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. He repeats the tale of his captivity with every opportunity that presents itself. Even when there is no opportunity, he labors to wedge the story in anyway. It’s the foundation of his policy positions and his excuse for any mistake he’s ever made. So I thought I’d help him out and produce a poster that features his best case for inhabiting the White House:

McCain is the only candidate who can claim to possess leadership forged by prison. While his comrades were fighting in the jungle, engaging the enemy, developing battle plans, and accumulating command skills, McCain was sitting in a musty cell, enduring interrogations (where he eventually divulged tactical information and confessed to war crimes), and generally following the orders of his captors. What better preparation is there for high office in Washington, DC?

McCain shares a legacy of Republican lawmakers who have run afoul of the law. His own brush with the American criminal justice system came via his association with convicted banker, Charles Keating. And his Navy pilot colleague, Duke Cunningham, is presently serving an eight year sentence for conspiracy to commit bribery, mail fraud, wire fraud, and tax evasion. McCain’s more recent band of brothers range from criminal figures like Watergate burglar G. Gordon Liddy, to convicted obstructer of justice Oliver North, to pardoned perjurer Scooter Libby, to indicted bribery defendant and Senate pal Ted Stevens.

McCain’s own incarceration was not due to any stateside criminality. He was honorably serving his country at war and was shot out of the sky by the enemy. But since he has raised his captivity as evidence of his fitness to be president, then it’s only fair to place it in the context of others whose imprisonment may have enhanced their character and leadership ability as well.

McCain and his campaign staff have sought to grant immunity to McCain for any misdeeds he might perform. They assert that no one who has served his country the way McCain did could possibly ever do anything wrong. (Tell that to Duke Cunningham). But if that’s true, they better open up America’s prison gates and release the thousands of veterans who sadly went astray and committed acts of violence, greed, and drug abuse. Many of their lives were thrown off course as a direct result of their military service. They returned home to poverty and despair, and many were abandoned by their country when they were in need. But with the criteria that McCain has now introduced with which to measure leadership potential, perhaps we need to reexamine the cons and ex-cons whose incarceration has presumably transformed them into the same sort of leader that McCain is.

It’s not particularly surprising that McCain would chose to highlight this part of his resume, because the remainder of his public career was as a senator who was undistinguished other than as a rubber stamp for the Bush administration. That’s why he has to dig back 40 years to find something to recommend him to a new generation of American voters, many of whom weren’t even born when the Vietnam war was being fought. If residence in a prisoner of war camp 40 years ago qualifies one for the presidency, then how much better is it to have a more recent prison record?

To be clear, I am not comparing imprisonment by enemy captors to that of law breakers. One should evoke expressions of sympathy and gratitude, and the other punishment and, perhaps, mercy. But the actual activity engaged in by prisoners is not exactly a prerequisite for executive management. The solitary and monotonous experience of life in a cell may produce some profound lessons, but none of them relate to governing a country. If McCain wants to persuade people that he is more qualified to be president than Obama, he had better find a more persuasive argument.

McCain Photo Leaked From Republican Convention Hall

Posted by on August 22, 2008 at 10:53 pm. 3 Comments :

As Democrats finalize preparation for their convention starting Monday, Republicans are still getting their event organized. However, News Corpse has obtained a secretly taken photo from the tightly secured rehearsal hall:

This photo confirms that McCain’s campaign strategy for the fall is going to rely on his status as a prisoner of war. In 1967, John McCain was shot out of the North Vietnamese sky, crash landed in a lake, taken prisoner, and held in captivity for … 41 years, so far.

McCain can’t refrain from exploiting his terrible ordeal as a prop to boost his electoral prospects. After using his captivity as a cynical and absurd response to his housing controversy, you wonder just how far he will take it. Trapper John at Daily Kos speculated earlier today as to how McCain’s camp would respond to any controversy that might arise:

McCain Accused Of Taking Bribes From Abramoff: “This is a guy who didn’t touch hard currency for five and a half years — in prison,” spokesman Brian Rogers told the Washington Post.

2003 McCain Arrest for DWI Uncovered: “This is a guy who didn’t have a sip of booze for five and a half years — in prison,” spokesman Brian Rogers told the Washington Post.

McCain Caught Cheating With 22 Year-Old ASU Intern: “This is a guy who didn’t get laid at all for five and a half years — in prison,” spokesman Brian Rogers told the Washington Post.

Surprisingly, the media is not being led around on a leash like they usually are. Many are incredulous that McCain would so foolishly dilute the impact of what is his most compelling story.

Time: The McCain campaign’s constant invocation of the candidate’s POW past is weird bordering on irrational […] It’s a head-spinning non sequitur, designed to distract us from something mildly troubling with the assertion of something impressive.

Newsweek: I think they are going to it way too many times…. I think he wisely for many years stayed away from it as a political tool, he really did. But now it not only defines him, it’s become a crutch in the campaign. And I think he is in danger of trivializing it.

Politico: It does seem like they’re flirting with Giuliani/9/11 territory here, in which a subject that seems utterly immune to humor, used as a first resort, suddenly becomes a running joke among your political enemies and your late night comic friends.

Talking Points Memo: The McCain campaign is cranking out all these bills with a little ‘McCain as P.O.W.’ logo on it and is trying to use them to buy their way out of every controversy that comes along. Pretty soon the McCain team’s money won’t be good anywhere.

Huffington Post: …to see McCain resort to playing the POW card when answering legitimate questions, in my mind, cheapens that experience. And by cheapening his own experience in war, he degrades all of our experiences in war. He turns the horrific incidents we’ve all seen, touched, smelled, and felt into a lame excuse to earn political points. And it dishonors us all.

‘Nuff said.

Jon Stewart: Ready For His New York Times Close-Up

Posted by on August 17, 2008 at 11:15 am. NO Comments :

It is not surprising that Jon Stewart is getting some “real media” cred. Four years ago I wrote an article titled “The Real Fake News.” It illustrated how far the Conventional Media had sunk. While they were littered with plagiarists, fabricators, tabloid trivialities, and press releases produced by parties with vested interests in the content, the Daily Show was winning Emmys and Peabodys and praise from respected media institutions like the Columbia Journalism Review. The past four years has only validated my argument that Comedy Central is producing a more informational and insightful news broadcast than the so-called “real” media. And news consumers have responded by flocking to the Daily Show and the Colbert Report at the same time that they are abandoning newspapers and broadcast news.

Today the New York Times has published a feature story profiling Stewart. For the most part it is a routine celebrity piece, but it does hit a couple of significant points. I have long maintained that the Daily Show is not political satire – it is media satire. While the jokes frequently target politicians, it is the press that is really in their sights. The Times touches on this concept briefly:

“…at a time when Fox, MSNBC and CNN routinely mix news and entertainment, larding their 24-hour schedules with bloviation fests and marathon coverage of sexual predators and dead celebrities, it’s been ‘The Daily Show’ that has tenaciously tracked big, ‘super depressing’ issues like the cherry-picking of prewar intelligence, the politicization of the Department of Justice and the efforts of the Bush White House to augment its executive power.”

The Times also noted how Stewart amped up his political focus after 9/11 with segments that showed “the White House’s efforts to manage the news media,” and “the foibles of an administration known for its secrecy, ideological certainty and impatience with dissenting viewpoints.” The article also provided a quote that many will be able to relate to. Stewart said that he is looking forward to the end of the Bush administration “as a comedian, as a person, as a citizen, as a mammal.”

Mammals across America, and the world, are cheering in agreement right now.

Bush: Back On The Bottle?

Posted by on August 12, 2008 at 3:32 am. 45 Comments :

Bush DrunkThe national embarrassment that is our president once again raises its reddened face. In photographs from the Olympics in China, it appears that recovering souse, George W. Bush, is relapsing.

In one picture his face is flushed, his eyes droop, and his expression is dopey. In all fairness, that may be his normal expression. However, the bloody scrape on his arm suggests that he has recently taken a less than normal fall.

In the other picture, Bush appears to be having trouble remaining upright without considerable help. It takes three men to prop up the wobbly boozer-in-chief.

Don’t it make ya feel proud?

This is the man that John McCain’s 3rd term would seek to emulate if, Heaven forbid, he gets the chance. However, this is not the first evidence of Bush’s backsliding. First and foremost, that high bar of American journalism, the National Enquirer, wrote about it three years ago.

EOnline reported last year that Bush’s return to drinking drove Laura to move out of the White House and to a possible split-up. Other rumors had her house hunting in Dallas for a post-presidency home away from George.

Both the Globe and Examiner covered Laura’s “eruption” at her hubby’s imbibing.

Just last month Bush accused Wall Street of getting drunk and having a hangover. Perhaps they were binging together. We know how close they are.

This is a president who can’t stay upright on a bicycle and who nearly chokes to death on pretzels. Maybe we’ll get a better picture of the man when Oliver Stone’s movie “W” is released in a couple of months. Stone’s script reportedly has Bush Sr. telling his no-good progeny that…

“You never kept your word once…you’re only good for partying, chasing tail, driving drunk…You deeply disappoint me.”

He deeply disappoints us all. This is what America gets when they vote for the guy they’d most like to have a beer with.

The Waterboard Thrill Ride

Posted by on August 6, 2008 at 4:35 pm. 4 Comments :

Late last month artist Steve Powers installed a new amusement at New York’s Coney Island – the Waterboard Thrill Ride:


Photo: Tom Giebel (atomische.com)

This will exhibit, which features a scene of an animatronic torturer and victim, will continue through the summer. Feeding a dollar through the slot in the front, will set the scene, viewed through jail bars, in motion.

Powers: “It’s about time that this uniquely American ritual of intense water horror, a practice long reserved for New England witches and Al-Qaida brass, was made available to the people. This project will give some everyday New Yorkers the chance to experience – for a few brief, bone-chilling seconds – all the thrills of being a prisoner under interrogation at Guantanamo Bay. And the installation is fun for the whole family.”

Once again, an artist has found the most succinct and visceral way to express the horror of what our country is doing in our names. Since our leaders are unable to concede that this barbaric practice is torture, Powers has found another description that illustrates the obscenity of pretending that a universally recognized method of torture is really just “enhanced interrogation.” How can it be bad if it’s enhanced?

This exhibit is stirring some controversy, as do most exhibits with profound social messages. Last year Steve Kurtz was arrested and harassed for expressing himself. In 2006 Dread Scott’s show was ordered shut down even though it did nothing that that George Bush hasn’t done. If nothing else, these episodes prove that artists are still the most dangerous members of society.

John McCain’s Summer of Love American Style

Posted by on July 25, 2008 at 3:27 pm. 2 Comments :

In 1967, John McCain was shot out of the North Vietnamese sky, crash landed in a lake, taken prisoner, and held in captivity for … 41 years, so far.

No one can dismiss the unimaginable agony of enduring six years in an enemy prisoner of war camp. It is surely a brutal experience both physically and mentally. It is the sort of experience that never leaves you and, indeed, it seems never to have left John McCain. His entire post-POW frame of reference is shaped by what he went through, and also by what he missed as a consequence of his incarceration.

The tenor of his candidacy is quagmired in history, and that is not a reference to his age. It is his policy proposals that harken back to the past. And it is a vision of the past that is still very much alive in McCain’s mind. His arrest in Vietnam simultaneously arrested his growth as an observer of politics, foreign affairs, and diplomacy.

It’s hard to tell lately if McCain is running to succeed President Bush, Gen. Petraeus, or perhaps Gen. Westmoreland. The persistent theme that McCain has adopted with regard to Iraq is identical to the 1970’s era military establishment and Richard Nixon’s “Peace With Honor” contrivance. Nixon also promised to stay the course and bring our troops home when victory was achieved, despite overwhelming agreement, even amongst his advisers, that nothing recognizable as victory was likely to result in Vietnam.

Now, McCain accuses Obama of preferring to lose a war in order to win a political campaign. But it is McCain who is pursuing a political goal at the expense of America’s interests. McCain is crafting an election scheme that parallels Nixon’s in 1972. Win the office by assuring voters that America is always right and thus, invincible. Then worry about proving it later. Unfortunately, the post-election scenario would also mirror Nixon’s, with an eventual withdrawal from Iraq that fails to achieve any objective articulated by Bush or McCain. And like Nixon’s mis-adventures in Laos and Cambodia, McCain’s Iraq exit could include a detour through Iran. But McCain doesn’t concern himself with these realities because he is too fixated on prevailing politically. And that’s exactly what he is hypocritically accusing Obama of.

As further evidence of McCain’s confinement to the past, consider his recent advertisement titled “Summer of Love.” It begins with images of colorful Hippies at protests, and music festivals. The announcer declares it a time of “uncertainty, hope and change,” skillfully associating uncertainty with two words that have become iconic within Barack Obama’s campaign. It then proceeds to insult an entire generation by asserting that McCain had “another kind of love – of country,” thereby implying that young Americans in the 60’s and 70’s were less than patriotic. As one of them I can assure you that it wasn’t because we hated our country that we dedicated ourselves to peace, civil rights, and free expression. Are those unpatriotic aspirations?

This is not the first time that McCain has attacked the Woodstock generation. In fact, he even opposed modest funding for a museum that commemorated the era and the event. Some may agree with McCain that…

“The Woodstock Museum is a shining example of what’s wrong with Washington on pork-barrel, out-of-control spending.”

Personally, I think that an event that drew nearly half a million people, featured some of the most popular and creative artists in the world, and emerged as emblematic of one of the most significant cultural movements of the century, deserves a small facility for remembrance and study. In addition, the Bethel Woods Arts Center, as it is called, is a working contemporary venue that enriches the community both creatively and financially.

The fact that McCain cannot recognize the importance of that era, and the contributions of citizens who lived through it, is representative of a larger problem for him. The time he spent in captivity was a defining time for those of us back home. There were so many socially profound events that altered just about everyone who lived through them. John McCain was not one of them. The history that shaped millions of Americans, McCain only heard about secondhand, after the fact. For example:

  • The first heart transplant.
  • The assassinations of Martin Luther King and two Kennedys.
  • Watergate and Richard Nixon’s resignation.
  • The Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision.
  • Click here for a more comprehensive list.

So it may not be so surprising that McCain is trapped in a time warp, unable to relate to a country and world that shared these tumultuous experiences, but from which he was excluded. It may explain his hostility to a generation that was arguably more engaged in public service and community activism than any generation before or since. It puts into perspective the persistent pessimism expressed in the ad above that ends by saying to voters “Don’t hope for a better life.”

While many of us who went through the 60’s and 70’s have assimilated those experiences and included them as we’ve grown over time, McCain has remained stagnant and, in many ways, ignorant in the procession of time. That’s why, for us, the Summer of Love will always be remembered with an equal measure of frustration and pride that reflects the reality of that historic time. But McCain will only recall a combination of frightening changes and an idealized portrait of a sitcom utopia. That’s not a vision for the future that offers much hope. It’s not a vision of the future at all.
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