If We Could Change The World (Again)

I’m sorry. I’ve neglected you.

Part of it is being busy with work, but let’s be honest: most of it is heartbreak, disillusionment, worry and fear. I don’t know where we’re headed but all signs point to nothing good. The level of foreign interference in this election is beyond alarming (here and here, for starters). I just don’t have the stomach to worry about trivial stuff like little kids getting their hands on unsecured guns when the entire country is going down a very dark, authoritarian path.

What this means for me and this blog, I don’t know. While I try to figure things out, I wanted to re-post this item from January 2010. I’ve come out of this election feeling like what I wrote back then is more relevant than ever. Without further ado:

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There’s been a lot of talk around the internets about the state of the national Democratic Party, the future of the Tennessee Democratic Party, yada yada. Clearly progressives are disappointed that nationally we’ve received very little for all we did to bring Democrats the majority in 2006 and the White House in 2008. Meanwhile, our state party is filled with “Democrats” like Doug Jackson of Dickson, known for his rabidly pro-life, pro-gun, anti-gay positions, including a bill that would ban gays from being foster parents. And really, TNDP: was Ty Cobb, someone quite possibly more conservative than the Republican who ultimately won the seat, the best we could do?

We are not happy, and now we even have liberal activists from Berkeley and L.A. wanting to primary some of our least heinous Congress Critters. The irony is, the Republican Party is facing the same problem: its rabble-rousing Tea Party base is threatening to purge the GOP of its moderate members, sending folks like Arlen Specter over to my side of the aisle, which frankly doesn’t please me one bit. I get the concept of the “big tent” but when that tent grows so large as to encompass members of the opposite party, something’s wrong. Meanwhile, conservative Dems like Parker Griffith of Alabama have jumped ship to the Republican Party.

So what the heck is going on here?

It all looks like so much shuffling of deck chairs on the Titanic to me. While it’s endless fodder for the Sunday morning gasbag shows and folks like Chris Matthews and Politico, if there’s one thing we’ve learned from the past decade it’s that ultimately, it’s all meaningless. I hate to get all super-cynical here but let’s face it: in terms of really addressing the problems people face–lack of jobs, lack of access to things like a college education for their kids, affordable healthcare, etc.–politics amounts to very little.

The bottom line is, politics won’t fix our country’s problems. We’ve been told by both political parties that politics can change things, and maybe we bought that line for a while, but ultimately regardless of your political persuasion, you must have emerged from the Oughts realizing that’s a BS line peddled by people trying to raise money. The Bush years were a big fail for conservatives, who didn’t get the small government and fiscal restraint they wanted. On the left, Clinton gave us NAFTA, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and welfare “reform,” while Obama, though in office just a year, has already escalated a war and failed to deliver the healthcare reform we need. Yes there have been a few, modest little blips of positive news here and there (mostly on the environment), but our country is sinking faster into the abyss, and it’s members of both parties who are responsible.

So, for people who really want to change things, make them better, who still idealistically believe in changing the world, what do you do? It seems our votes are meaningless. Our government is too broken, the system too corrupted to be fixed the old fashioned way. Our media no longer informs, and now we can no longer even agree on the basic facts of an issue like climate change or healthcare. Everything is just a mass of white noise, with people hollering about “socialism” and “fascism” and “government-run healthcare” and “liberal scientists” and stuff that’s so far removed from reality so as to make the debate meaningless.

I have friends who still believe in the old-fashioned boycott, who are calling on people to do things like dump their health insurance in the hopes of bringing about reform. But I’ve questioned the efficacy of boycotts for years now. We’re just too splintered as a society now.

I have my personal boycotts, I don’t shop at WalMart or any of Lee Beaman’s businesses, or any of Dale Inc.’s businesses. They’re all major contributors to Republican Party candidates and PACs and, in Beaman’s case, wingnutty groups like the Club For Growth, English First and the Swift Boat smearmongers. I don’t want to support that so I don’t do business with those folks but calling for a boycott is going to be as effective as the religious right’s failed boycott of Disney. All it did was make the AFA and Southern Baptist Convention look foolish.

Nothing is black and white anymore (if it ever was); everything is shades of gray. I remember shopping at Whole Foods the day after progressives called for a boycott because of CEO John Mackey’s Wall Street Journal op-ed. The store was as packed as ever. I didn’t join the calls for a boycott because frankly I thought it was stupid to punish a company that supports organic farming, fair trade, local agriculture, etc. because you disagree with the CEO’s position on health reform. But if that’s a boycott you personally want to support, more power to you. We all have our own personal standards, we have to wake up and look at ourselves in the mirror in the morning, so do what you’ve got to do. But making someone feel like a dick because they won’t put their family at risk by dumping their health insurance? Nah, I’m not going to sign up for that.

If voting doesn’t work, and boycotts don’t work, what will? Increasingly I’m convinced that the only thing that will change the world, indeed the only thing that ever has, is the creative arts. Music, literature, art, film: these things hit people on an emotional level, they can transform one’s view of the world and engage people in a way that politics does not.

(To the conservatives rolling their eyes at me right now, let me remind you: Ayn Rand still has a movement today because of her books.)

So I’m going to challenge all of my liberal friends to get creative this year. Now is the time to take an idea and put it to music, movement, poetry or canvass. Take your view of the world and write a short story about it and put it out there. The mass media has changed, the gatekeepers are gone. Anyone can put their work on the internet, on a blog, on YouTube or iTunes. Now is the time to express yourself. Enough with the electioneering and fundraising and petitioning. Now is the time to touch people where it will do the most good: in their hearts.

And to my creative women friends, I’d like to call your attention to the Tennessee Women’s Theater Project’s 2010 call for entries for its spring Women’s Work showcase. All sorts of creative arts are represented, not just dramatic works. Check it out!

So my liberal progressive friends: Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is simple. Express yourselves.

Now get busy.

It’s The Sarah Palin Smoker-Sculpture

Apparently this sculpture/barbecue smoker debuted in Memphis last year, but this is the first I’ve heard of it. Why a sculpture/barbecue smoker? I’m going to guess it had something to do with the Memphis In May barbecue festival, but my Memphis friends will have to confirm that.

When it’s in barbecue mode, according to the article, Palin’s head appears to be “steaming with anger”:

J. Taylor Wallace’s work is currently on display outside Chicago’s Bridgeport Art Center. Not surprisingly, the irony has been completely lost on the perpetually aggrieved Tea Party cult. No, they are not amused, and they have directed their inchoate, homophobic rage at the artist.

From the article:

“I’ve gotten some really lovely emails, like, ‘You suck, and you’ll be the next one to burn,'” says Wallace. Here are a few choice selections from the artist’s inbox:

It is a matter of time till you are the pig, was it fun for you pig.

Enjoy your 15 minutes of fame by insulting someone. Looks more like a morph of H Clinton and R Maddow, anyway.

I noticed your work of art in the Chicago Tribune this morning. I am sure you are elated with the exposure you have received. Unfortunately, you obviously needed to accomplish this by using Sarah Palin (an easy target) as your inspiration. I hope the feminist groups in the United States take note of your efforts to humiliate a woman of intelligence, courage and leadership. The role model that these groups have promoted over the years to have the opportunity to become President or Vice President of our nation has been ridiculed by your “work of art”. I work in the art field, totally enjoy creativity, am not a feminist, and am totally not impressed by your work. I feel sorry for the people of Bridgeport and visitors that will be exposed to your art.

“Amid the hate speech, I have also been called ‘gay’ in what is I presume an attempt to insult me by a particular demographic of individuals,” Wallace says. This vehement opposition to the flavor-imparting Palin dome upset him, at first. “The point is to have a conversation…. For people to get so angry over a piece of artwork is surprising to me.”

Really? You’re surprised by this? I’m not. The lunatic fringe don’t want to have a conversation. That’s the absolute last thing they want to do. Indeed, they want to shut down the conversation. That’s the whole point, after all. That’s why their leaders talk over everyone else on shows like Meet The Press, that’s why they staged the summer Town Brawls, shouting down even the members of Congress hosting these events. That is why they are always being whipped into a frenzy, and that is why they are perpetually “steaming in anger.” The absolute last thing these people want is a conversation, because when we have a conversation reason wins. And they are the opposite of reason.

I’ve always said that art, music, comedy and literature are our best weapons against this lunatic fringe. You can’t shout down art.

Never Seen A Sky So Blue

Car Roulette was a big fail:

Don't think I'll be trying this again....

…. which is okay since we’ve pretty much traded in our car for hiking boots anyway!

Early morning hikes get better photographic results!

Train Roulette

A couple more shots …. The scenery only gets more spectacular from here, I’m told — but we’re switching our transportation to a car. Should I try car roulette?

Traveling Again

I play this game I call “train roulette”: holding my camera, I stick my hand out the train window and shoot blindly. The results have been quite interesting. My favorite is the top one, which was my first stab at train roulette.

Beauty in unexpected places:

An Artist’s Revenge

What have I been saying about the power of the arts? Here’s local artist Brandt Hardin, getting back at Gov. Goofball, er, Bill Haslam, who’s so in favor of small government he signed a law outlawing the display or transmission of “distressing images” online (I wrote about it here.)

Hardin’s picture may cause some distress to Mrs. Haslam — or not, who knows. Maybe the Haslams have a sense of humor? Aw who am I kidding, they’re Republicans. Those people still think Rich Little is funny.

Ironically, news of Haslam’s “distressing images over the internet” bill came in the middle of WeinerGate when, if you recall, Andrew Breitbart was spreading pictures Weiner’s weiner via his iPhone. As far as I know, Breitbart escaped prosecution in Tennessee, so perhaps Hardin’s little stick-at-the-hornet’s-nest stunt will go unremarked too. Then again, IOKIYAR.

(h/t, Pith In The Wind)

>Because We Won’t Be Stopped

>Remember that labor mural Maine Gov. Paul LePage had removed?

This:

Because what authoritarian types always forget is, the spirit is mightier than the fist.

>Courage & Anger

>Frank Rich’s column yesterday, “Gay Bashing At The Smithsonian,” brings to mind an issue which has troubled me for some time. And that’s the issue of courage.

Rich discusses the removal of the late artist David Wojnarowicz’s work from an exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. He writes:

When his mentor and former lover, the photographer Peter Hujar, fell ill with AIDS in 1987, Wojnarowicz created a video titled “A Fire in My Belly” to express both his grief and his fury. As in Haring’s altarpiece, Christ figures in Wojnarowicz’s response to the plague — albeit in a cryptic, 11-second cameo. A crucifix is besieged by ants that evoke frantic souls scurrying in panic as a seemingly impassive God looked on.

This is the piece that was originally included in the Smithsonian’s exhibition, “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture,” which is advertised as “a serious examination of the role sexual identity has played in the creation of modern American portraiture.” The National Portrait Gallery yanked “Fire in My Belly” from its exhibit in early December after the Smithsonian caved to a manufactured piece of outrage which I daresay few Americans even heard about.

Back to Rich:

Like many of its antecedents, the war over Wojnarowicz is a completely manufactured piece of theater. What triggered the abrupt uproar was an incendiary Nov. 29 post on a conservative Web site. The post was immediately and opportunistically seized upon by William Donohue, of the so-called Catholic League, a right-wing publicity mill with no official or financial connection to the Catholic Church.

[…]

It took only hours after Donohue’s initial battle cry for the video to be yanked. “The decision wasn’t caving in,” the museum’s director, Martin E. Sullivan, told reporters. Of course it was. The Smithsonian, in its own official statement, rationalized its censorship by saying that Wojnarowicz’s video “generated a strong response from the public.” That’s nonsense. There wasn’t a strong response from the public — there was no response. As the museum’s own publicist told the press, the National Portrait Gallery hadn’t received a single complaint about “A Fire in the Belly” from the exhibit’s opening day, Oct. 30, until a full month later, when a “public” that hadn’t seen the exhibit was mobilized by Donohue to blast the museum by phone and e-mail.

The museum caved. They caved. Why?

Time and again we see groups (and politicians) cave in the face of such obviously manufactured political theater. Where is the courage? Who thinks capitulation is a winning strategy, that it does nothing more than ensure future fake campaigns?

Why was Shirley Sherrod asked to resign so quickly last summer? Why was Van Jones thrown under the bus? Why do our Democratic leaders and institutions cave to the right wing noise machine, time and time again?

Why do they act so afraid that some pundit somewhere is saying something mean about them?

The fact that Republicans are allowed to do the same (or worse) without any pearl-clutching in the media proves how politically motivated these “fauxtrages” are. It’s all about framing, fear-mongering, indulging in stereotypes and retreading that well-worn path allowing the majority to pretend it is a persecuted minority, thus redirecting anger to a more politically expedient target.

Yes, it pisses me off. And with all of that swirling around in my head I turned the page and read Ishmael Reed’s op-ed piece in the same issue of the New York Times (expanded upon at blogs like my second home, The Swash Zone). Apparently, progressives calling for President Obama (and other Democrats) to show some backbone in the face of unprecedented GOP obstructionism need to STFU because we simply don’t understand what it’s like to be a black person in America:

One progressive commentator played an excerpt from a Harry Truman speech during which Truman screamed about the Republican Party to great applause. He recommended this style to Mr. Obama. If President Obama behaved that way, he’d be dismissed as an angry black militant with a deep hatred of white people. His grade would go from a B- to a D.

What the progressives forget is that black intellectuals have been called “paranoid,” “bitter,” “rowdy,” “angry,” “bullies,” and accused of tirades and diatribes for more than 100 years. Very few of them would have been given a grade above D from most of my teachers.

Um, here’s a news flash for you: President Obama has already been dismissed as an angry black militant with a deep hatred of white people. Or haven’t you been listening to Glenn Beck, the very same right wing commentator who cost Van Jones his job? Were you paying attention when Ben Stein came out and called then-candidate Barack Obama an angry black man on Fox News in 2008? No? Well, we progressives were, and we countered those accusations every time. Where were you?

Look, the “angry” label is nothing new, nor is it unique to black intellectuals. Maybe you weren’t paying attention when Republicans called Hillary Clinton “too angry” to win a presidential election in 2008. Karl Rove called Al Gore “one angry dude.” Howard Dean was too angry to be president in 2004 and here he is screaming after a primary win to prove it! We’re “the angry left,” and voters “don’t elect angry candidates,” as former RNC Chair Ken Mehlman famously told ABC News. (For some reason anger isn’t a negative for the Tea Party, though — despite their guns and Town Hall shouting matches and hanging representatives in effigy. IOKIYAR.)

I get that there is a strategy among those in power exploiting cultural stereotypes and stoking fear of the “angry black male” to oppress black advancement in this country. That’s the same reason we hear women are too emotional and gays are pedophiles and all Muslims are terrorists. We all have our baggage and yes, some people’s baggage might be heavier than others. But that doesn’t mean we capitulate to it. Caving to the whims of the hate machine which makes these erroneous claims does not make them go away. It enables them!

This is standard issue right wing framing. Liberals have been labeled “angry” (even “too angry”) for decades, and guess what, we are angry. We were angry when protestors rioted at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and we were angry when we protested the Vietnam War and we were angry when we burned our bras in the 1970s and we were angry when we protested apartheid in the 1980s and we were angry when we protested the WTO conference in Seattle in 2000. Hell we were so angry over the stolen election in 2000 and subsequent Bush presidential misdeeds that we created a bumper sticker about it, which the Tea Party has conveniently co-opted.

It’s okay to be angry. Angry people get things done. I just never understood why being angry was supposed to be a bad thing, anyway. Just because the RNC says it is?

So no, I’m not going to tell Democrats not to be angry because Tweety might have a sad or Joke Line may wring his hands about frothy-mouthed liberal bloggers. Getting angry is okay, if you are fighting for your principles.

This is where courage comes in. Getting back to Ishmael Reed’s op-ed, I have to say I was mighty offended when I read this:

Unlike white progressives, blacks and Latinos are not used to getting it all. They know how it feels to be unemployed and unable to buy your children Christmas presents. They know when not to shout. The president, the coolest man in the room, who worked among the unemployed in Chicago, knows too.

Well damn, there’s a stereotype for you! Here’s a news flash for Mr. Reed: not all white progressives are used to getting it all, either. And I’ll be damned if I’ll be lectured on stereotypes by someone who can’t even recognize one when it pops out of his own keyboard.

Stand up and show some backbone, Democrats. Don’t cave to the right wing noise machine. Don’t agree to a political approach which neuters liberal outrage, and only allows conservatives to get angry. Every time you do so progress takes a step back. Every capitulation emboldens the opposition. It’s OK to be angry and it’s even better to use that anger to harden your resolve.

And I guarantee you that the Republicans are going to say mean things about you. You can take that to the bank. You know what? They’re going to say mean things anyway.

>Making A Statement

>Damn, y’all. I don’t watch The Simpsons but I read about Banksy doing their opening sequence and … well … damn. Watch it for yourselves:

Kind of the perfect illustration of what I was saying when I wrote this about how to change the world:

If voting doesn’t work, and boycotts don’t work, what will? Increasingly I’m convinced that the only thing that will change the world, indeed the only thing that ever has, is the creative arts. Music, literature, art, film: these things hit people on an emotional level, they can transform one’s view of the world and engage people in a way that politics does not.

I’m increasingly convinced that this is correct.

More on the segment here.

Putting It All Together

Related to this post and this post and the question

How can songs, poems, and the arts counteract such a monolithic malignancy?

In his book “God’s Politics” Jim Wallis says that a politician is someone who won’t make a decision until they stick their finger in the air to determine which way the wind is blowing.

What we need to do, Wallis says, is change the wind.

And that is exactly what the arts does: it changes the wind.