Any F-----g Questions?

by **robertdreed** » Sat Nov 19, 2005 10:23 pm

are you implying that there are factual inaccuracies contained within the article that I posted? As an aside- I find attempts to impeach content through cheap-shot guilt-by-association attacks on authorship to be roughly as intolerable from the Left as from the Right- or from anyone at all attempting to poison the well like that, for that matter. First and foremost, respond to the information points found in the content. P.S.- George Soros continues to feature as a villain- if not an outright war criminal- for everyone from Gen. Barry McCaffrey to Lyndon LaRouche to Justin Raimondo, Ann Coulter, and the uproarious "Tin Ear" blog. And I note that Soros has his detractors on the Left, as well. This is another case where I haven't been appraised of the specific offenses against freedom and humanity being alleged. Anyone care to sum up the data points, and draw me a picture by connecting them? Something more specific than simply "come on...you just know"... Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 11/19/05 8:41 pm

by **Dreams End** » Sat Nov 19, 2005 10:26 pm

totally hijacked this thread...sorry, but I was interested in Soros's real agenda in Eastern Europe...brought me to the Ukraine and their "revolution." Yuschenko, the guy who lost due to "vote fraud" was heavily funded by the Bush administration with the help of George Soros (umm...guess you aren't THAT anti-Bush) <blockquote>Quote:<hr>In the last two years, the Bush Administration spent more than $65 million helping political organizations in the Ukraine. Additional funds have come from George Soros, Great Britain, Canada, Norway and the Netherlands, according to the Associated Press (AP). The money was key to funding the exit polls that cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election results, which showed Yanukovych as the winner. That the story came from the AP is significant; while the CBC saw fit to run four AP stories on the details of Ukrainian politics in one night, it omitted the story regarding the funding arrangements for the exit polls. Other Canadian media have also ignored US and Canadian funding of Yuschenko and affiliated political organizations. As the Canadian and American press would have it, Russia is meddling in Ukrainian affairs, but our own countries have only a high-minded concern for democracy. If Stephen Harper and the Fraser Institute received $65 million from the Ukrainian government, would we hear about it? Yuschenko's ties to anti-semitic groups -- Ukrainian neo-Nazis and holocaust deniers -- and far-right partisans have gone similarly unreported. Some have speculated that antisemitic activity, which was strictly curbed by Yanukovych's government, could run amok under Yuschenko. Is there a debate to be had about US and Canadian intervention in the internal affairs of other countries, or Yuschenko’s shady political associations? With these facts suppressed, a rational debate is impossible. <hr></blockquote><a href="http://dominionpaper.ca/media_analysis/2004/12/18/manufactur.html">dominionpaper.ca/media_an...actur.html</a> I don't know the source very well, but this is consistent with many reports. Why is this relevant? Well, we have Soros and company pushing the idea of "freedom" in central Europe, only to find out that they don't care that much for freedom, per se, just a pro-western viewpoint. Yuschenko, I believe, wanted to join Nato for example. This is interesting as it creates a very REAL conflict, at least on the surface, with the Eurasian nationalist movement led by Dugin, yet Soros's own website on Eurasia, <a href="http://www.eurasianet.org/index.shtml,">www.eurasianet.org/index.shtml,</a> isn't really that tough on Dugin. I want to research this point further. It's relevance here is that there are many games being played in the name of "freedom" that have more to do with who will run Eurasia and control its resources. Apologies to the writer of the article RDR posted if she has no knowledge of this, but since her university was funded by Soros and she got a full scholarship, I thought it was an interesting "case study" of the sorts of games that are being played here.

by **robertdreed** » Sat Nov 19, 2005 10:42 pm

"umm...guess you aren't THAT anti-Bush" Considering the criteria of cheap-shot guilt-by-association, I suppose that you feel justified in offering that assessment. (One thing the ass-out American Marxist-Leninist Left can never be accused of- funding anything. All that Moral High Ground, for nothing...what a deal. ) To return the thread from being hijacked by my post-script comment...what was it that you found objectionable or inaccurate about the content of the articles I linked on Soviet censorship, DE? If you feel that you've impeached the credibility of the first article, sufficiently, her are some more on the topic... <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=censorship+artists+%22soviet+union%22+&btnG=Google+Search">www.google.com/search?hl=...gle+Search</a> ...perhaps you may find others within that sampling that meet your standards of authorship, etc. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 11/19/05 8:35 pm

by **Dreams End** » Sun Nov 20, 2005 12:35 am

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>To return the thread from being hijacked by my post-script comment...what was it that you found objectionable or inaccurate about the content of the articles I linked on Soviet censorship, DE?<hr></blockquote> Well, I admitted I'd gotten off topic a bit, but also that we should always be careful of agendas for information. It was really more about: a) the coincidence that we'd just been having a talk in another thread about Soros and the CEU and here is a graduate of that very university, and b) people who claim to be on the side of freedom aren't. <blockquote>Quote:<hr> One thing the ass-out American Marxist-Leninist Left can never be accused of- funding anything. All that Moral High Ground, for nothing.<hr></blockquote>.. While not completely a traditional marxist, I am quite poor. So yes, Soros wins in the funding one's agenda game. And, this thread was actually about the CIA playing games to keep the communist/socialist left out of the political sphere...not, in fact, the role of Censorship in the now-defunct Soviet Union. So to return to your post, I'll revise everything else I said to say this: What does any evil done by the former Soviet Union have to do with the validity of proldic's statement. Whether your post is one hundred percent correct or zero percent correct, has no bearing. It's like saying, "yeah, I know there's still lots of discrimination here, but gosh, in South Africa they had this apartheid thing...." That was actually the source of my sarcasm. It had no bearing on the argument that the CIA has worked in numerous ways to negate the real left.

by **banned** » Sun Nov 20, 2005 12:54 am

anotherdrew nailed it: "....to an extent that would surprise most cynics even, american culture has been tightly controled for 50 years or more. Like, "paint whatever you want.... but here are the only colors you can have to workwith" I think we are finally comming out of the cultural control era and are starting to find that there's a wide range of "colors" that have been kept off our national pallet for too long." Exactly. Not that a ruling elite doesn't USUALLY control any society's culture, but it was no big secret if some Florentine princeling hired a particular 'school' to paint his frescoes, or the aristos threw all the portrait work to a particular artist. To me what was sinister about the CIA was that it was all done sub rosa. They didn't come right out and say in the NYT Book Review or on the book jacket "Hi, we're the Central Intelligence Agency of Langley, Virginia and we think you're really going to LOVE this new novel by Mary McCarthy." Nor did they print "Paris Review--a publication of the CIA" on the magazine cover. I don't much care if some special interest group champions a writer--oh, say like the fundies all love that series about the Rapture. I DO care if I am given to understand that some writer is being pushed along because of his or her tractability in hewing to a party line of some sort in their work. And let's be blunt, shall we? Nobody conceals stuff that they don't expect negative blowback for if they don't conceal it. To me the concealing is the admission it was wrong. This wasn't about H bomb secrets, where you don't run around yelling "This is Valerie Plame, she's an undercover CIA agent!" Oh wait, nowadays we do. Anyway, back then we didn't. Anyway, the only reason I can see to keep the letters C-I-A off the book jacket or the masthead is because it would blow their goal which was to make it LOOK LIKE these people were really talented and represented a legitimate cultural movement instead of being by and large mediocre stooges who would never have gotten out of the slush pile, or had their canvases hung in important galleries and museums, minus the CIA secret patronage. And as a writer myself, it enrages me to think of all the talented people whose works never got any recognition, who died unknown and frustrated, because they refused to play footsie with the spooks. I knew as a senior in high school that I didn't make it into the literary magazine because I wasn't part of the 'cool clique' but little did I know that wasn't just high school immaturity but the real world writ small.

by **dbeach** » Sun Nov 20, 2005 1:03 am

I often wondered about these lines "The agents had paid for the black limousine" and would think the agents are the FBI CIA or its just talent agents or booking agents LUVE tis song NEIL YOUNG LYRICS "Broken Arrow" '"The lights turned on and the curtain fell down, And when it was over it felt like a dream, They stood at the stage door and begged for a scream, The agents had paid for the black limousine That waited outside in the rain. Did you see them, did you see them? Did you see them in the river? They were there to wave to you. Could you tell that the empty quivered, Brown skinned Indian on the banks That were crowded and narrow, Held a broken arrow? Eighteen years of American dream, He saw that his brother had sworn on the wall. He hung up his eyelids and ran down the hall, His mother had told him a trip was a fall, And don't mention babies at all. Did you see him, did you see him? Did you see him in the river? He were there to wave to you. Could you tell that the empty quivered, Brown skinned Indian on the banks That were crowded and narrow, Held a broken arrow? The streets were lined for the wedding parade, The Queen wore the white gloves, the county of song, The black covered caisson her horses had drawn Protected her King from the sun rays of dawn. They married for peace and were gone. Did you see them, did you see them? Did you see them in the river? They were there to wave to you. Could you tell that the empty quivered, Brown skinned Indian on the banks That were crowded and narrow, Held a broken arrow?" [ www.azlyrics.com ]

by **starroute** » Sun Nov 20, 2005 2:17 am

It's pretty clear that the agenda of the powers that be has been no different for the arts than for the intellectual life of this country as a whole: - Fund the right lavishly and promote authors and artists who present the desired ideology. - Demonize the radical left while intimidating, marginalizing, or coopting the liberal left. - Brand as a kook anybody who can't be pigeonholed. The real question is how to get around -- or through the cracks of -- this scheme of control. One example which comes to mind is science fiction, which as long as it was considered trashy pulp fiction was able to evade the mind-locks which were applied to more serious literature and could express genuinely heretical ideas. However, all that changed long about 1970, as science fiction became both popular and more pretentious. Back in the 60's, when the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction ran anti-Vietnam War and pro-Vietnam War ads on facing pages, the anti ad had most of the currently active writers. The pro ad had only a handful of current writers, heavily padded out with authors who hadn't otherwise been heard of since 1935, and even then had a lot fewer names and more white space. But these days, my kids and their friends assume that science fiction is a literature of libertarians and militarists and are incredulous when I tell them it was ever different. So science fiction doesn't cut it any more -- but I think the analogy still applies. Let the goddamn intellectuals have their CIA-funded arts councils. Cheap, unpretentious, and beneath elite notice is the way to go.

by **robertdreed** » Sun Nov 20, 2005 2:30 am

"this thread was actually about the CIA playing games to keep the communist/socialist left out of the political sphere..." Actually, proldic explicitly referred to the CIA funding of the "non-Communist Left"...that implicitly entails that there was a "socialist Left" that they were funding. The criterion is admittedly vague, but I read that as stating that the CIA was involved in funding everyone short of the revolutionary Communists, from the "non-Communist Left" on out to the far reaches of the political Right, everyone short of the Minutemen. ( Actually, that isn't strictly true, if one considers that the CIA probably took an active role in the creation of avowedly revolutionary organizations like the SLA and the People's Temple; and that the FBI swelled the ranks of the KKK with its informers in the 1960s. But that gets into how to tell phony-provocateur revolutionary organizations touting revolutionary martyrdom and armed struggle from sincere organizations touting revolutionary martyrdom and armed struggle, and to what extent the difference is even significant in a nation like the USA, which is a topic for another discussion...) The ironic part of this is that proldic seems to be bitter about not being cut in for a share of the grant money. But after all, the Communist Left believes in revolutionary overthrow of the United States government, and the replacement of its traditional institutional framework by the dictatorship of the proletariat. Exactly how much is the US government to be expected to owe them, or to fund that viewpoint? The other organizations that received grant money from the Fedral Gubmint didn't have that political stance (although people like Trent Lott would heatedly disagree with that statement, to this day.) If that isn't the particular problem that proldic has with Establishment funding of the arts, perhaps he'd be better off making common cause with the Republicans who want to de-fund the CPB, the NEA, the various State Department programs, and the rest of the conduits for getting government money to artists, writers, poets, and other members of the American cultural intelligentsia. It seems to me that if he isn't agitating for a change in the policy of one sort or the other, then all he's doing is whining, and that he doesn't want the policy to change, because it would deprive him of a moral cudgel to use as a shaming tactic/dire accusation against his huge array of adversaries- which, as far as I can tell is everyone to the right of the revolutionary Communist Left- a enemies list with its leftmost boundary delineated by Pacifica radio, Amy Goodman, Noam Chomsky, the Nation magazine, and anyone to the Right of them... Honestly, what does anyone expect from the US government, to make the Left Revolutionary Struggle a "more fair" contest? And Dream's End, you persist in acting as if the Cold War never existed, and that there really wasn't a global ideological struggle featuring the USA opposing the forces of Soviet tyranny...it was tyranny, right? You were able to glean that much from the article I excerpted, right? (even if the funding source for the University where the author was employed is "ideologically suspect"? jesusisthatallyougot... ) I don't get the special pleading. Diego Rivera did in fact once sting the Rockefeller foundation for quite chunk of change, and really did bite the hand that fed him, by introducing overtly pro-revolutionary Communist elements in to a mural that had been commissioned by the Rockefeller Foundation...that was his artistic perogative, given the conditions of the grant. But it was also the perogative of the Rockefeller family not to unveil and show art that had bought and paid for by them. How on earth would you arrange it otherwise? Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 11/20/05 12:11 am

by **robertdreed** » Sun Nov 20, 2005 3:00 am

"to an extent that would surprise most cynics even, american culture has been tightly controled for 50 years or more. Like, "paint whatever you want.... but here are the only colors you can have to workwith" I think we are finally comming out of the cultural control era and are starting to find that there's a wide range of "colors" that have been kept off our national pallet for too long." I don't get this. within the past 50 years, we've had free publication for all sorts of viewpoints in this country. We've seen the artistic ascension and admission into the canon of both popular and elite American culture of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Henry Miller, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Leroi Jones, Ishmael Reed, Frank Zappa, Alice Cooper, Jim Morrison, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Jim Carroll, Patti Smith, John Coltrane, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, George Clinton, Roky Erickson, Root Boy Slim, Chester Burnett, McKinley Morganfield, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Richard Pryor, Dick Gregory, Lenny Bruce, Bruce Springsteen, Chrissie Hynde, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Edward Hopper, John Steinbeck, Archie Shepp, Hunter S. Thompson, John Kennedy Toole, Nelson Algren, Herbert Huncke, Stanley Kubrick, Jerzy Kosinski, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Paul Schrader, Melvin Van Peebles, Spike Lee, Bill Hicks, Martin Scorcese, David Lynch, David Cronenberg, Ed Sanders, Tim Buckley, Jeff Buckley, Tim Hardin, Fred Neil, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, D. Boon, Kurt Cobain, Courtney Love, Liz Phair, Albert Ayler, Sun Ra, Lux Interior, Etta James, Sam Cooke, Nat Cole, Little Richard, Ice Cube, Big and Rich, the Geto Boyz, Tupac Shakur, Eminem, Ice-T, Woody Guthrie, Abbey Lincoln, Max Roach, Charlie Parker... But the MC5 somehow never made the cut...since they never got to be as popular as the Beatles, they must have been sandbagged, which therefore indicates what a fascist-pig State the USA really is...did I really hear an argument like that, somewhere in an adjoining page on the RI board? "tightly controled [sic]" LOL Go on and name your favorite Eastern Bloc and Soviet artists from the same era, if you please... Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 11/20/05 12:09 am

by **starroute** » Sun Nov 20, 2005 3:11 am

What *are* you talking about? The question is not about government funding of the arts and whether the NEA ought to be offering grants to communist revolutionaries. It's about covert sponsorship of a particular cultural and politcial agenda -- and the use of that sponsorship to mold potentially dissident artists into a more socially-acceptable formula. I don't know if you're willfully trying to change the subject of the thread or if you just don't get it -- but either way, you seem to be posting at great length to make a point that is largely irrelevant.

by **banned** » Sun Nov 20, 2005 3:18 am

...from Hollywood, and by the way, Edward Norton doesn't look shit like Nelson Rockefeller <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/wink.gif ALT=";)"> . Rivera's mural was not the result of a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation to Rivera, but of an invitation directly to Rivera from the Rockefeller family to do a mural for Radio City (Matisse and Picasso also received invitations and declined and instead Frank Brangwyn and Jose Maria Sert were chosen.) Anyway, Rivera's mural included Lenin joining hands with a worker, a soldier and a black person--hardly "overtly pro-revolutionary Communist elements"--and he refused to paint over Lenin at Rockfeller's request. Rockefeller knew Rivera's politics when he hired him (in fact had trouble getting him into the country because of them) and that the theme chosen by Rockefeller, "Man at the Crossroads: Looking with Hope and High Vision to the Choosing of a New and Better Future," was open to, well, varying interpretations. As for Rivera's interpretation, that was not sprung on the Rockfellers as the mural took form; at least Rivera later wrote: "The owners of the building were perfectly familiar with my personality as artist and man and with my ideas and revolutionary history. There was absolutely nothing that might have led them to expect from me anything but my honest opinions honestly expressed. Certainly I gave them no reason to expect a capitulation. Moreover, I carried my care in dealing with them to the point of submitting a written outline (after having prepared the sketch which contained all the elements of the final composition) in detailed explanation of the aesthetic and ideological intentions that the painting would express. There was not in advance, nor could there have been, the slightest doubt as to what I proposed to paint and how I proposed to paint it." " My guess is it wasn't the Rockfellers at all who had the problem with it, the press made a big stink (sound familiar?) See, eg, “Rivera Paints Scenes of Communist Activity And John D. Jr. Foots Bill” by Joseph Lilly (New York World-Telegram, April 24, 1933). After that it became a cause celebre. And here's something interesting: None other than Archibald Macleish wrote cycle of poems entitled “Frescoes for Mr. Rockefeller’s City" which included the following stanza: "This is The Making of America in Five Panels: Harriman, Vanderbilt, Morgan, Mellon, Bruce Barton. You have just beheld the Makers making America: They screwed her scrawny and gaunt with their seven-year panics: They bought her back on their mortgages old-whore-cheap: They fattened their bonds at her breast till her thin blood ran from them..." I can't remember who said it but I remember reading a quip that up the matter of the left quite nicely: that before a point in the 1930s, anyone with a heart supported the Soviet Union, and that after a certain date, no one with a brain did. But the 1930s were not the post McCarthy 1950s and early 1960s. Did anyone not using the issue to make their own political hay seriously believe there would be a "Communist revolution" in the US? That anyone but some hardcore loonies in the CPUSA wanted to live like the people in Eastern Europe did? The CIA wasn't worried about Communism in Peoria or Parsippany, they were backing an American Empire and interested in silencing anyone who even noticed we WERE an empire.

by **robertdreed** » Sun Nov 20, 2005 3:19 am

How much money are we talking, and how significant are the results? If we're talking news journalism, I count that as significant. If we're talking about the pop-art, abstract painting, and other arts movements, I think the effect is negligible. I think that in terms of affecting the American culture of the 1960s, the influence of the CIA is oversold hugely. To the extent that it existed, it's probably best documented by Jim Hougan in his book Spooks, where he points out that the CIA of the day boasted more published authors than any other agency of the Federal government. Hougan also noted the fact that the CIA keeps a comprehensive library of all the espionage fiction ever published. American culture is an 8000-lb. platypus, and anyone attempting to corral it is bound to get trampled, if not stuck with one of the spurs, in my opinion.

by **banned** » Sun Nov 20, 2005 3:33 am

...has presented ANY genuine powerful political challenge to the American Empire that threatened it with not only exposure for its political lies and crimes around the world but also espoused a program for overthrowing it? Sure, maybe Gore Vidal in the last few years when he is old and marginalized and largely honored in Europe rather than the US for his views--which are hardly radical, he's an admirer of the Founding Fathers. Also please note that while some of these authors may now be in the 'canon' that only happened after they ceased to be particularly controversial or in fact ceased to be breathing. NB: Lenny Bruce was remorselessly harassed and persecuted to death. Not sure where you got your list, but "LeRoi Jones" changed his name to Amiri Baraka in 1968 to indicate his submission to Islam and personally I consider not using his own chosen name is a sign of profound disrespect. Jim Morrison was hounded out of the country by the prosecution over his alleged 'indecent exposure' in Dade County and either died in a bathtub in Paris or pulled a Rimbaud. Hunter Thompson arguably was murdered--or killed himself, as did Kurt Cobain and John Kennedy Toole. I do not see one name on that list who trenchantly critiqued American culture, presented a political and socioeconomic alternative and/or was not killed, driven to suicide, marginalized, stigmatized, co-opted or utterly de-fanged of political content assuming they had any to begin with. And just yesterday I believe the US Senate refused to acknowledge the 30 year anniversary of "The Boss's" "Born in the USA" undoubtedly because he campaigned for Kerry. Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Henry Miller, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Leroi Jones, Ishmael Reed, Frank Zappa, Alice Cooper, Jim Morrison, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Jim Carroll, Patti Smith, John Coltrane, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, George Clinton, Roky Erickson, Root Boy Slim, Chester Burnett, McKinley Morganfield, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Richard Pryor, Dick Gregory, Lenny Bruce, Bruce Springsteen, Chrissie Hynde, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Edward Hopper, John Steinbeck, Archie Shepp, Hunter S. Thompson, John Kennedy Toole, Nelson Algren, Herbert Huncke, Stanley Kubrick, Jerzy Kosinski, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Paul Schrader, Melvin Van Peebles, Spike Lee, Bill Hicks, Martin Scorcese, David Lynch, David Cronenberg, Ed Sanders, Tim Buckley, Jeff Buckley, Tim Hardin, Fred Neil, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, D. Boon, Kurt Cobain, Courtney Love, Liz Phair, Albert Ayler, Sun Ra, Lux Interior, Etta James, Sam Cooke, Nat Cole, Little Richard, Ice Cube, Big and Rich, the Geto Boyz, Tupac Shakur, Eminem, Ice-T, Woody Guthrie, Abbey Lincoln, Max Roach, Charlie Parker...

by **robertdreed** » Sun Nov 20, 2005 3:40 am

I agree, it isn't a good idea to get your history from Hollywood. I haven't see the film to which you're apparently referring. I got my information from Thy Will Be Done, by Gerard Colby. Thanks for filling the Rivera account out with more contextual detail. Basically, my point is similar to Homeless Halo's, in an adjoining discussion- the same people who own seemingly  everything own the vast majority of the arts funding, also. What can the artist do? Exercise stoicism and indomitability...obey little, resist often. But waste energy blaming the System? Why belabor the obvious? "The CIA wasn't worried about Communism in Peoria or Parsippany, they were backing an American Empire and interested in silencing anyone who even noticed we WERE an empire." Hmm...that's what I preceive to be different about the American imperial system- it's more like the British than the Soviets, or the Italian fascists. They aren't so much out to "silence" the people who notice, as they are out to keep people from noticing in the first place, by playing the Mighty Wurlitzer very loudly. But at least that gives the dissidents more latitude than the Gulag Archipelago. And iminent threat to the Republic or not, it's hardly to be expected that any government would welcome, aid, comfort, or fund any viewpoint that seeks its overthrow. See, I'm still unclear on which inauthentic arts or cultural movements gained a toehold as the result of covert CIA funding...Up With People? The Mike Curb Congregation? Does that explain the Legendary Stardust Cowboy's #1 pop single, in the 60s, or Paul Mauriat's "Love Is Blue"? How about "Je'taime"?

by **robertdreed** » Sun Nov 20, 2005 3:50 am

"PS please tell me which of these artists has presented ANY genuine powerful political challenge to the American Empire that threatened it with not only exposure for its political lies and crimes around the world but also espoused a program for overthrowing it?" Since when is it a mandatory responsibility of artists to encumber themselves with politics- much less the politics of armed revolution? Can you grasp the idea that genuine challenges to the status quo can take other forms, that work for progress- and yes, even "revolution"- more indirectly and slyly? Real revolution, not just the victory of power-hungry vanguardists with vengeance complexes...the kind where you free your mind, instead. You're basically accusing the vast majority of the artists that I've named with the thought-crime of "bourgeois individualism." That's Bolshie nonsense to me. The last thing I need when I turn on my radio is 100 artists all doing their variations on Phil Och's All The News That's Fit To Sing, around the clock. Not that that's a bad record to be featured for radio broadcast- but a few minutes a week is quite sufficient. If I had to listen to that oeuvre programmed all-day, every day, I'd break my radio. And that was Ochs' choice to be a political balladeer...it's a dreadful mistake to demand that of anyone who doesn't have their heart in it. I personally like quite a few of Phil Och's songs- but he's no Fred Neil, who wrote a total of one song that could arguably be considered to have any political reference at all- "The Dolphins." Now Ani DiFranco- that's talent. But you will notice that like Bob Dylan- actually, Ani claims that Springsteen is a bigger influence for her- on even her most "political" records, the didactic songs are handily outnumbered by musings on more personal topics. Just like with Dylan's most political records- on Bringin' It All Back Home, for every song like "It's Alright Ma", there were two or three like "She Belongs To Me" and "Love Minus Zero/No Limit." Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 11/20/05 1:10 am

Any F-----g Questions?

Dream'sEnd...

Re: Government Funding of the Arts considered as a plot

Re: methods of influencing the social impact of the arts

Re: methods of influencing the social impact of the arts

I second that.

wonder?

Enough wrangling -- what do we do about it?

sponsorship of the arts

Re: sponsorship of the arts

Re: sponsorship of the arts

It's never a good idea to get your history...

Re: CIA sponsorship of the arts

PS please tell me which of these artists...

Re: CIA sponsorship of the arts

American artists

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