People ask me all the time: Is La Pocha Nostra (my performance troupe) being censored in the USA? Tired of silence and diplomacy, with my heart aching and my political consciousness swelling, I now choose to speak. As a child in Mexico, I heard adults whispering about blacklists and those who named names. My older brother, Carlos, was involved in… return to article
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Reader Comments (64)Page 1 of 1 pages“One of our performance projects, Mapa Corpo (2004), was rejected by a dozen U.S. museums and universities when they learned the nature of the central image: a nude body covered with 40 acupuncture needles, each bearing a small flag of one of the “coalition forces.” Audience members were invited “to decolonize the body/map of the performer” by extracting a needle/flag.”
Um, Ewwww!!!!
If i read this right, no one actually censored it, they simply refused to sponsor it. Which seems pretty reasonable to me. . .
Posted by wolf on May 19, 2006 at 10:03 AM I guess I’m glad to know that I am not alone, but quite sad to know how pervasive the censorship is. I’ve been rejected repeatedly for residencies that seem tailor made for me, in my own neighborhood, in a “liberal” college town with a booming emerging artist scene.
Yet I know the work is good because I show in Europe.
I have a flag burning piece that I am very affraid to produce, yet more and more I feel like it is time.
Why burn the American flag? Because we can! When we decide not to exercise our rights, they will be taken away from us, and then we are not the greatest democracy in the world anymore. Then we are just fascists in liberals clothing.
Posted by xianne on May 19, 2006 at 2:29 PM “Why burn the American flag?”
Why not? Sure it offends, but since we allow such things as the Danish cartoons (sort of), we should all be able to take it. Freedom of speech (expression) and all that.
The real question, it seems to me, is why would ANYONE pay to see someone burn a flag (US or otherwise)?
“Yet I know the work is good because I show in Europe. “
I can’t tell if this was tongue in cheek or not, but it did bring a chuckle to me.
We can also call people nasty epitaphs. Perhaps we should, because we can. Or perhaps not.
Posted by wolf on May 19, 2006 at 3:03 PM Wolf has it exactly right. Freedom of speech doesn’t mean anyone has to sponsor this absurd show.
Posted by chopper on May 19, 2006 at 5:26 PM Maybe it’s not right or good to call people nasty epitaphs, but I believe in the right to make that decision on my own. Would you like to have the government tell you you aren’t allowed to speak certain words upon threat of inprisonment or bodily harm? Where is the line to be drawn?
When institutions and governments start limiting our access to ideas and images, we loose our ability to decide for ourselves. I don’t think its right to eliminate things just because I don’t like them. I object to Coors Beer comercials, but I can’t see legislating them off the air, I’ll just look the other way.
Name calling isn’t good, but censorship is worse.
Posted by xianne on May 20, 2006 at 8:38 AM Well, as one of those “reactionary conservatives” that Epistrophy seems to be afraid of, I’d like to know what kind of censorship he feels he is being subjected to. Freedom of expression doesn’t mean that any third party or my tax dollars are obligated to support whatever it is he thinks should be supported. If he can’t get public funding let him find other sources if he can. Forcibly using my tax dollars to support his expression means my freedom is being curtailed.
Posted by chopper on May 20, 2006 at 4:28 PM I never used the word “afraid” when referring to conservatives ("despise" is more like it), although your use of the word is quite revealing, considering the conservative’s preference for violence, intimidation, and manipulation to stifle anyone who is opposed to their narrow and ignorant views of the world.
One thing is for certain. You will not find too many artists who are conservatives. You cannot expect them to support the inherent plurality of the arts, with its openness towards free thinking and cultural diversity. This is antithetical to the conservative who remains entrenched in an intellectual, ideological, and spiritual vacuum.
Posted by Epistrophy on May 20, 2006 at 5:48 PM Spokesmen for the Bush administration recently announced their approval for the funding of the Washington Monument Project. “Exposure to corrosive atmospheric conditions like acid rain threatens to destroy our treasured phallic monuments. The administration has subsequently decided to cover them all with a plastic ‘prophylactic’ shroud.” The no-bid contract to protect our national cultural heritage was awarded to Halliburton, which has acquired extensive paramilitary experience in “making democracy safe for the world.”
Posted by Major Major on May 21, 2006 at 7:20 AM xianne - the use of nasty epitaphs is already punished in the US (political correctness). Students get kicked out of school, people lose jobs, etc. Not to even mention the recent tightening being done by the FCC. . .
One might wonder if i am *entitled* to be *paid* for the use of these (already censored) words. I would say no., but if one can find a paying audience, then one can earn money in all kinds of pursuits.
Epistrophy - I am sorry to hear the you despise others whose views are different from your own. It is far too easy to do so, but i find it more useful to attempt to understand those who hold different views (still, i suppose i despise some pratises, such as FGM, but typicallly feel sorry for both the pratisioner and the one i call victim).
What do you think of that remarkably succesful artist, Thomas Kincade? I don’t know that he is conservate, but his products are.
Posted by wolf on May 21, 2006 at 11:05 AM Epistrophy, “reactionary conservative” is your phrase, not mine, which is why I put it in quotation marks. “violence, intimidation, and manipulation to stifle anyone who is opposed to their narrow and ignorant view of the world” is your projection of what you imagine conservatives to be rather than what most of them really advocate. In fact just such tactics are used today against conservative students on some university campuses. Also, some groups still lionized by some on the left used such tactics historically, such as the Black Panthers.
You really didn’t answer my question, are you really being censored or are you just loosing funding for some art that your patrons may not wish to sponsor?
Posted by chopper on May 21, 2006 at 5:28 PM “One thing is for certain. You will not find too many artists who are conservatives. You cannot expect them to support the inherent plurality of the arts, with its openness towards free thinking and cultural diversity. This is antithetical to the conservative who remains entrenched in an intellectual, ideological, and spiritual vacuum. “
This statement is a hoot, considering what often passes for art these days. I’m all for anyone being able to produce whatever art they want to produce, but if they can’t find anyone willing to subsidize it or purchase it, tough.
Posted by chopper on May 21, 2006 at 5:35 PM But that’s the point of placing a condom on a phallic symbol, especially one which, like the Bush administration, insists on screwing the world with its right-wing infatuation with fascism masquerading as democracy.
Posted by Major Major on May 21, 2006 at 9:53 PM “insists on screwing the world with its right-wing infatuation with fascism masquerading as democracy.”
And since we are living under “fascism” I suppose you are expecting the dreaded knock on the door any moment now?
Posted by chopper on May 22, 2006 at 12:55 PM Of course, it would be unreasonable to expect the fascists to approve, let alone fund, the project. Aside from its conceptual appeal (another thought experiment, Wolf), the prospect of placing a plastic shroud over the Washington monument is practically nil. Nevertheless, other (more realistic) artistic expressions are not, such as rolling a condom over a small replica of the monument and sending to your favorite fascist. Your local Fox News affiliate would certainly appreciate the gesture. Bill O’Reilly might even reserve a few minutes of his propaganda extravaganza to denounce it, although I’m sure he’d rather have another loofa.
Posted by Major Major on May 22, 2006 at 4:23 PM Major Major, I see you are quite liberal in your use of the word fascist. The left tediously uses this word to smear anyone they don’t like. Do you even know what real fascism is? Hint: in a fascist state even now the secret police would be tracking back your post to identify you and then throw you into prison. Somehow I don’t think this will happen.
Posted by chopper on May 22, 2006 at 4:32 PM Good Grief, Goober.
If it makes you feel any better, forget about the Washington monument, or any replica thereof. Just send the guy a condom, preferably unused.
After all, he’s spreading a social disease.
Posted by Major Major on May 22, 2006 at 5:44 PM it seems a number of posters have completely missed the point of the article. if it were simply a matter of the sponsor’s personal taste dictating the choice of what artists gain access to their venue, then, sure, artists can’t really expect to be accepted everywhere and get funding anytime. no one’s saying that artists ever could or that they deserve to.
but we’re in a different world, where certain repressive tendencies, fed by fear and backed by new invasive legislation, clearly indicate that new litmus tests, sanctioned and handed down from the highest branches of government, are now intruding on artistic cultural development—just as in every other aspect of our lives—where once only the curator’s tastes was the criteria.
when you can’t tell whether it is the curator or the government judging your work, you know that you’re living in a police state.
Posted by aarrgghh on May 22, 2006 at 6:23 PM who does the curator work for?
Anyone here really wanna take a chance. One that can prove something, perhaps? Why not do a play where Mohammed (BBHN) is portrayed as a gay? Surely that would be provocative! Hell, do it in Iraq (maybe as a USO show?) and see what happens. . Of course, it should be done with tax dollars to achieve maximum effect..
Of course, doing anything to Christianity is ok. Those guys can take it, even though they do whine alot (Maplethrope, Last Temptation, DeVinci, etc). Not really big into the killing, with the very minor exception being the odd assassination of an abortion doctor (hey, now that could be made into a whacky comedy, righteous Christian nut kills greedy abortion doctor!). Fun fun fun.
Posted by wolf on May 22, 2006 at 7:22 PM what does wolf do for a living? most likely, he uses hocky sticks up young school boys for fun. keep those comments coming wolfy. you are one bright fellow.
Posted by Epistrophy on May 23, 2006 at 5:23 AM “what does wolf do for a living? most likely, he uses hocky sticks up young school boys for fun. keep those comments coming wolfy. you are one bright fellow.”
Is this how the left shows its “free thinking and openess to diversity”?
Posted by chopper on May 23, 2006 at 3:40 PM It’s amazing how the trolls around here never seem to get the point. Apparently they live in an inverse parallel universe where attacking the left on a progressive website is somehow construed as self-defense, while being ridiculed for their intolerance is tantamount to being intolerant.
For God’s sake, Gomer. Forget about the condoms, too. Just download a graphic of Dumbo the Flying Elephant off the web and caption it “Mission Accomplished” or “Roundtrip to Bahgdad”. Hang it on the office bulletin board.
Posted by Major Major on May 23, 2006 at 5:34 PM Epistrophy - does this mean you not only despise me, but you also fantasize about me? You did get the last thing you wrote right though and i appreciate that you were able to discern something about me that is actually rather accurate! As for your rather odd fantasy about young boys, um, Ewwww1 (isn’t that the response that raised your ire in the first place?).
It seems to me that a topic of legitimate discussion (do we have this here?) is not so much as whether artists are censored here in the US (anyone have a good example of this?), but rather should they be *entitled* to government funding if their art is gross or stupid or offensive? Who *should* decide if extremely controversial art or artists are to be funded (can we be sacrilegious of JC but not Mo?)? This is a good topic, but it seems that any attempt to discuss/debate it merely leads to name calling (nah nah), which is not only far too common here (and other anonymous sites) but is the sign of a rather weak mind, or so it seems to me. Surely we can do better. . .
So Epistrophy (or MM for that matter), since you seem to want to take the side of defending artists rights to our tax dollars, tell us why! Don’t be shy, don’t pull any punches. Just spit it out - why should our tax $$$s go to what many consider to be objectionable? And who decides what art gets the funding? Stay away from insults for extra points and **think** - it could be fun!
Posted by wolf on May 23, 2006 at 5:49 PM When governments, or cultural institutions, or the media, withhold funding from, or exposure to, the arts because some of it is offensive (read “critical") to those institutions, then you know you’re living in a police state, where any dissident expression is either repressed or overtly denounced as unpatriotic or obscene. I hesitate to use the word “fascist” because Chipper might become offended, once again, and attempt to lecture me on the politically correct connotations of “real” fascism, something he seems to have derived from his own “authentic” experience, where the stormtroopers break into your house and murder you in your bed (like Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, for instance).
Fuck it. It’s fascist.
Woof, you’ve been antagonizing people on this site for quite a while, and when they justifiably react to your adolescent display of upper school arrogance, you feign a false facade of innocence and mockingly invite your adversary to debate the “issues”. That never worked in high school, and it doesn’t work here either. Take your sado-masochistic solicitude and stick it up your ass, where it belongs.
Posted by Major Major on May 23, 2006 at 10:40 PM Artists who were at one point in their career considered “Offensive”:
Picasso
Dali
Gaugin
Monet
Pollock
Warhol
DeKooningshall I go on?
Posted by xianne on May 24, 2006 at 7:37 AM xianne - interesting list. How many got US taxpayer funding? :) The question is not whether art should be censored, rather whether it should be taxpayer funded and who decides.
MM - Your idea of a police state is quite different from mine, to say the least. However, moving on. . .. Is it your contention that all antigovernment art or offensive art should be funded by taxpayers? Who decides who should get funding? The beauty of the free market allows us all to “vote” with our dollars, as opposed to being forced to fund art we find objectionable (which is, again, not to say that such art should be censored or forbidden by the government, only that the artist should find funding in the private sector). What if the general population does not wish to fund objectionable art? Should they be overruled, and if so, by whom?
One comment. You say i have “been antagonizing people” here for some time (years, actually). Is it really that antagonistic to have one’s assumptions challenged? Is it offensive to express a contrary point of view in a polite fashion? Is your dream site one where everyone agrees with each other (the government is bad. Yeah, its really bad.)?
One thing is certain. While i have been polite to others on this site, many have been extremely rude back. When you re-read your posts (do you ever?), aren’t you embarrassed by how rude/vulgar they are? Or do your standards allow the demonazation of the “other” (FWIW mine do not). My guess is that such rudeness is only the result of the anonymity of this site; surely you do not treat others who think differently from you as rudely in real life? I actually *enjoy* the exploring of issues, which is best done with people who have other opinions from mine (isn’t this a desirable liberal trait?)!
Posted by wolf on May 24, 2006 at 5:44 PM I don’t know about when they were alive, but now,all the artists on that list get LOTS of US taxpayer subsidies - because the museums that house thier work are all subsidised.
And my point is that you may consider Gomez-Pena’s work to be offensive, but you might be missing out on a national treasure. The test of time, and your beloved “free-market” will answer that question down the road.But as for voting with our dollars, if we aren’t presented with all the potential candidates, how can we vote for them? Funding is usually the only thing that stands between an obscure artist and a famous one. Decency and prettiness is not what makes famous artists famous - exposure is.
Posted by xianne on May 25, 2006 at 9:54 AM I imagine that the cost of covering a phallic symbol like the Washington monument with an over-sized condom would be expensive. The cost alone of producing the condom would probably run into the tens of thousands of dollars, assuming that a company like Carter-Wallace, Inc.could be persuaded to produce it. I can hear Rush Limbaugh right now, urging his auditors to “boycott Trojan Lubricated Condoms, with Special Receptacle End. Folks, our good friends at Schmid Laboratories are true-blue, dyed-in-the-wool, patriotic Republicans and they’re ready, even as I speak, to gratify your every contraceptive desire. Remember: a Fourex ‘non-slip lubricated contraceptive condom’ is made from lambskin, which is guaranteed to promote ‘natural feeling and natural sensitivity’. Folks, I use this product all the time, and I have always been a satisfied customer. Satisfaction guaranteed, or your money will be cheerfully refunded.”
Posted by Major Major on May 25, 2006 at 6:30 PM Major Major,
Re : covering a phallic symbol like the Washington monument with an over-sized condom...
I would be happy to contribute my hard earned money to your art project.
It is brilliant.
Posted by David in Canada on May 25, 2006 at 11:09 PM Major Major Major Major (& David) if you want to fund covering the Washington monument in a huge condom, go for it.
Let’s see if I’ve got this straight. If the taxpayers object to funding art they find offensive, stupid, or merely boring they are being fascist? Right, got it. Who do they think they are, not defering to liberal elites.
Posted by chopper on May 26, 2006 at 10:51 AM xianne - I have no problem with offensive artists. I rather like Dali, Gaugin, and Monet but don’t care much for DeKooning. If someone wants to produce art that many people find offensive, more power to them. My only beef is with forcing people or institutions who find a work of art offensive to subsidize it.
In fact, I find such coercion much more “fascist” than the state or a business cutting off funding for art they don’t like.
Posted by chopper on May 26, 2006 at 5:48 PM as i have said before, the issue raised by gomez-pena’s article is not about decency or taste—the issue is politics, and whether the government should be allowed to substitute itself for the role of curator, sponsor, art critic, etc, etc, especially in the dubious name of the holy war on terror. the issue of politics shouldn’t be conflated with the question of decency—they are not the same.
the issue of decency, especially with regards to public funding, is an old and tired one (yaaawwwnnn, excuse me!), but i’ll broach it just this once.
to object to the use of your tax dollars to fund art that you don’t like is like objecting to the use of the money you pay to eat at a restaurant just because there are certain items on the menu you don’t like.
the tax dollars you pay to fund art pays for all kinds of projects, just like the money you pay to the restaurateur pays for all kinds of entrees. it’s really absurd to insist that the owner remove a particular entree you don’t like on the grounds that you don’t want your money used to keep it on the menu.
Posted by aarrgghh on May 26, 2006 at 6:59 PM “as i have said before, the issue raised by gomez-pena’s article is not about decency or taste—the issue is politics, and whether the government should be allowed to substitute itself for the role of curator, sponsor, art critic, etc, etc, especially in the dubious name of the holy war on terror. the issue of politics shouldn’t be conflated with the question of decency—they are not the same. “
In practice the difference is often not so easy to see. It is very easy for an artist to say an offensive work has a political purpose. In the event, why would I want to fund a work of art that made a political statement I disagreed with, any more than I would want to fund an organization whose goals I abhorred? I would no more send a donation to NARAL or NOW than you would, I suppose, send one to the NRA, although I would support your right to send donations to any of those organizations.
Posted by chopper on May 27, 2006 at 3:59 PM “to object to the use of your tax dollars to fund art that you don’t like is like objecting to the use of the money you pay to eat at a restaurant just because there are certain items on the menu you don’t like.
the tax dollars you pay to fund art pays for all kinds of projects, just like the money you pay to the restaurateur pays for all kinds of entrees. it’s really absurd to insist that the owner remove a particular entree you don’t like on the grounds that you don’t want your money used to keep it on the menu.”
You are missing a crucial difference between government and private business. Whether I eat at a particular restaurant or not is purely my choice. I have no say about paying taxes. Also, if an entree is never (or seldom) ordered the restaurateur will eventually drop the entree from his menu. There is no such feedback mechanism when the government funds something.
Posted by chopper on May 27, 2006 at 4:05 PM “I have no say about paying taxes”
I think this is exactly the point. i don’t like my tax dollars going to fund black ops and eavsdropping without a warrant, so I can vote for people who agree with me, but I’m in a bad spot if I decide not to pay my taxes.
Funding all the arts, with tax dollars, guarantees a bit of equal footing for all opinions, and if I don’t like how the money is being disbursed I can VOTE and change things.
But when fear and blackballing are used to subvert democracy, then my vote becomes obsolete. I can’t NOT go to that resturant, there is no where else to eat.
Posted by xianne on May 27, 2006 at 6:03 PM Thanks, David.
I have little doubt that I could raise the necessary funds, even among Americans, to “put a Trojan on the Monument”, but even if I got the National Parks Service to approve the project, the exhibition itself would be counter-productive. In fact, if the wingnuts had an ounce of intelligence to spare among the entire lot, they would be lobbying the Bush administration to increase federal funing for the National Endowment for the Arts, if only to generate greater support for their own conservative agenda. Like the “welfare queens” and “Willie Horton”, references to the art of Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serano never fail to drum up the necessary outrage required to flog the faithful to the polling booths, despite the fact that virtually all of the federal funding for the arts is re-directed to “safe” cultural projects, as the article above states, like the Metropolitan Opera or local productions of Shakespeare.
Instead, they’re trying to eliminate funding altogether for the NEA and the CPB (Corporation for Public Broadcasting) as offsets to the costs of rebuilding New Orleans after the Katrina catastrophe. Rescinding tax cuts to the rich are not high on their economic priorities. Eliminating local cultural enrichment programs and subsidies for the arts among inner-city schools are the preferred methods for rectifying their institutional neglect, as Woof and Chipper have already confirmed.
Posted by Major Major on May 27, 2006 at 6:44 PM “You are missing a crucial difference between government and private business. Whether I eat at a particular restaurant or not is purely my choice. I have no say about paying taxes.”
you do have a choice. you can go to gomez-pena’s show or not go. just like you can go to any show on or off broadway or not go. you can go to the guggenheim or not go. you even have a choice about which particular art objects in the guggenheim you want to look at, etc, etc ...
“if an entree is never (or seldom) ordered the restaurateur will eventually drop the entree from his menu. There is no such feedback mechanism when the government funds something.”
whether any particular entree remains on the menu or not is comepletely up to the restauranteur, and that’s regardless of whether it’s popular or not. if you don’t like the entree and have no interest in eating it, why should you care? there is a term for people who worry about whether other people might be enjoying something they don’t like—that’s watb—aka “whiny ass titty baby”.
i’m sorry, but i just don’t sit around pumping up the veins in my neck and forehead worrying about whether the pennies on the dollar that i pay the government to sponsor art is being used so that someone else somewhere else in the country just might be wacking off to artwork i don’t like—much less actually learning something new or even being inspired by it to produce art of their own! as long as i know that my pennies on the dollar are contributing to keeping on the menu art projects that i do in fact like, i’m not gonna complain about other projects on the menu.
but what i do worry about and what gomez-pena worries about is when the government replaces the restauranteur with political hacks.
when bush installs hacks like kenneth tomlinson at the head of cpb to promote pro-government content and filter out anti-government content (especially when that is not part of the original job description) and worse, installs wholly unqualified political hacks like george deutsch at nasa to interfere with and filter out anti-government research (especially to the detriment of the scientists’ work), these institutions become no more than pravda-esque state propaganda organs. thankfully in these two instances the hacks got the boot, but these two are by no means isolated instances. the bush administration is built from the top down on fealty to the king.
gomez-pena is not complaining about having his artwork judged obscene, he’s complaining about being treated as a terrorist. and of course he’s not a terrorist—but in the shadow of the holy war on terror, it’s an easy threat to use against artists you don’t like, especially artists that criticise or appear to criticise the government.
from the article:
“In accordance with Executive Order 13224, the USA Patriot Act and other related laws, including voluntary guidelines issued by the Treasury Department, grantmakers regularly check the names of their prospective grantees against various watch lists produced by the government, and document their compliance to protect themselves from possible criminal and civil prosecution.”
houston, we have a problem, and it’s not decency.
Posted by aarrgghh on May 27, 2006 at 7:06 PM The problem is that you have to cover yourself with the flag and recite the Pledge of Allegience every hour on the hour just to prove that you’re not a terrorist, which is bullshit to begin with, because most of the terrorists, the ones running the War on Terror in DC, are doing the same thing.
Posted by Major Major on May 28, 2006 at 9:55 AM “whether any particular entree remains on the menu or not is comepletely up to the restauranteur, and that’s regardless of whether it’s popular or not. if you don’t like the entree and have no interest in eating it, why should you care? there is a term for people who worry about whether other people might be enjoying something they don’t like—that’s watb—aka “whiny ass titty baby”.”
I don’t care. And I don’t care about what kind of art other people like. But defunding art is not “censorship”.
On a more basic level you seem to be unable to distingush between public financing and private financing. Personally I’d like to see the NEA abolished.
Posted by chopper on May 31, 2006 at 3:41 PM 1) “I don’t care. And I don’t care about what kind of art other people like.”
... unless you think you’re paying for it! doth protesteth too much.
2) “But defunding art is not “censorship”. “but putting artists on government terror watch lists is.
3) “Personally I’d like to see the NEA abolished.”
well, then i’m glad their funding is not up to you.
Posted by aarrgghh on May 31, 2006 at 4:20 PM “1) “I don’t care. And I don’t care about what kind of art other people like.”
... unless you think you’re paying for it! doth protesteth too much.”
This statement is just screwy. You mean you can’t see a fundamental difference between someone enjoying something you don’t care for and you being forced to pay for it. Personally I’d like to buy a plane. Using your logic you shouldn’t mind helping me pay for it.
Posted by chopper on Jun 1, 2006 at 10:27 AM personally, i’d like to have a pony. and if the government uses some of the taxes that i pay for that pony to buy you your plane—no, i don’t mind at all, though i’d prefer that it paid for meds for your attention-deficit disorder or alzheimer’s, take your pick, since you haven’t been absorbing what i’ve already posted on this page. but i’m patient, so one more time for the record:
“as long as i know that my pennies on the dollar are contributing to keeping on the menu art projects that i do in fact like, i’m not gonna complain about other projects on the menu.”
i can understand if you don’t like paying taxes—welcome to the pity party. but wanting to abolish the nea—which sponsors a smorgasbord of diverse projects for one and all to enjoy—just because you don’t like some of the entrees that your taxes and mine, mere pennies, pay for, is just so much selfish wah-wah-whining.
Posted by aarrgghh on Jun 1, 2006 at 12:33 PM Chipper and Woof remind me of John Scalzi’s description of a Conservative: someone “who would rather shit on a freshly-baked cherry pie than share it with anyone outside the [clan].”
Posted by Major Major on Jun 1, 2006 at 4:20 PM just looked up that scalzi quote—ouch! some brutal truth on that page:
a good read.
Posted by aarrgghh on Jun 1, 2006 at 5:31 PM Chipper and Woof remind me of John Scalzi’s description of a Conservative: someone “who would rather shit on a freshly-baked cherry pie than share it with anyone outside the [clan].”
Well, Major Major Major Major, I don’t mind sharing, I just mind being forced to subsidize an endless list of worthless programs. Like most leftists you wouldn’t understand freedom if it bit you in the ass.
Posted by chopper on Jun 4, 2006 at 8:23 AM “Well, Major Major Major Major, I don’t mind sharing, I just mind being forced to subsidize an endless list of worthless programs. Like most leftists you wouldn’t understand freedom if it bit you in the ass.”
national debt = $8.366 trillion, or $27,994.53 owed per person. the national debt is increasing at a rate of $1.75 billion per day, or $585.59 per person. (source: national debt clock)
iraq war = $285.919 billion, or $956.75 per person, climbing at a rate of $172.90 per minute. (source: cost of war register)
white house fy 2007 budget for nea = $124 million, or 41.5 cents per person. the nea’s grant was increased by $3 million from the fy 2006 budget of $121 million, a bump of 2.5%. (source: white house office of management and budget)
unfortunately, the rate of inflation for 2005 = 3.41%. so the nea’s budget fell in real terms by 0.91%, or $1.1 million, saving us all 0.368 cents per person. (source: what was the inflation rate then?)
chopper = wah wah waaaaahh!!!!!
Posted by aarrgghh on Jun 4, 2006 at 12:14 PM Unfortunately, you are. simultaneously trying to tear the shield of hypocrisy off of our current world view, and trying to decry the lack of public support for your efforts.
Hollywood VS Hard Knocks, all over again.
The world is full of artists who:
Dig fuel and dance
Chop wood and write poetry
Weave fibers and make music
Plants seeds and raise children
Construct homes and compose philosophies.
And the archeaologists dig some of the artifacts of truth out of the bone pile and the shite house refuse 10,000 years after the fact.
We’re about as special as you’d expect, in the long term view.....
and that’s not a bad way to look at the situation, when it comes down to it..
Vera
Posted by minerva on Jun 4, 2006 at 4:16 PM “"Well, Major Major Major Major, I don’t mind sharing, I just mind being forced to subsidize an endless list of worthless programs. Like most leftists you wouldn’t understand freedom if it bit you in the ass.”
national debt = $8.366 trillion, or $27,994.53 owed per person. the national debt is increasing at a rate of $1.75 billion per day, or $585.59 per person. (source: national debt clock)
iraq war = $285.919 billion, or $956.75 per person, climbing at a rate of $172.90 per minute. (source: cost of war register)
white house fy 2007 budget for nea = $124 million, or 41.5 cents per person. the nea’s grant was increased by $3 million from the fy 2006 budget of $121 million, a bump of 2.5%. (source: white house office of management and budget)
unfortunately, the rate of inflation for 2005 = 3.41%. so the nea’s budget fell in real terms by 0.91%, or $1.1 million, saving us all 0.368 cents per person. (source: what was the inflation rate then?)
chopper = wah wah waaaaahh!!!!!”
You are saying that waste in one place justifies waste everywhere. Because we are less free in some areas it means we should just gradually surrender until the state confiscates everything and we live at the government’s whim. Now that would be a leftist dream come true!
Posted by chopper on Jun 8, 2006 at 3:55 PM “You are saying that waste in one place justifies waste everywhere. Because we are less free in some areas it means we should just gradually surrender until the state confiscates everything and we live at the government’s whim. Now that would be a leftist dream come true!”
i’m saying you’re a fucking crybaby for whining about 40 cents a year, and your’re a crybaby for perpetuating a debate that you lost 30 years ago.
but do keep coming back: your idiotic persistence is proving most entertaining.
Posted by aarrgghh on Jun 8, 2006 at 5:11 PM actually, let me rephrase that: my kicking your saggy and sorry self-proclaimed conservative reactionary arse is what’s so entertaining.
Posted by aarrgghh on Jun 8, 2006 at 5:26 PM “"You are saying that waste in one place justifies waste everywhere. Because we are less free in some areas it means we should just gradually surrender until the state confiscates everything and we live at the government’s whim. Now that would be a leftist dream come true!”
i’m saying you’re a fucking crybaby for whining about 40 cents a year, and your’re a crybaby for perpetuating a debate that you lost 30 years ago.
but do keep coming back: your idiotic persistence is proving most entertaining.
wah wah waaaah!!! “
You are big on insults but not much in the way of actual thought. Bringing up all the irrelavencies you did has nothing to do with the argument. But your posts are entertaining, especially the repetitive “wah wah waaaah!!!” as if you actually have a point.
Posted by chopper on Jun 10, 2006 at 12:20 PM “You are big on insults but not much in the way of actual thought. Bringing up all the irrelavencies you did has nothing to do with the argument. But your posts are entertaining, especially the repetitive “wah wah waaaah!!!” as if you actually have a point.”
awww, did the big bad leftie hurt little schnookums feelings? i’d feel bad but it’s obvious you’re not just a crybaby—you’re also some kind of masochist who can’t stand not getting the last dig in, even if it means getting his bankrupt butt handed to him. repeatedly. with extreme prejudice.
wah wah waaaah!!!
you’re making this way too easy. next time bring an actual argument with you—oh, waitaminnit, that’s right, you don’t have any.
well, i’ll be here anyway.
Posted by aarrgghh on Jun 10, 2006 at 3:10 PM “awww, did the big bad leftie hurt little schnookums feelings? i’d feel bad but it’s obvious you’re not just a crybaby—you’re also some kind of masochist who can’t stand not getting the last dig in, even if it means getting his bankrupt butt handed to him. repeatedly. with extreme prejudice.
wah wah waaaah!!!
you’re making this way too easy. next time bring an actual argument with you—oh, waitaminnit, that’s right, you don’t have any.
well, i’ll be here anyway. “
No, you responded pretty much the way I expected, and as I stated above, I actually enjoy the entertainment. Especially your rather mindless repetition of “wah wah waaaah!!!”
My argument, if you were too dense to pick it up the first time, is I don’t think I should be forced to fund “art” I disagree with via taxes. In fact, I don’t even think you should be forced to fund art you disagree with. Since we would probably disagree with each other, the best course of action would be to abolish the NEA. You have also stated your argument, which is not funding “artists” critical of institutions most people support is somehow “fascist”. What it boils down to is you think forced contributions to marginal artists whose real agenda is to destroy the institutions they are criticizing is necessary to avoid a “fascist” society. I think your view is screwy, but hey, that’s just me.
Per your wish, I will now give you the last word. And please, put in the “wah wah waaaah!!!” I would be disappointed in you if you don’t!
Posted by chopper on Jun 11, 2006 at 3:47 PM “You have also stated your argument, which is not funding “artists” critical of institutions most people support is somehow “fascist”. What it boils down to is you think forced contributions to marginal artists whose real agenda is to destroy the institutions they are criticizing is necessary to avoid a “fascist”
society. I think your view is screwy, but hey, that’s just me.”hold the presses!!!
actually, for the first time--and probably the last time--you’re absolutely right: that is screwy as hell.
i don’t know who said it, but it sure wasn’t me, and if you’d been keeping up with your meds, you’d be able to see that not one person on this board argued this line of crap either. i could be charitable and attribute this pathetic excuse of an argument to the multiple voices in your head, but everybody knows how much you reactionary crybabies like to pull shit like this straight out of your arses just to have something to complain about. it figures, since the only people you can actually beat in an argument are your own imaginary strawmen.
anyway, so sad to hear you won’t be back. don’t let the door hit your you-know-where on the way out.
oh, and one more thing:
wah wah waaaaahhh!!!
Posted by aarrgghh on Jun 11, 2006 at 5:03 PM “When governments, or cultural institutions, or the media, withhold funding from, or exposure to, the arts because some of it is offensive (read “critical") to those institutions, then you know you’re living in a police state, where any dissident expression is either repressed or overtly denounced as unpatriotic or obscene. I hesitate to use the word “fascist” because Chipper might become offended, once again, and attempt to lecture me on the politically correct connotations of “real” fascism, something he seems to have derived from his own “authentic” experience, where the stormtroopers break into your house and murder you in your bed (like Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, for instance).
Fuck it. It’s fascist. “
Posted by chopper on Jun 11, 2006 at 5:13 PM whoopsie!! my bad.
looks like someone else on the board did say something similar, though i don’t see anything about “forced contributions to marginal artists whose real agenda is to destroy the institutions they are criticizing”. but hey, that’s just me.
that’s not my post, but real men admit their mistakes.
score one for chopper!
almost forgot:
wah wah waaahhh!!!
Posted by aarrgghh on Jun 11, 2006 at 6:00 PM “whoopsie!! my bad.
looks like someone else on the board did say something similar, though i don’t see anything about “forced contributions to marginal artists whose real agenda is to destroy the institutions they are criticizing”. but hey, that’s just me.
that’s not my post, but real men admit their mistakes.
score one for chopper!
almost forgot:
wah wah waaahhh!!! “
Well, what can I say. Underneath that crusty old leftwing exterior you present is probably a pretty decent guy. Anyway, this thread is probably pretty much played out, I’ll catch you on another one.
And thanks for the wah wah waaaahhh!!!
Posted by chopper on Jun 12, 2006 at 3:35 PM What it boils down to is you think forced contributions to marginal artists whose real agenda is to destroy the institutions they are criticizing is necessary to avoid a “fascist” society.
Posted by chopper on Jun 11, 2006 at 3:47 PM
First of all, the “forced contributions” debate on the morality of taxation is a moot issue. Whether we like it or not, all of us live in a society where taxation is a mandatory obligation. Theoretically, we get to pick and choose the people who determine the tax code, but we don’t get to pick and choose the purposes to which the code is applied.
Other than that, your oversimplified synopsis is remarkably accurate. I do indeed believe that government grants given to artists whose agenda is to destroy the institutions they criticize is necessary to avoid a fascist society. Institutions such as racism, sexism, homophobia, class discrimination, militarism and religious extremism are the very institutions which define the foundations of a fascist society, and the sooner they’re destroyed the better it will be for all of us.
Including yourself, Dumbo.
Posted by Major Major on Jun 12, 2006 at 9:35 PM most “political” art is propaganda, shallow and without the complexity of thought and feeling that defines great art.
For every Goya, there are a million poster artists from the Dada to the Maoists of China. Interesting as historical phenomena, bu not art. In the end, the public decides what art is, because museums and tax laws determine what gets shown and what doesn’t . No doubt some great artist has never been shown because of censorship, but look at what hangs in american museums. we are pretty tolerant and eclectic.
this seems like a non-problem.
Posted by knocko on Jun 14, 2006 at 10:43 AM “Other than that, your oversimplified synopsis is remarkably accurate. I do indeed believe that government grants given to artists whose agenda is to destroy the institutions they criticize is necessary to avoid a fascist society. Institutions such as racism, sexism, homophobia, class discrimination, militarism and religious extremism are the very institutions which define the foundations of a fascist society, and the sooner they’re destroyed the better it will be for all of us.
Including yourself, Dumbo.”
Hmm, right, so now all the standard leftwing curse words are now institutions? Somehow I don’t think a rigid racial quota system, exclusion of religion from the public square, ineffectual or non-existent response to attacks on us, and socialism in practice is going to make me (or the rest of us) better off.
Btw, I’d think someone who uses the screen name of a rather pathetic character from Catch-22 would think twice about calling other people “Dumbo”.
Posted by chopper on Jun 14, 2006 at 4:38 PM “Hmm, right, so now all the standard leftwing curse words are now institutions? Somehow I don’t think a rigid racial quota system, exclusion of religion from the public square, ineffectual or non-existent response to attacks on us, and socialism in practice is going to make me (or the rest of us) better off.”
is this wretched corpse still twitching? someone get me some garlic and a stake.
this time i’ll let josh marshall deliver the coup de grâce, since he was particularly on point today:
“With all the efforts now to disassociate President Bush from conservatism, I am starting to believe that conservatism itself—not the political machine, mind you, but the ideology—is heading toward that misty land-over-the-ocean where ideologies go after they’ve shuffled off this mortal coil. Sort of like the way post-Stalinist lefties used to say, “You can’t say Communism’s failed. It’s just never really been tried.”
But as it was with Communism, so with conservatism. When all the people who call themselves conservatives get together and run the government, they’re on the line for it. Conservative president. Conservative House. Conservative Senate.
What we appear to be in for now is the emergence of this phantom conservatism existing out in the ether, wholly cut loose from any connection to the actual people who are universally identified as the conservatives and who claim the label for themselves.
We can even go a bit beyond this though. The big claim now is that President Bush isn’t a conservative because he hasn’t shrunk the size of government and he’s a reckless deficit spender.
But let’s be honest: Balanced budgets and shrinking the size of government hasn’t been part of conservatism—or to be more precise, Movement Conservatism—for going on thirty years. The conservative movement and the Republican party are the movement and party of deficit spending. And neither has any claim to any real association with limited or small government. Just isn’t borne out by any factual record or political agenda. Not in the Reagan presidency, the Bush presidency or the second Bush presidency. The intervening period of fiscal restraint comes under Clinton.
Take the movement on its own terms and even be generous about it. What’s it about? And has it delivered?
Aggressive defense policy? Check.
Privatization of government services? Check.
Regulatory regimes favoring big business? Check.
Government support for traditional mores and values on sex and marriage? Check.
That about covers it. And Bush has delivered. The results just aren’t good.”
at this late date, conservatives really have lost all standing or trust on any claim to having the vaguest clue about what’s best for this country.
Posted by aarrgghh on Jun 14, 2006 at 7:51 PM Oy vey, Chipper.
Even your Chickenhawk-in-Chief, the archetypical Flying Elephant (Roundtrip to Baghdad, Part II), even he agrees with me. He’s been complaining about the racism, sexism, homophobia, class discrimination, militarism and religious extremism of the Arabs for such a long time now that most of us might feel justified in concluding that he’s actually a closet liberal in drag.
Posted by Major Major on Jun 15, 2006 at 10:05 PM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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