Politburo

This little item hasn't gotten a lot of reaction, but I think it might be the most important thing to know about the people well on their way to becoming (even as the ashes have yet to settle on their last effort) our leaders. While teabaggers are busy calling Obama a fascist, the people they've put into power are actually being Soviet-style fascists. By that I refer to the so-called Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, appointed by Congress to find out what the hell happened, and to make recommendations. That it broke down on party lines isn't surprising; neither was it unpredictable that, in their zeal to blame everything on government (and poor people) and to give bankers a pass, Republicans would want to dilute the report. It's how they went about it that's so revelatory, and it ought to be deeply, deeply disturbing to everyone. Especially those America-loving conservatives we keep hearing about.

Republicans on the committee demanded that certain words not be used -- not be used!! -- in the FCIC report. To wit, and believe it or not: "derivatives," "deregulation," "Wall Street," "shadow banking," "interconnection." Interconnection?? Unbelievable! Deriviatives. Wall Street. Struck from the report, if those guys would have had their way. That's like talking about sex without referring to male or female. Or being screwed.

Fortunately, in a rare example of not caving to crazy, Democrats refused; so the Republicans are issuing their own, separate, report. With no inclusion of the banned terms. Blaming the entire debacle on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and borrowers. Not mentioning Wall Street's role at all. How much credence would you give a report on New Orleans and Katrina that didn't mention water? Or the federal government?

No, this post isn't about the financial crisis. It's about the fact that supposedly serious Republicans would actually demand the elimination of certain words. They were perfectly happy to censor the work, to rewrite history, to turn an important investigation into a lie, for their own purposes: namely, the preservation of the myth of their economic wisdom. And, certain of their audience, to be public about it!! Shameless. But of a piece.

Are not hallmarks of totalitarianism -- of which they (falsely, clearly) accuse President Obama -- the censoring of truth, the manipulation of news, demanding control of message, banning discourse? The dishonest management of the public's view of history? What is this, if not a perfect example of hiding the truth to maintain a lie? Something for which the Soviets were deservedly famous.

Everywhere you look, the evidence is overwhelming and undeniable: these are deeply dishonest, agenda-driven ideologues, with not the least interest in the common good. Their respect for voters is miniscule; their respect for truth is non-existent. Want the final proof what they're about? Listen to the about-to-be (thanks to teabaggers) chairman of the House Financial Services committee, Spencer Bachus:

"'In Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated, and my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks,' he said.

Any questions?

Art For God's Sake

I don't much care what Bill Donohue says, other than the fact that it's pretty amazing he's the spokesman for anyone, let alone a religious group. So the fact that he doesn't like a particular piece of art amuses me at worst.

What's not funny, though, is that we've now undeniably entered the age of right wing censorship and fear-mongering. Under fear of defunding by our new destructors, the National Gallery of Art (which I just visited and which is a treasure) has removed a controversial work. What's next can't be too hard to figure out, even for teabaggers. But they, of course, love everything about it. The bullies are back in charge.

I'm no art critic, but I did find this counter-view compelling.

Well, I'm a Christian and far from feeling insulted or injured or assaulted, I saw something as raw as it was orthodox. The whole video incorporates the image of Jesus as a dying, tortured man like those with AIDS: "unclean" as the audio shrieks over the image, rejected, covered by insects. It splices that image with grotesque attempts to sew a loaf of bread back together, to sew a human being's lips back together, along with desperate images of fire and decay. We are looking at the hysterical images of a dying man suddenly surrounded by the dying, overcome by the attempt to sew life back together. To see a rejected Jesus left on the cross and on the ground to be covered by ants, is, in this context, clearly neither offensive nor heresy; it's orthodoxy, for Pete's sake, with the death of Jesus one of countless images of suffering and isolation.

As Blake Gopnik notes:

The irony is that Wojnarowicz's reading of his piece puts it smack in the middle of the great tradition of using images of Christ to speak about the suffering of all mankind. There is a long, respectable history of showing hideously grisly images of Jesus - 17th-century sculptures in the National Gallery's recent show of Spanish sacred art could not have been more gory or distressing - and Wojnarowicz's video is nothing more than a relatively tepid reworking of that imagery, in modern terms.

This is so obvious in context that one simply wonders what on earth the fuss could be about. Maybe what is truly offensive to men like Donohue is the notion that gay men might actually seek refuge in Jesus' similar experience of marginalized, stigmatized agony. Since the message cannot be objectionable - Jesus shares in our suffering and exemplifies it - maybe it is merely the association with gay men that appals. For the powerful and privileged like Donohue, Jesus belongs in the corridors of power and respectability, among the mainstream, depictions of him restricted to images of pristine, prissy reverence rather than the alienated, despairing, naked agony he actually suffered. The idea that Jesus died for homosexuals is insulting to Donohue; but it is what the church teaches and what Jesus lived.

The thing about art is, you don't have to look at it. The thing about books is, you don't have to read them. The thing about blogs is, you don't have to go to them.

The thing about censorship is... it shuts off debate. It suppresses dissent. It leads to totalitarianism. It's the central and essential tool of totalitarianism.

Hypocrisy? Stupidity? Becoming (always being, actually) the thing they decry; namely that Obama is a Nazi communist socialist terrorist Kenyan constitution-ignorer America hater? Given the keys to power, these guys are intent on turning us into a theocracy, empty of ideas, toeing their unbendable line.

Of course this, this, is just art. Who cares about that?