When reporting on the infamous New York School of abstract expressionist
painters in 1947, art critic Clement Greenberg pondered, "What can fifty do
against one hundred and forty million?" It wasn't so much an entire
population stacked against a band of radical painters that Greenberg was
contemplating...rather it was 140 million Americans essentially ignoring a
movement that would eventually change the face of art.
The U.S. population has doubled in the fifty-plus years since Jackson
Pollack dripped his way onto the cover of Life magazine...and there are
still plenty of movements being ignored by the majority. In fact, I get the
feeling there's a new wave of writers, thinkers, artists, and rabble-rousers
out there...operating under the radar to change the face of activism.
A fine example is Kurt Nimmo, author of "Another Day in the Empire: Life in
Neoconservative America." When he's not using his words like defiant
daggers, Nimmo works for New Mexico State University as a photographer and
multimedia developer for distance education. "I build educational websites
for Navajo and Hispanic students here in New Mexico, the poorest state in
America," he said. "Incidentally, thanks to Bush's No Child Left Behind
(sic) and budget cuts in federal education (Bush needs the money to kill
more dark-skinned people), the program I work for did not get funded this
year. Come June, I will probably be out on the street like a lot of
Americans. I have absolutely no idea where I will get another job."
--------
"The geniuses in the Pentagon and in the diabolical labs over at Lockheed
Martin have yet to invent a bomb able to eradicate the hatred of millions of
people who yearn to determine their own destinies."
Kurt Nimmo, from "The Folly of Total War"
--------
"Another Day in the Empire" is, for the most part, a scathing critique of
our un-elected president and the criminals who surround him. "Since the book
was written during Bush's tenure -- his hijacked tenure -- most of the
essays are about the foreign and domestic policies of the Bush
administration," explained Nimmo. Concerned that he was reserving his
well-researched venom solely for neo-cons, I asked him for his thoughts on
Democrats in general...and Clinton in particular.
"I believe there is essentially very little difference between Clinton and
Bush, or so-called New Democrats and Republicans," he replied. "Clinton
bombed Yugoslavia, Sudan, and Iraq several times. He continued Bush Senior's
policy of unrelenting mass murder in Iraq and violated international law."
--------
"Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council killed any shred of
liberalism in America."
from "Crimes Plotted in Windowless Rooms"
--------
Inevitably, this led to a discussion of John Kerry and Election 2004. What
if, I posited, readers interpreted Nimmo's anti-Bush essays as a motivation
to vote Democrat?
" I should hope a reader does not draw the conclusion from the book that I
believe Democrats are a viable alternative come November," said Nimmo. "In
my opinion, Kerry is a war criminal and a despicable human specimen -- for
his actions during Vietnam, even though he climbed on the Vietnam Veterans
Against the War bandwagon after the fact -- and as his voting record
indicates, he is a New Democrat: NAFTA, the Patriot Act, Bush's illegal
invasion; he voted for all of these things and if he wins in November --
unlikely but not outside the realm of possibility -- his administration will
not differ much from Bush. Of course, the abrasive neocons will likely be
history if Kerry wins, but the agenda will be remarkably similar to Bush's.
Instead of alienating the Europeans, Kerry will attempt to win them back
over and get them on the neoliberal bandwagon. It will be business as
usual."
--------
"Dissent makes a difference."
from "Corporate Media: Selling Dubya's Oil War"
--------
"I'd have to say if somebody reads my book and runs out and votes for Kerry,
he or she did not read it very closely," continued Nimmo. "People need to
examine the issues. If they do that they will see that Kerry is simply
Republican Lite minus the unabashed venom of the neocons. US foreign policy
will remain essentially unchanged if Kerry enters the White House."
What can a handful (for now) do against 280 million? I say we have no choice
but to get busy and find out.
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