Another Day in the Empire Paperback – December 30, 2003

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."

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"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"

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"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."

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"Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council killed any shred of

liberalism in America."

from "Crimes Plotted in Windowless Rooms"

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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."

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"Dissent makes a difference."

from "Corporate Media: Selling Dubya's Oil War"

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"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.