Monthly Archives: September 2005

Who’s a war criminal?

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War Criminal t-shirtGeorge W. is a war criminal, Dick Cheney is a war criminal, Colin Powell is a war criminal, every last White House staffer is a war criminal, nearly every Congress member is a war criminal, every mainstream media pundit is a war criminal, and YOU are a war criminal for permitting their illegal war in your name. “Not in our name” you decry? Did you stop it?

No one in the world could have stopped the American onslaught except the American people. No one on the other side of our tanks and our missiles can stop the American military machine. Neither their sovereign borders nor their laws can protect them from falling into our gunsights. Only the American people have recourse through their constitution to bring an aggressive rogue government to heel.

After the last election, thousands of American contributed photos of themselves to a website offering their apologies to the rest of the world. “We’re sorry” was the theme. Many of them added “we did what we could.”

A European website quickly emerged with thousands of world citizens turning up in photographs of their own to say “apology accepted.” That was very gracious of them. Do Americans have any idea what it will really take to stop this administration? When will we really be able to say we did our best?

You can purchase WAR CRIMINAL t-shirts at the IraqWarMemorial.info website.

Eye of beholder

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Graffiti

I’d like to address a comment to the art galleries of Colorado City, if I may, including Ms. Nose-in-the-Air who is so put off by the new graffiti mural adorning the West Side Tattoo shop.

Whereas you may frown upon graffiti and its urban origins, I feel compelled to point out: ain’t none of you dealing in fine art.

After a comprehensive, if hasty, search of Colorado Avenue, I can say with the authority of my ordinary education, that every last one of you merchants are selling kitsch, whether to the tourists or to the Mountain Shadows bourgeoisie. Where then do you come off calling somebody else low-brow?

One could suggest, to the converse, that graffiti born of the urban plight might embody artistic expression a little more than say, air-brushed wolves.

You dealers may feel validated in your line of work in a year when over-blown glass chotchkes by Chihuly TM pass themselves off for masterpieces at the Fine Art Center. But they are not, and your lovely stuff is not, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Pleasing to the eye, warming to the heart, is fine enough for art, don’t you think? For people a little different than you, tattoos and graffiti are every bit that too.

Katrina relief: what can you do?

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New Orleans

Katrina Relief- What should you do?
Hoist the Federal Governement up on its own petard!
Do not aid and abet the carpetbagger land grab!
Do not aid and abet the displacement and scattering of the Louisiana poor.

The poor are the ones who’ll have to stay and stand up for their rights to their land.
Recovery funds should go to them, not to the reconstruction companies, developers and gaming resorts. I’m sorry but that’s not going to happen if you are helping to ship them out of Louisiana and Mississippi to put them up here.

Immediately after the Katrina disaster, “philanthropists” from Colorado Springs hired buses to go down to the relief shelters. The “philanthropists” plastered the stricken areas with fliers advertizing COME TO SCENIC COLORADO SPRINGS, etc.

The “philanthropists” set up agencies here to allocate the refugees to hotels and then apartments and houses. They helped connect refugees with cars, appliances, furniture and clothing. Those “philanthropists” were also quite visionary, because they foresaw that FEMA would pay for it all!

So what did those “philanthropists” accomplish after all? That FEMA money would flow into Colorado Springs coffers! Apartments and homes that had been empty are now occupied! Colorado Springs goods and services are now getting Federal dollars. And who were those “philanthropists?” Wealthy, well-known, developers! And apartment complex owners! And local business leaders!

Many of the refugees have since returned to the south to be with their families and friends. But it looks like the “philanthropists” foresaw that too, because it didn’t matter, the rents on those now empty apartments are already paid! FEMA paid for a year’s rent on each of them.

That’s taxpayer money, going to those wealthy “philanthropists.” All the less money than can go to help the Katrina victims rebuild their homes and their lives.

What should you do for the Katrina victims? Wish them Godspeed, call your congressman to urge that more support be offered to Katrina’s real victims, then call the U.S. Attorney General and urge him to prosecute the “philanthropists” for profiteering and fraud.

That’s what you can do.

UPDATE
We’ve seen this before in the South. It was called THE RECONSTRUCTION. And the northern opportunists who plagued the Reconstruction? They were called CARPETBAGGERS.