It seems to me that my job as an artist is to do all I can to create that political will.The design of this government is a thing of wonder. Just think that the law is that the airwaves belong to We The People. The head of the FCC legally could simply order certain hours set aside for We The People to get a good look at the candidates the week or two before elections. America is capable of greatness.
Look at the Marshall Plan after World War II. America rebuilt Europe. America builds things. The Hoover Dam comes to mind. When Katrina hit, the America of my American Dream builds a system of dams and run offs to rival the pyramids. Protects New Orleans so she will never need to fear a hurricane again. Instead of a war, we could put people to work doing that. I believe in Government Works Projects. Really, that's all war is. Puts everybody to work. Government Works Projects just eliminate the death and terror.
I know America is in a very tender place right now. The literally non-human profit maximizing legal fictions called "corporations"," that literally have no skin in the game when it comes to war, are calling the shots. We've shipped all our other jobs away. All we manufacture now is war stuff - bombs, and missiles, and drones, and guns, and ammunition.
JB: Interesting point. I never thought about it but I believe you're right.
TE: When those shelves in those warehouses need to be cleared for new inventory, it's simple good business to start a new war, if profit is your only consideration. No human being want to worry about retaliation, but a non-human corporate entity with only profit as its motive...well, there's no downside! It's HUGE profits. This is a democracy, so majority rules. It may be that people decide as a nation to acquiesce, as they did under Bush number two, or maybe they will find the political will to take back their legal power. First thing we gotta do is kick the system into gear. I believe that what happened last Spring in Virginia was a magnificent, exhilarating triumph of the American voting system. Flex your VOTE! My motivation when I was creating this piece of art was to entertain and inspire. It's a Constructivist piece. It's a Public Service Announcement. My government is not doing it's job, so as a Citizen, I am taking it upon myself to do it.
JB: Good for you! Tell us a little about how you became an activist. Have you always been?
TE: In the draft lottery, the ping pong ball with my birthday written on it was picked out of the chicken wire drum second. so I had to either go to Canada for forever or go into the army. I always hated war. Those old movies on TV of all those guys crawling around in the rubble sticking their heads up just enough to fire on some other guy crawling around in the rubble were just so ugly and uninteresting to me. I knew the Gulf of Tonkin incident was a lie - I had Quaker friends in New York who were smart, informed pacifists. I went to rallies and "happenings" to stop the war. I told myself I could do the army anyway.
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