Bill – if we choose to define an artful rage machine by its holistic attention to detail and focus, its media-getting ability, its inventiveness, intent and effectiveness – even if long term influence is difficult to measure in early moments – I’d say that yr Backbone Campaign creations may already fit this category. The large and bold progressive agenda backbone puppet, the new Procession for the Future creations sure are a great contribution. And – in the interests of full disclosure, I’ve worked with Bill on these – even the January ’07 silly policy bobby lobbying day in DC, the word-based policy projects such as the long standing ‘Conversations with the [Progressive} Cabinet’ online interviews and last June’s Progressive Cabinet Summit may be artful rage machines.

But, yes, too, visualizing some new specific large sculptural moving creation that delivers – in just the right locations – a physical thing that is needed —- could be interesting, as long as lots of media are pre-planned and in place to spread the word….My first thoughts go to Charlie Chaplin’s 1930’s movie “Modern Times” BUT he is trapped in industrialization and mechanization in this film, and the metaphor would need to be shifted so that the machine itself doesn’t destroy/alienate us but is what unites us and keeps us going.

Evie – Now I can already feel you wincing and wanting to reply to my comments above in a way that may be tough to hear. So I implore you to be generous in your views of others’ intentions and creative impulses, and, most of all, keep in mind that past actions and disappointments don’t necessarily presage the future! As for the Baltimore Algebra Project students, no the city has not yet received the school funding it is due (very complicated subject). BUT these young kids are receiving more and more attention with each passing year. They are part of a new national initiative related to the Algebra Project called “Quality Education As A Civil Right.” AND by the way, I admire you for homeschooling your youngest for 12 years!

Robin – Your comments are just what we who are hard on ourselves need to hear. Thanks. Again – full disclosure, Robin is a respected friend, a composer, pianist extraordinaire, and a spiritual person who is an inspiration to all who know her.

h.p and D.R. – Don’t get me started on my problems with western philosophy or rationalism; I’ll literally be online typing all day. I am a skeptic (watch one of my Chespeake Carolers youtube videos and you’ll get it) of course. Even if I am secretly a cynic, for the sake of my children and for the other young people in my life – neighbor kids, nephews, nieces, my students etc – I am pretending to be hopeful. In my view, it’s the only way to go.

Why is it whenever we embrace our own culture we are attacked from within?? We NEED to celebrate! We need street theater! We need to be encouraged to do so, not told all the time how we are wasting our time, much better served being cynical and raging in intellectual words. Culture is critically important in bringing about the progressive changes we desire!

I think what HP was saying about misguided choices is correct. A healthy dose of cynicism will prevent someone from, for lack of better words, shearing the sheep. I think not employing any sort of cynicism or skepticism toward ANY subject is a poor idea. Both of those are the corner stones to the study of philosophy – question everything; don’t believe anything until you have proven it true, either empircally or rationally.

Perhaps I put too little faith in people, but I think you put too much.

That said, Robin, I do agree and admire your empathy for people in general and their individual positions in life, especially.

We can do little to nothing individually. Rosa Parks knew she was not alone when she refused to give up her seat (it was a planned and supported act of disobedience). There was one cause – equal rights.

Today’s “progressive movement” struggles to make one another look good and feel better inside their small circles of multiple “causes.” It’s limiting, produces mediocrity, but no hurt feelings and everyone a star. There is no strength, only soothing phrases. No commitment, but a promise to do at a later date. No passion, but plenty of emotional affect.

Which is why McCain will be the next president.

That being said, I personally view generalized cynicism and generalized judgement of the life and choices of other people to not be all that useful. I see it as spreading a negative blanket over the array of actions that individual people can take and would take to make changes that, when all are added together, can begin to make a difference and change the tide. To judge people harshly and cynically who aren’t taking the actions we think they should be taking, in the way we think they need to be done, I see as cutting off a million interconnected sources of change that we couldn’t possibly be able to imagine all the positive benefits of over time.

I see it as vital to encourage people to take action where they are, at whatever “level” of commitment they are and to be grateful rather than condemning. I can see the importance of calling (rather than shaming) people to live more courageously, outside the box, more in line with their deep values, etc. I support and applaud the contributions of each of you (especially Diane, I am impressed with your insight and the way you move with the discussion) in this discussion and am grateful for your passionate commitment to “the cause”.

I’m the first to scream about the predicament of public education. So disgusted that my youngest never saw the inside of a public classroom, homeschooled 12 years.

I’d invite folks reading this to view an actual contraption that we at Backbone Campaign built called the “Penta-Gone.” Here’s a video of its transformational choreography at its March 4th debut in Portland OR. The outside surface has the pentagon budget accompanied fly corporate logos of those who market and profit from war. The 15 interior panels offer an alternative view of security, a just, sustainable, and humane security. Please see one minute video here: http://backbonecampaign.org/video/Penta-GoneVideoMed.mov

Perhaps you are right D.R. with that depressing idea – that Americans in general aren’t against war per se, just this awful one. Yet I still want to be generous in my view of my fellow Americans. So I attribute this phenomenon to post long term WWII mis-education and very clever ‘mis-framing’ of issues – led by the rightward-leaning ever-stronger corporate media echo chamber – that has successfully taken hold of most white people’s minds. (And let’s also admit race as a factor in many public opinion conversations.)

Still can we at least agree that people in general would rather have a small part of their income help keep people healthy and give them decent education and clean affordable transport and so on? So D.R. given my belief that most people just want basic needs met for themselves and others, I believe ‘progressives’ – for lack of a better term – can’t give up on efforts to create a better society…in spite of the fact that – as both Evie and Gary say – the commercialization of creativity has almost thoroughly destroyed political protest cultures and has branded the brains of our otherwise energetic and risk-taking young people with the desire to just own more stuff.

Yes, the commercialization of protest music from the 60’s to the present is a terrible and brilliant example of this process of co-opting (and successfully rendering harmless) important political discourse and potential for action. And yes, we need to reclaim the idea of arts for action, first by creating a clever and indestructible ever growing media storm of our own. People are trying.

In my article, I deliberately did not speak about all that I find troubling in the strategies, motivations and sometimes limited creativity and today’s peace movement. Though I, too, am mostly distressed, and have strong views, my objective in focusing on March 19th political street theater in DC was to be appreciative of this new element. This is the second time street theater has been successfully deployed in DC. In Oct. ’07 outside Congress, crazy wonderful actions – that, again, disrupted business as usual and receive at least media attention – were organized by NoWarNoWarming and others. So even if we are in a discouraging moment, people are learning about how to attract media attention and how to confront govt in more effective ways. We need to also turn more and more to K Street, i.e. the corporations that control our government. This happened both in October and in March’s actions.

Forgiveness (of ourselves and others) for failed actions, recognition of mutual efforts, and learning from both successes and failures — these are critical at this sad juncture in the anti war movement. And endless opportunities still exist for courageous actions that make a difference. We need look no further than past political and economic actions from the US and around the world, as well as keep in mind that the arts offer more ideas than we will ever need.

Evie, as for the need for true courage, I have noticed that it is sometimes from ‘thinking outside the box’ that folks find new ways to be courageous, ways that fit the crisis at hand. Want an example? Just recently, high school and college students from Baltimore Algebra Project wrapped crime scene tape around Maryland state government buildings in Annapolis because the state government has repeatedly failed to provide city schools with desperately needed minimal funds that is their legal due. These courageous teens were jailed for wanting decent schools! AND their actions and objectives were covered in corporate TV and print news all over the state.

But the thing that gets me is that now, apparently, a majority of the country is against the war. If I remember correctly, before the invasion a majority of the country was FOR the war.

This says to me that it is sheer economics and poor military planning that has lead most into the opposition. If the economy was booming, and we napalmed women and children for only two months (instead of five years), the war would be deemed a raging success.

This says to me that the majority of people are against THIS war, not war in general. They are against wars that aren’t swift and crushingly decisive. So the moment they have to suffer and risk their cushy lives (the war need not be justified to help this point), they want out. They are only against this war for self-serving reasons.

I don’t know, maybe the last few years have made me too bitter and jaded.

I think the average person is more aware of what’s going on than they’re given credit for. I know cab drivers and waiters who have a better grasp on political reality than most writers and artists today.

What I don’t see today is courage. Everyone knows how far they can go against the State and remain somewhat safe – and that’s as far as they go. Understandable. If the average Joe Blows is as ignorant and backward, bitter?, as portrayed – why would anyone want to risk anything to lead them.

I appreciate not getting my butt chewed here for being somewhat adversarial.

But there is a textual difference here, a tonal difference. Evie laments the lack of leadership on the Left and–especially among artists of resistance and protest–a lack of seriousness. Well, okay, I can see that, too–but I don’t see that in Diane’s call for a Rage Machine. Yes, Evie, too many artists want Woodstock 2008–the rain, the mud, the frolic. But Diane knows we’re well past that. Some of us have actually grown up. We saw how Woodstock Nation was subsumed by the Me Decade and the hyper-commercialization of the Arts. We don’t want to re-animate Bob Dylan. He was fine in his time, but the American dream, whose loss he was already lamenting, is dead and gone with Bush-Clinton-Bush and we need a new dream–a global dream, an eco-dream, and artists can help shape and sing that dream.

We do need MLK, as Evie writes–and we need to remember that King was a visionary and an artist as much as a religious and political leader. This came clear to me recently when I re-listened to King’s “Mountain-top” speech just before his death. King says: “Mine eyes have seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeennnn the glory.” It takes about 6 seconds to get through that word “seen” because King isn’t speaking there, he’s singing–he is transformed. He had the vision, he had the passion. If artists can infuse their work with that kind of vision and passion, then they will be the kind of artists who can lead politically, heal, and create a sense of wholeness again.

Joe Blow needs leadership. And although Obama/Hillary are not offering anything new – neither are progressive troupe leaders selling t-shirts and slogans.

The black man Rich speaks of, supporting Obama, may be totally clueless but that is how I see “progressives” – artsy fartsy self-serving clubs, who mistake self-indulgent theatrics for passion; histrionic white folks with jingles for “rage” – who claim to dream of sharing utopia with millions of people who want nothing to do with them.

The “progressive” movement today is entertaining, not revolutionary. And the rightwing machine say thanks.

We need an MLK or MX or RFK but we get groupies selling mugs and t-shirts and slogans. We get Obamas, Clintons, Kerrys, Naderites and Greenies and Kucinichs. They’re allowed, they’re safe. No passion, just job seekers.

Stop funding the government – but most folks don’t wanna lose that refund, rebait, or chump change handout Big Daddy guv puts in their pocket now and then, apparently clueless that as “dependents” of the State they have no power.

The other day I saw a man with a clipboard, a black man, with a HUGE t-shirt of Barack Obama. So I decided to ask him about his candidate, what were his positions? As usual, the man had no idea what Obama’s positions were – what he knew was he was a “black” man (he’s half white, and half black). But I asked him the question that stumps all Obama supporters: “what leadership has Obama provided as a United States Senator?” – of course, he couldn’t say anything in response, because he hasn’t provided any leadership on ANYTHING at all! If you read his books, you will read that he doesn’t really have passion over any issues.

I love your t-shirt!!! I would wear it if I had one!! (: