My deepest apologies. I mentioned that I had quoted your article in one of my blogs. Your article was clipped to another article I quoted from, and I lifted the quote from the second one thinking it was yours.

I stand corrected and the next time I’ll take the damn paper clip off before I start quoting.

One of my concerns with the Progressive liturature I’ve read is that it obsesses over symptom without delving into the systemic foundation that is the root cause of our manifold crises.

One of the roles of the artist is to create the metaphors, in both word and image, that will shine light on this crippled foundation before it destroys us.

We must draw our inspiration from Latin America where the “people’” are struggling to free themselves from the very same oppression that has enslaved us. The only difference is that we possess so many toys, we barely notice that we’re enslaved. Put a man behind the wheel of a BMW, with an iPod in his ear, and I will show you the most perfect of servants, the slave who thinks he’s a rebel.

I agree with your conclusion that “our bourgeois society “doesn’t do miserable,” but I do not see where in my article I’ve said or implied that “the American people do not want to acknowledge any wrongdoing on the part of their government.” That’s not my kind of phraseology–nor do I believe it. With 82% of Americans (according to a recent Washington Post-ABC poll) believing that our country is “on the wrong track,” it’s obvious that most of us acknowledge the grievous sins of our government and culture. The problem is that we have a Government of, by and for Elitists who don’t give a damn about the sentiment of the people they rule. This is where artists can play an essential role–helping to define and shape vague impressions and apprehensions into resonant images and words that capture the Zeitgeist–and elevate our consciousness. In the 60s and early 70s, we had “outside agitators”
going to our Jim Crow (apartheid) South. As a nation and world, we stand in their debt, and in awe of them, today. Now we need “inside agitators”–those whose words, ideas, music, etc. reach into our minds, bellies and hearts and don’t let go. We need to re-fashion this world as we leave the era of predatory capitalism, global corporatism and Euro-American hegemony behind. How to build upon the best of the West (and the past) and integrate with the new-old currents of energy from Asia, Latin America, etc. will be one of the major challenges of our generation–and of generations to come. And this will all be hugely complicated by the ecological crises we have created. So, there is much work for artists to do, much work for all of us to do, in this Great Reformation.

The problem is that while the truth will set you free, it first makes you miserable. Our bourgeois society doesn’t do miserable.

A good article by Gary which could marry Art to (activism) whereby
Senator Obama would make ‘Hughes’ vision and poem, a reality.