millennium spectacle
everybody put on a show
slip the little prince in the back door
21st century here we go
digital whiplash
so many formats so little time
while out in tv nation
under darkening skies
the resistance is just waiting to be organized
— “Millennium Theater” Ani DiFranco, Reprieve (2006)
Tonight around the country we are honoring all those whose lives have endured tragic setbacks due to the war. I wish to honor Baltimoreans and Baghdad citizens who are not receiving basic health services, or decent schools, not to mention housing, people who do not have enough food, clean water or electricity here in Baltimore and in Baghdad, all who are endlessly traumatized because of the mangled values of empire.
I have just been at a fantastic community arts conference at the Maryland Institute College of Art. At this meeting, a small group of us decided to dedicate ourselves for two days to the idea of making an effective rage machine. (The term ‘rage machine’ was coined by one of my partners, a Detroit-based prison-reform artist originally from India via the United Arab Emirates!) This theme or metaphor seemed relevant to this evening’s gathering, so I will link it to efforts to end the war.
What might constitute an effective rage machine to end this war?
I believe that artists must be part of such a machine. Artists must join and sometimes even lead rage machines if the machines are to be effective. I’m wearing a shirt that says Choose Your Weapons and there is a pen, a guitar and a paintbrush on my shirt. These are gentle tools, gentle weapons. I call them weapons of mass persuasion. To this image of a guitar, a pen and a paintbrush, I would add a theater mask and dancing shoes, or bare feet if that’s how you prefer to move.
At Chesapeake Citizens, we use subversive and humorous music and movement in scary places of power to gently deliver brutal but truth-telling sights and sounds where they’re most needed. These moments give us strength for future actions, as well as a much-needed laugh instead of our usual tears, rage, sense of isolation and fear.
While doing these ridiculous actions, with our silly costumes and our blunt, exposé language, we exert everyone’s innate right to absolute freedom of expression, anywhere, and all the time.
I have finally begun to understand the existential artistic and political struggles of the jazz musicians, abstract painters and writers who lived behind the Iron Curtain. (This complicated comparison of circumstances merits a thorough exploration, better suited for another occasion.) Creative assertions of our freedom have symbolic importance, especially when we are standing inside our government buildings, because we do own them after all.
In poll after poll, a majority of Americans has made it abundantly clear that we want to end our country’s occupation of Iraq, yet our wishes have been ignored again and again by the politicians. As some would say, we have been ‘disrespected.’ So why not return the favor, and ‘disrespect’ the discredited politicians back? And how about taking ideas, words and imagery from the arts? Artists around the world have given us all gifts, rich traditions, from which we can take inspiration.
For instance, I see most politicians as bloated cartoon creatures reminiscent of Spanish artist Francesco Goya prints from about 200 years ago. Many of these are satiric critiques of public figures, and ravaging indictments of war. I recommend viewing Goya’s “The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters” or “The Disasters of War.”
And I think of the words of the late Soviet dissident poet Joseph Brodsky:
At sunrise, when nobody stares at one’s face, I often
set out on foot to a monument cast in molten
lengthy bad dreams. And it says on the plinth “commander
in chief.” But it reads “in grief,” or “in brief,”
or “in going under.”
— from Elegy, 1985, translated from Russian by the author
I am reminded of the outstanding leadership of former Czechoslovakia’s playwright-turned-President Vaclav Havel.
I frequently imagine the identity shifting, discipline, and political courage contained in the life and self portraits of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, as well as the peoples’ murals created by her sometimes husband, Diego Rivera.
I have read that singing gave many Civil Rights activists the unity and strength to engage in strikes, boycotts, marches, sit-ins, and even to endure jail time.
And I have repeatedly read Howard Zinn’s amazing little book Artists in Times of War. There are ideas for all of us in that book.
Since I believe that an effective rage machine to end this war should utilize all the arts, including public theater, it was heartwarming to read about all the creative protest actions that took place inside the straight-laced beltway today. Today on the streets of DC, over one thousand people — boisterous students, knitting grannies, veterans, musicians, masked ghosts of war, and other citizen activists — engaged in a series of bold actions. Business-of- empire as usual was temporarily disrupted on some streets, in front of some buildings.
In the coming weeks I will gladly read reports and watch videos of all the fun and drama that occurred simultaneously in different locations throughout the city.
From this expanding model of collective political street theater — targeting not just corrupted government but also quiet corporate Goliaths such as the American Petroleum Institute and the American Enterprise Institute — people will gain inspiration, greater cooperation, and new organizing skills for the continuing struggle for peace.
In spite of this day’s sad anniversary, surely the appearance of an artful rage machine in our nation’s capital marks the beginning of a new phase of 21st century American agitation — at last, an empowering and media-attracting addition to collective D.C. actions to end the Iraq occupation, bring the troops home, and live out our shared destinies in tranquility and abundance.
* edited script of talk from ‘Baltimore Winter Soldier Speak Out,’ March 19, 2008.
** Thank you to Jim Baldridge of Veterans for Peace for organizing the Baltimore Winter Soldier Speak Out.
To view video of event by Bill Hughes.
For footage of Iraq Veterans Against the War Winter Soldier testimonies.
For reports/images of March 19th actions.