Surveillance

The False Mirror, Rene Magritte, 1928

I’ve been in kind of a rut lately, so I thought I’d shake things up a little. First, I bought a copy of “The Anarchist Cookbook” on Amazon. Then I called a bunch of my friends on my Verizon phone and ranted to their voicemails like “Let’s start a revolution against Big Brother and destroy the status quo!” and so on. Finally I went on 4chan and proposed that Anonymous should hack the White House and publish Obama’s browser history, or whatever it is Anonymous does. I was certain the government would quickly identify me as a potential threat to their surveillance-driven oligarchy, and my life would soon become much more adventurous and exciting.

Alas, I just received the following email from the NSA:

“Dear Mr. O’Brien,
We thank you for your interest in the United States Government, and are flattered by your desire to become an enemy of the state. Unfortunately, after careful examination, we have decided that you have neither the intelligence nor the influence to become a legitimate threat to us. Of course, we’ll still continue to monitor your every transaction and communication, and we wish you the best of luck in all your future endeavors. But we thought we should let you know that we really don’t take you very seriously as an adversary.
Sincerely,
The Feds
PS – Your dog’s bowl needs fresh water.”

Read Full Post »

Analyzing The Deep, Nuanced, Multi-Layered, Extremely Artistic Art Of Jon McNaughton

One Nation Under Socialism , painted by Jon McNaughton

To quote Montgomery Burns: “I’m no art critic, but I know what I hate…and I don’t hate this.”  Now if you know me, you might assume I would totally hate Jon McNaughton’s One Nation Under Socialism.  That’s probably because you also assume that this painting is one-dimensional right-wing propaganda rooted in misplaced rage and utter ignorance of what “socialism” is.   But those assumptions would be wrong!  If, however, your artistic sensibilities were as keen as mine, you’d see that Jon McNaughton is, in fact, a subversive left-wing propagandist.  That’s right: Sean Hannity is actually shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars for commie agitprop, and Jon McNaughton’s laughing all the way to the non-corporate credit union!

To the untrained eye, One Nation Under Socialism appears to portray a sinister Barack Obama burning the U.S. Constitution because he hates it, and wants to replace it with whatever the Socialist Constitution is.  But if you look closer, the truth is right in front of your nose.  President Obama’s look isn’t sinister, it’s angry.  Anger that comes from sadness and frustration.  This is because it depicts Obama holding a Constitution that was set on fire by someone else.  Notice how there’s no matches, or lighter, or any kind of fire-making device in his hand.  Also, if Obama had set the fire himself, and wanted to look bad-ass and intimidating while doing it, wouldn’t he be smoking one of his cigarettes that was lit from the flaming Constitution? The absence of such things in One Nation is but one example of McNaughton’s trademark subtlety.

Besides, if Obama really wanted to burn the Constitution, why would he still be holding it?  He’d just leave it on the floor or something.  Why would he risk getting burns on his hand for some capitalist, democratic-republic, white-man’s rulebook?  It should be obvious by now that he’s actually picking up a burning Constitution that he plans to save- a Constitution he found on the floor of the White House as he was moving in.  The implication being that the George W. Bush administration were the ones who burned the Constitution, which is, of course, the theme of all good left-wing propaganda.

Perhaps the most telling detail of the painting, though, is the pointer finger on Obama’s left hand.  Why is he pointing at the burning Constitution?  Anyone with eyes can clearly see the thing’s on fire.  Does the Obama in this painting think we’re so stupid that we can’t see a blazing fire?  Certainly not.  See, if we were to enlarge the painting, we would see that Obama is not pointing at the fire, but at a single word in the Constitution.  It’s the word “Prejudice,” from Article 4, Section 3 (where it states, “nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State”).  Basically, McNaughton’s Obama is telling us that prejudice is in our great nation’s DNA, and has been from the very beginning, and that’s why all those Republican assholes think he’s igniting our legal foundations with pinko-fire.

Now THAT’S what I call artmanship!

Read Full Post »

A Manipulative Piece Of Persuasive Art

I have to say I admire the Mitt Romney campaign for being so honest about how dishonest they are.  They took some of Barack Obama’s words out of context- like, practically as far out of context as you could possibly take words.  Obama was quoting someone else, and the Romney folks made it look like he was expressing his own opinions.  Then to justify their out-of-contexting, an anonymous Romney op uttered this flabbergasting explanation:

First of all, ads are propaganda by definition. We are in the persuasion business, the propaganda business … Ads are agitprop … Ads are about hyperbole, they are about editing. It’s ludicrous for them to say that an ad is taking something out of context … All ads do that. They are manipulative pieces of persuasive art.

Dudes, do you realize what this means?  This changes everything!  There’s no such thing as “out of context” anymore!  How awesome is that?  I’m so sick of context ruining all the things I want to pass off as truth.  No more libel lawsuits for this guy!

Hey, did you guys know that Mitt Romney once said, and I motherfucking quote, “Unemployment rates do not matter to the average American?”  He said it on his twitter once.  Maybe he was quoting someone else, and maybe he wasn’t; point is, the dude tweeted that shit,  so that means he means it.  That’s right: Mitt Romney said you don’t care about all the unemployment, average American! 

DISCLAIMER: If, by some slim chance, it turns out that what I’ve just written is far less than 100% true, then I can’t be held accountable.  This is simply my manipulative piece of persuasive art, dammit.

Read Full Post »