Freedom of Expression Proof of Purchase

April 28, 2003

I’ve been following the saga of outspoken Natalie Maines and the Dixie Chicks. Freedom of Expression is a hobby of mine. So I was particularly interested in Thursday’s 20/20 Primetime interview with the trio by Diane Sawyer. That same day, the group appeared on Entertainment Weekly’s May 2nd cover—in the buff and covered with epithets that had been slung at them since Natalie’s fifteen words of shame/fame: “Just so you know, we’re ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas.”

I could only watch 15 minutes of the program. It was too depressing to hear radio talk show callers state their desire to strap Ms. Natalie to a bomb and drop her over Iraq. It was too depressing to watch “impromptu,” Clear Channel-inspired, demonstrators smashing CDs with a bulldozer (NY Times, free registration required). I had to turn it off.

What were we fighting for in Iraq if not for freedom to say what we believe in?

I’m not a country music fan and, true, Maines’ offhand remark wasn’t the most elegantly stated prose. But I believe in her right to voice it so strongly I bought their latest CD, Home. RETAIL. And here’s my Freedom of Expression Proof of Purchase™ to prove it. I invite you to do the same by proudly displaying your own proof of purchase on your lapel or your Web site!

First Amendment Censorship

In my last few posts, I have been taking a rather polemic view fo the current sociopolitical environment of the United States and its policies. However, there are much more subtle effects that are happening all around me as I speak that trouble me greatly for the coherence of our Union as a whole.

THis entry will focus on the occurrence of an increasingly familiar use of the First Amendment as a mitigation of a form of populist censorship.

For example, a close colleague of mine works for an online university. I say this only in passing to contexualize the setting. The adjuncts there regularly share experiences in a Faculty Lounge, and of course the subject came to the matter of the Second Gulf War at the time of its beginning. This is when the coourrence that I am referring to began, and has continued in some sense to the time of this writing.

In this setting a wide variety of viewpoints were put forth, and as is the case in the larger society in the US at this time, the more Hawkish individuals accused the more pacifist ones as being unpatriotic, etc. The flame war raged on. However, a couple week sinto the war in microcosm, another agenda came out. Seems that a recurring trope that has surfaced is that dissidents on the forum have been admonished that they shoudl thank God that they have the right to free speech. This is due to the ‘fact’ as stated, that “…if they were in Iraq, they would be (insert some unimaginable horror, such as torture, maiming, rape, etc here) for their treason”

First of all, I’m going to keep mmy remarks limited to the secular, as even my neighbor recently stated to me that “This is the US, and we do have freedom of speech”, a less religiously charged version fo the same statement. But what worries me here is that there is the implication that the First Amendment is a ‘privilege’ under Constitutional Law that one should think very carefully about before using it. I believe in caution when using this freedom more as a sense of civility and moral obligation to others as a human being with a decent sense of ethics. However, it is very disturbing that something that is guaranteed as a right under the social contract of the United States Constitution, while it might be said that the respect for it is welcome, the sense that it is somehow now held as a concept which should be used with caution and is tacitly held circumspect by this populist undercurrent. And although I have only used two examples, I have come upon this at least half a dozen times over the past two months.

In addition, it seems that the First Amendment has been in slow erosion for a while, but now speeded up through the current administration. Those who speak in an ‘improper’ fashion as ‘improper’ times have been incarcerated and transferred to military facilities as enemy combatants. Although this is the extreme case, private spaces such as shopping malls operate under the policies of the companies operating them, not allowing protest, etc. In fact, recent actions by Dow Chemical prove that the freedom of speech on the Internet, by virtue of the DMCA, is a ‘right’ only ‘guaranteed’ by the corporations maintaining the bandwidth.

But I digress.

I think that I should cap this entry mainly with the the apparent social undercurrent with what seems to be a growing number of Americans that I come in contact with that the existence of the First Amendment is precisely the reason why we should censor ourselves. Whether this is to not appear unpatriotic, or disrespectful, or even impolite seems to be a good intent for an argument that in effect undermines itself. And of course this is nothing new, as similar memes have been extant during other ‘wartimes’, although there are key differences in our time that go beyond the scope of this note.

It is my contention that while the freedom of speech, while still guaranteed by US Constitutional Law as a right that this idea that although I believe in a certain level of respect and civility, freedom of expression should be pushed to its limit at any opportunity.

An Aesthetic Operation

April 22, 2003

Please join us in saluting Jon Henry, a great artistic hero:

ìSpeech for the End of Timeî
Randall M. Packer
Secretary, US Department of Art & Technology
Wednesday, April 23, 2003, 7:30 pm
Johns Hopkins University, School of Arts & Sciences, Room LL07
1717 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC

Jon Henry is the National Chairman of the USA Exquisite Corpse. He is dead.

Jon Henry was killed fighting the war machine, but his spirit lives on. His spirit remains strong. So strong in fact, that he is about to lead the Experimental Party in 10,000 Acts of Artistic Mediation.

Jon Henryís epic journey to deconstruct a new medial state begins tomorrow evening (April 23) when his spirit is released into the night, during my ìSpeech for the End of Time.î

In this speech, I am calling on coalition artists to ” to inspire other artists into action by undergoing an aesthetic operation as a form of magic designed as a mediation between our strange hostile world and the human spirit.” Jon Henry will lead that effort.

The new Jon Henry, the young artist from Baltimore, inspired by the old, legendary John Henry, continues the brave fight against the machine in Operation Artistic Freedom.

Here then, is an excerpt from Jonís Manifesto:

“WAR is the ultimatum of capital. It is the result of the energized spectacle of money. God/Money is the fuel that will drive us into the ground. Gain is intertwined in the roots of this cancerous tree of America. And they called the mechanized vacuum of the wretched rich freedom? As the past became history the new Jon Henry saw the object of spectacle in front of him and he knew that in order to be free he must fight against his assimilation; he must face the war spectacle and battle it to his death.” ñ Jon Henry

Randall M. Packer
Secretary, US Department of Art & Technology

Prime Time in Baghdad

April 12, 2003

The Bush administration took over Iraqi television last week in order to broadcast greetings from the President and his British sidekick Tony Blair. How thoughtful of them.

The shows were beamed onto Baghdadís Channel 3, one of the deposed governmentís frequencies. The Pentagon-controlled programming is part of a campaign to persuade Iraqis that their country is being liberated, not occupied, and that self-government and free enterprise are just around the corner.

The administration launched the channel the day after Husseinís government collapsed and US troops took control of Baghdad. This isnít go to be a one-channel schedule. US officials are already planning to open a second television channel with subtitled versions of the three major networksí evening newscasts. Who needs sitcoms when the channel is also reported to include White House, State Department and Pentagon briefings.

According to Norman J. Pattiz, chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the new channelís mission will be to give Iraqiís ìan example of what a free press in the American tradition really is.î

This invasion of American media into the heart of Baghdad is the real war: the war to win the peopleís minds, to replace not only their government, but the very fabric of their culture. Right now, Iraqis are dancing in the streets as they bring home booty from Saddamís palaces and government agencies, but soon the excitement will be over, a newly US appointed leader will be in place, and the people will settle down to a steady diet of manufactured American news talk and government announcements.

This, my friends, is democracy in action for the 21st century.

Randall Packer
Secretary, US Department of Art & Technology

'Art' as 'Weapon' of Mass Deconstruction

April 08, 2003

As architects of our situation we will aid in the construction of a more medial state of being through the deconstruction of the current state by acting out and fullfiling the full intervention of our expressive ideas. We use our medial abilities, i.e. our ways of communication to express ourselves and our position in the state of things. Throughout history artists have been expressing their ideas and through their enhanced communicable abilities have helped to navigate cultural reform. By what means can we speed up the deconstruction of state, in order to approach the nihilistic heart of the matter? What would it mean if, due to the pressures of our impending situation, we used tactical means to express our disbeliefs? What would it mean for the fate of art if art is raised up as a weapon and who would yield this power?

-jon henry
Nat. Chairman of US Exquisite Corpse