…so, set ‘em up, Joe…!
Am I the only one here who watches Presidential speeches and news conferences these days and gets the feeling he’s just not into it anymore, somehow…?
One more for his baby, and one more for the road…
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I caught this article on Al Jazeera the other day, reporting that owing to poor turnout, the Egyptian election commission has been forced to extend voting for a third day. In fact, Egyptians are avoiding the polls in such large numbers that the election commission is threatening fines for not voting — which kind of pushes not voting into the realm of non-violent civil disobedience, when you think about it.
I couldn’t help thinking that dissident/third parties in the US — especially on the Left — could learn something from this. For many years now, Americans have staged a sort of de facto boycott of elections, but it hasn’t been organized and sent no unified message about oligarchy and corruption. Perhaps instead of pissing away time and energy trying to get “elected”, outfits like the Green Party could instead send a message about the state of US electoral politics by calling for a boycott — a “No Vote” campaign, mobilizing non-voters to take to the streets to express their intent and their reason for not voting, smashing the old stereotype of the “apathetic” non-voter.
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Anyone who knows my work will tell you that I really love parodying famous works of art, and the recent revival of revolutionary action in the streets following the Egyptian government’s newly-passed law restricting public protest seemed the perfect time to do my version of one of my favorite 19th Century French paintings: Eugene Delacroix’s Liberty Leading The People.
All across Egypt, ordinary people are taking to the streets to assert their rights in defiance of government efforts to criminalize public protest. A mass student strike in Cairo proetsting the police shooting of a student demonstrator this week displayed the kind of courage in the face of state violence which should inspire the meek and cushy-living activists of the US to bolder action — but will probably not.
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Just recently, I was checking out some video footage of the Oakland police attacking the Occupy Oakland camp along with some footage of the Egyptian police attacking Tahrir Square, and for a moment or two there, I almost couldn’t tell the difference… and that isn’t good. I’ve seen good before, and that isn’t it.
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