I have this fantasy where the artists go on strike.
I dream that one by one, in their own quiet ways, the artists, the writers, the musicians, the comedians, the graphic designers, the marketing gurus, the spinmeisters and press release writers, the jingle makers and advertising creatives, the seamstresses and cake decorators, will lay down their tools and refuse to work for evil anymore.
The writer will stand up from her desk at Raytheon and walk away without lending them another word.
The graphic designer at the State Department will turn off his Wacom and shut down Photoshop and pick up a pencil and start sketching homeless people.
Whole marketing departments will turn their talents to telling the real story of what their organization does in words and jingles and graphics and logos while the hapless artless CEO looks on helplessly, threatening them with everything he’s got.
Across boardrooms in every state of the US, in every country in Europe, on all the continents and in all the languages, the artists will stand up one by one and say:
“I will no longer use my poetry to sculpt weasel words into beautiful truthless forms so that you might suck up more life and turn it into greenbacks.”
“I will no longer use my art to run cover for your ambitions.”
“I will no longer lend credence to your planet-killing philosophy.”
“I will no longer let my goodness stand in the way of people seeing your badness.”
“I will no longer be the sole reason why people still trust your organization.”
And I hope that one day the CEO of Boeing will be forced to sit down at a laptop and type out his own press release, and I hope he cries in frustration when reading back the one and only sentence he can come up with: “Killing people is good, ackshually.”
In this dream I have, the artists know their power, and not only are they no longer begging for their invoices to be paid, they are so aware of their worth, entitlements and responsibilities that they can look an employer in the eye who wants to use their skills to sell a bad idea and say “I don’t care how much you are willing to pay me, I can’t let you use me that way.”
And I hope that any other artist who that employer approaches tells them the same. “Get a better business model–one that helps people instead of harming them–and I might consider it.”
They will say, one after the other:
“No, you will not use my intimacy with the muse to sell more units of your novelty landfiller.”
“You will not use my access to creativity making others poorer and sicker to make yourself richer.”
“You will not use my inspiration to explain us into another war.”
“You will not use my love of people to help you act out your hatred of them.”
And each time a young artist makes the decision to pledge their life to their talent, they will gather in a group and say this oath to themselves and each other:
I solemnly pledge to consecrate my life to the service of humanity;
I will practise my profession with conscience and dignity;
The health of the whole will be my first consideration;
I pledge stand in the truth–my truth–and let inspiration pour through me unhindered by the death cult agendas of the money men;
I refuse to use my skills to manipulate or persuade others to act against their own self-interests;
I recognize that my art is not mine, I am merely a conduit for the wisdom of the whole and any attempt to manipulate my art to benefit myself, another individual, or a group of people at the expense of others is a misuse of my privilege;
My loyalty is to the highest interest of the whole;
So long as I maintain this oath faithfully and without corruption, may it be granted to me to partake of life fully and the practice of my art, gaining the respect of everyone for all time. However, should I transgress this oath and violate it, may the opposite be my fate.
And then they all high-five and cheer and clink their drinks and spend the rest of the night dreaming up wonderful ideas and making each other laugh til their tummies hurt and their faces ache.
It’s a good dream. I like it. I want it.
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Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet merchandise, buying my new book Poems For Rebels (you can also download a PDF for five bucks) or my old book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge.
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59 responses to “The Artists’ Rebellion”
noise/signal ratio: silenced like Rushdie,Assange,& Snowden, Life isn’t easy,but it has its drawbacks…
“Some legislators have since tried to argue that they didn’t mean to “overturn” the election, that their action was more akin to a protest vote. This cannot be taken seriously. That’s like pulling a gun on somebody, walking away with their wallet, and then claiming that you never intended to shoot them if they hadn’t turned over their wallet. A mugging is a mugging, and a mass of legislators claiming that the election was stolen and rejecting the results is an attempt to overturn the election. When the president himself refuses to concede, voting against the recognition of electoral votes cannot simply be a protest, and we don’t have to accept such absurdity at face value.” https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/more-dangerous-capitol-riot/617655/
“It was inevitable. Trump is like the fabled scorpion–
You know, the one who asks the frog to help him cross the river.
The frog says, “no, I won’t take you. You’ll stab sting me to death with your tail.”
The scorpion replies, “Oh, no. That would be crazy. I’d end up killing myself. I won’t sting you.” So the frog agrees to help the scorpion cross the river. Halfway across, the scorpion stings the frog.
As the frog is dying, it croaks to the scorpion, “You’ve killed us both. Why?”
The scorpion replies. I couldn’t help it. It’s my nature.”
https://www.opednews.com/articles/Trump-Kicks-His-Dogs–Mag-by-Rob-Kall-Betrayal_Capitol-Riot_Trump-Cult-210116-739.html
the iTaliban force association w/gladiator assigned to me. But even the monkey must sleep sometime. Thus coerced to hire a back-up gladiator monkey -until i can afford to hire one each for 8-hour shifts – to better keep each other company. Nazis are to gangsters what fascists are to mobsters
Trump the punk mobster spoilsport US Capitol transformed into fortress ahead of inauguration
Stalking is a hate crime because felony-menacing. 24/7 surveillance includes landline & cellphone being tapped; computers/cellphones hacked; auto & bicycle GPS tracked. If this can happen to a U.s. born citizen(3rd generation immigrant),then…
I quit working at shoprite to work online and with a little effort I easily bring in around $45 to 85 per/h.GHJ Without a doubt, this is the easiest and most financially rewarding job I’ve ever had. I actually started 6 months ago and this has totally
changed my life….
noise/signal ratio: silenced like Rushdie,Assange,& Snowden, Life isn’t easy,but it has its drawbacks…
“Some legislators have since tried to argue that they didn’t mean to “overturn” the election, that their action was more akin to a protest vote. This cannot be taken seriously. That’s like pulling a gun on somebody, walking away with their wallet, and then claiming that you never intended to shoot them if they hadn’t turned over their wallet. A mugging is a mugging, and a mass of legislators claiming that the election was stolen and rejecting the results is an attempt to overturn the election. When the president himself refuses to concede, voting against the recognition of electoral votes cannot simply be a protest, and we don’t have to accept such absurdity at face value.” https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/more-dangerous-capitol-riot/617655/
“It was inevitable. Trump is like the fabled scorpion–
You know, the one who asks the frog to help him cross the river.
The frog says, “no, I won’t take you. You’ll stab sting me to death with your tail.”
The scorpion replies, “Oh, no. That would be crazy. I’d end up killing myself. I won’t sting you.” So the frog agrees to help the scorpion cross the river. Halfway across, the scorpion stings the frog.
As the frog is dying, it croaks to the scorpion, “You’ve killed us both. Why?”
The scorpion replies. I couldn’t help it. It’s my nature.”
https://www.opednews.com/articles/Trump-Kicks-His-Dogs–Mag-by-Rob-Kall-Betrayal_Capitol-Riot_Trump-Cult-210116-739.html
stalking is a hate crime because felony-menacing. Land-&cellphones tapped,computers & cellphones hacked,vehicles auto&bicycles GPS tracked. Are we having fun yet? All citizens to beome Rushdie,Assange, Snowden, & Saviano shadow-figure silhouettes
Can I take the establishments money and give them the minimum in return? Using my free time to build the tools of the establishments destruction. Or do I have to live in a pile of leaves and crap in a hole? There is not a lot of space between the two.
I am now making extra $19k or more every month from home by doing very simple and easy job online from home. I have received exactly $20845 last month from this home job. Join now this job and start making extra cash online by follow instruction on the given website…….. Home Profit System
As a pro-life antifeminist artist, I have been fighting evil for years and paying a price for it: Facebook bans, banned from student chat sites at university. I was even booted out of a group on facebook called Artists Without Restrictions! (Feel free to laugh at the sheer hypocrisy of that one.
If you feel strongly enough that you are right, it is worth it but never forget that one man’s evil is another man’s freedom issue.
Thank you. For Caitlin’s site I expect and welcome multiple perspectives, especially from artists who have had cancel attempts made against them by ossified, “mean Green meme” disingenuous artist folk.
You will be very happy to know that in the recent report of the NYT Newspaper, A man has earned $11000 in a month by doing simple works Online. I read this report and started following him. Now I am making $10000 in a month. If you want to read this NYT Newspaper Report… Home Profit System
I appreciate your articles, Caitlin and this is an understatement. But, this one is something that I have felt also at a very deep level. After getting a “business” degree (I did not get this degree from any place of the heart nor soul nor mind, just a convenience while I suffered the fallout from another series of poor life choices; I refer to it as a very expensive Cracker Jack box degree. GPA: easy 3.83, I missed a few assignments.), the mantra of the coursework would not leave me alone because it was so toxic; it ate away at my brain. It was something, something…the “purpose”, the reason for a “business” (I really don’t want to know the specifics of the intro, but the end piece is what gnawed at me: the purpose, the reason is for a business is: to increase the wealth of the shareholders, to increase the wealth of the shareholders, to increase the wealth of shareholders. Get it, yes, of course, it’s a real mind-worm of the worst kind and I didn’t buy it for a second. They left out a key element of this revenue statement equation, the capital investment financial statement equation; the evermore and forever more important – STAKEHOLDERS ! Stakeholders are all the rest of us, humanity and all other things that go into a sound and healthy business, such as the obvious ones; the consumer, the transport workers and logistic persons who comprise the transport pathways, the land, our environment- precious ecosystems, the roads and bridges…et al. I developed a business model four years after being out of from under the mind and soul-robbing mantra of my business coursework. In 2015, I discovered the Keiser Report quite accidentally and it saved me from this horrid mantra. Being freed from the mind-worm mantra and hearing the truth that I had felt ever since Walmart came on the scene and many other underpinnings and well, George Carlin bits, etc., that spoke loudly; there is something seriously wrong with what is happening to “us” by “them” and from listening intently to all of the many wonderful guests that Max and Stacy had on their financial scandal reporting show (I had gone back to the first episode and binge watched to get current.), my baby, my business model just flowed out me in a weekend on PPT slides, notes-pages to follow over the course of a couple weeks. It is based on the intrinsic value of the worker and workers rights. It’s a code, really. I wrote a code and I’m not a code writer. I do have an A.S. in Math/Science from way back, but I didn’t ever learn that there, lol, computer language. I was unreasonably fearful about it. I say to this most eloquent article. Bravo, Caitlin, bravo !
Let’s create a global artists guild in the name of these principles and organize it as a fractal online network. The universe is mental and spiritual…..matter is a divine matrix illusion.
The problem, people going to college today, to develop their talents, are looking to secure a good paying job; that is why they devote themselves to their studies. The reality is, this economy does not allow for altruistic gestures, it is a matter of survival; compete for positions or join the ranks of the homeless.
Still, I have hope and a similar dream. My dream is simple: People start listening with their hearts instead of their heads.
You cant make a living with a degree in art history or women studies or alot of other useless courses. Colleges have been bloated by irrelevence. It is time for a serious cutback in the liberal arts.
Since I started fre+lancing I’ve been bringing in (((($)))90 bucks/h… I sit at home and i am doing my work from my laptop. Th℮ best thing is that i get more time to spent with my family and with my kids and in the same time i can earn enough to support them… You can do it too.
Start here—— > > > Home Profit System
Timothy Michel wrote:
> The problem, people going to college today, to develop their talents, are looking to secure a good paying job . . .
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Yes, and companies are more and more going the safe profitable route, which kills creativity and contributes to dumbing down the public.
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For example in the music industry:
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“Pop music these days: it all sounds the same, survey reveals
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“Pop music is too loud and melodies have become more similar, according to a study of songs from the past 50 years conducted by Spanish scientists . . .
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“The researchers used a dataset of 464,411 music recordings . . .
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“‘We obtained numerical indicators that the diversity of transitions between note combinations — roughly speaking chords plus melodies — has consistently diminished in the last 50 years.’
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“Not only are the melodies of songs more similar than they used to be, the timbral palette employed — the sounds of the instruments — has also grown narrower.”
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Pop music these days: it all sounds the same, survey reveals — The Guardian — Jul 27, 2012
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/jul/27/pop-music-sounds-same-survey-reveals
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Some artists can escape this and make a living, or more. See for instance Irish singer-songwriter Gilbert O’Sullivan (remember “Alone Again” and “Clair” from 1972?). Fifty years later, he’s still composing with his personal style, very different from today’s commercial music. For example:
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I Guess I’ll Always Love You — Gilbert O’Sullivan feat. Ayala
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoJGIRcOmsU
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Same of course with Neil Young, here with a great combative song from his 2015 album “The Monsanto Years”:
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Workin’ Man
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A working man in Indiana travelled from farm to farm
Plantin’ seeds and talkin’ weather, working 90 farms
Got to know the farmers knew all of their kids
Out in the country, that was ’96
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His life was good and steady when seeds were cash
Next year the farmers were ready, the times were changing fast
Supreme Court in session made a new law
GMO seeds and patents had a fatal flaw
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Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas formerly worked for Monsanto
Well I don’t know you but I do know who I am
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One summer morning just around dawn
Four men with briefcases were on the working man’s lawn
We’re gonna to sue you, take you to court
For patent infringement, the criminals you support
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We’re from Monsanto we own the seeds
Give us the names of those farmers you seek
You’re gonna need big money to stand your ground
Or we’re gonna bury you, how does that sound?
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Working man lost all is his friends, his business too
Well I don’t know you but I do know who I am
.
Now times have changed, things are picking up
The wheels are rolling again on the old seed truck
The cleaner’s coming back have taken back the land
They don’t care the cost they’re gonna take a stand
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Well I don’t know you but I do know who I am
Well I don’t know you but I do know who I am
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Workin’ Man — Neil Young + Promise of the Real (Live at Farm Aid 30)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAjZD909sXc
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Or, among many other examples, the recent case of a young South Korean singer and songwriter, J.Fla, who started independently posting on YouTube, etc. and got a large number of followers by herself alone before getting contracts that seem to allow her to keep the same personal style and choices for singing, songwriting, videos, covers, etc. So going independent isn’t easy, it needs a lot of talent, work and dedication, but it’s still possible. Imagine if artists get together…
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For example, a brief but extraordinary cover of a well-known Michael Jackson song:
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Heal the World
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There’s a place in your heart
And I know that it is love
And this place could be much
Brighter than tomorrow
.
And if you really try
You’ll find there’s no need to cry
In this place you’ll feel
There’s no hurt or sorrow
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There are ways to get there
If you care enough for the living
Make a little space
Make a better place
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Heal the world
Make it a better place
For you and for me
And the entire human race
.
There are people dying
If you care enough for the living
Make it a better place
For you and for me
.
If you want to know why
There’s love that cannot lie
Love is strong
It only cares of joyful giving
.
If we try we shall see
In this bliss we cannot feel
Fear of dread
We stop existing and start living
.
Then it feels that always
Love’s enough for us growing
Make a better world
Make a better world
.
Heal the world
Make it a better place
For you and for me
And the entire human race
.
There are people dying
If you care enough for the living
Make it a better place
For you and for me . . .
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Heal The World (Michael Jackson, cover by J.Fla) — 8,943,184 views
Thank You!!!! Bring it on.
Its a follow your true dreams manifesto. Very few people with the creative urge ever wanted to surrender to a get a job and pay your bills mentality. However being subsumed into the machine is pretty much the only option still and not just for artists. The media ecosystem with few exceptions such as here is the main attitude shaping obstacle. Marketing itself is woven into this creature and has helped create what appears to be the intractable problem of a suicide machine stuck on. Seems like there will need to be a precipitating bottom event to shake people out of this nightmare dyspraxis.
The reason for things being the way they are is the same as it has always been throughout human history – the moment-to-moment performance of behavior that was/has been/is being “reinforced” with the basic necessities of life – shelter, clothing, food, warmth, “love”, etc. If that means killing better than whatever other animal in the neighborhood, that (thy) will be done.
For at least most of the last thousand years, for most humans living in cities, anyway, survival means somehow acquiring (doing absolutely anything to acquire) “money” that can be exchanged for those necessities of life, 24/7. Again, the, for lack of a better word, “immediacy” of an individual human beings’ existential requirements at any point in human history, including me as I type, is paramount.
Why do underground miners continue, day after day after day, to risk their lives going deep underground to mine whatever? Money. That’s how they “make a living”. They’ll do absolutely anything to keep their jobs.
Why do mercenaries risk their lives, day after day after day, killing and killing and killing whomever they’ve been hired to kill? Money. That’s how they “make a living”. They’ll do absolutely anything to keep their jobs.
Why do people employed in the cigarette industry, from tobacco farmers to factory workers to retail stores, continue to produce and market a cancer-causing substance that will kill millions of people all over the world, year after year after year? Money. That’s how they “make a living”. They’ll do absolutely anything to keep their jobs.
Why do the millions of people directly or indirectly (the pizza parlor, hospital, movie theater, auto-dealership, etc. just down the street from the local Lockheed Martin sub-sub-sub-contractor) employed in the military-security-congressional-industrial complex – the SA/FBI/NSA/DHS/CIA/JSOC/USMC/USN/BIW etc. ad infinitum – continue to do, day after day after day, what they do? Money. That’s how they “make a living”. They’ll do absolutely anything to keep their jobs (including regime changes and, very unfortunately, starting a nuclear war).
Why do people employed in the whaling industry continue to risk their lives at sea, day after day after day, killing mammals that live in the oceans of the world? Money. That’s how they “make a living”. They’ll do absolutely anything to keep their jobs.
Why do people employed in the fossil fuel industry continue to explore for fossil fuel on land and at sea, day after day after day when they know in their heart of hearts that what they are doing is poisoning their Mother Earth’s biosphere to the point where Mother Earth will no longer support human life? Money. That’s how they “make a living”. They’ll do absolutely anything to keep their jobs.
What specific behavior does “doing absolutely anything to keep their jobs” consist of? What are all of these people going to do if they feel that their livelihoods are being threatened (that they’re going to become “unemployed”) by candidates for political offices who have control over foreign (war) policy, energy policy, fishing policy, tobacco/asbestos/GM food/GHG policies? Specifically, which candidates for political office are they going to vote for? “Naturally”, candidates whose “platforms” they believe will lead to the continuation of their livelihoods.
THIS – how we “make our livings” – is EXACTLY why the current situation is the way it is in the world today.
The slowly evolving “system” we human beings have, whether intentionally or unintentionally, “agreed upon” and lived within for the past many thousand of years is the problem. Therefore, WE have to figure out a better “system” (way of life) very soon or we (the living end of the eons-old human species) are going to die in a nuclear war or an environmental catastrophe.
So, instead of pointing fingers, let us, each and every one of us, start figuring out the specific details of a better way of life. On a day to day basis, just exactly WHAT does that better world “look like”? How does it “operate”? If humanity is going to survive beyond the lifetimes of the present human beings born TODAY, imagining and giving birth to this at-first-only-imagined better world is exactly what WE, not THEM, not SOMEONE ELSE, and definitely not the Oligarchic Transnational Elite Collective (OTEC), are going to have to do.
If I were you, I’d first try to imagine a system in which each and every person involved in the ways of life I’ve described above is satisfied that they’ll be able to “make a living” (literally survive) should that new system come into being. Put differently, they’d vote for it.
That’s your challenge. Humanity’s survival depends upon your ability to “think outside” the present-day, soon-to-fail, irresolvable conundrum in which we are now living.
What will the “foundation stone” of YOUR system be? Will it be the same one at the foundation of the present conundrum – “greed is good” – that all every single human being of 7.4 billion individuals has to do is get out of bed every day and attempt to satisfy his/her insatiable greed and “everything” will turn out just fine for the collective whole of humanity?
No, the foundation stone of a better world must not be “greed is good”. It must be something miraculously simple. It is to “do unto other as you would have them do unto you” because
there. is. no. other. way. out. of. the. current. situation.
That is the most obvious “thing” in the world, even to a 70-year-old atheist like myself.
But the OTEC will vehemently, violently disagree, because they would not be able to remain the OTEC in an “economic” system that had such a revolutionary foundation. The OTEC need the greed-based system that has been around forever. But the greed-based system is failing, so we will soon find out what the OTEC have up their sleeves to keep the present fatally-flawed system on life-support from literally one day to the next. How can I predict the future behavior of the OTEC with absolute certainty? Money. That’s how they “make a living”. They’ll do absolutely anything to keep their jobs.
Your term OTEC is what I call Reality Creators. I am wrapping up a revision to “The Reality Creators” and if you send me an email, I’ll send you a copy of the book in pdf format. It is a full-length expose on just what you are saying. Christopher Hall, chris.dancefarm@gmail.com
Losing weight in a short space of time has always been thought of as a near impossible task. For years,OSK doctors and dieticians have told the public that it takes months and sometimes even years of hard work to see any progress with weight loss, or to sculpt the perfect body. But that is simply not true at all.
Read more—>>
Nice dream but it ain’t gonna happen. The dominant motivation in the west is greed. The artist working for Boeing, etc. is not going to quit their $60k job when their expenses are $59k.
https://cguzelsevdi.wixsite.com/origins-of-mine/post/mad-i-own-ownyourvoice
The best time to start was 20 years ago, the second best day is today.
Why not begin NOW, then? 🙂
To Caitlin Johnstone: A wonderful column. So needed!
To Some Commenters: You cannot get half a loaf unless you want and ask for the whole loaf. I think what Ms. Johnstone is asking for is in all people, and it should be asked of us. It is just that some people would rather be dead than stop exploiting other people (and take us with them).
The best union negotiators ask for all of what workers deserve but settle for getting less just for NOW, and never lose sight of what must be gotten.
> I solemnly pledge to consecrate my life to the service of humanity;
> I will practise my profession with conscience and dignity;
> The health of the whole will be my first consideration; . . .
> It’s a good dream. I like it. I want it.
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Yes! For example, now in the case of Julian:
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Artists for Assange — Media — 52 photos & videos
https://twitter.com/artAssange/media
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WikiLeaks Art — Free Press, Free Art — Media — 695 photos & videos
https://twitter.com/WLArtForce/media
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A nice drawing just yesterday:
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Julian Assange’s liberty is our liberty! FREE HIM NOW!! — Annemarie Kappus
https://twitter.com/KappusAnnemarie/status/1350518714836393985
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Also music like this song, which says very important facts:
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FREE ASSANGE
See also art from Caitlin, and more:
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Posts Tagged “Art” — Caitlin Johnstone
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/tag/art
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Posts Tagged “Artists” — Caitlin Johnstone
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/tag/artists
Lovely and thank you. Reposting with your permission.
Ahhh yes!
This one sits right next to my dream in which I experience money not being the main motivator for most people anymore.
I have written some comments about that to various websites in my time and how to accomplish at least a modicum of financial detachment from the money masters’ machine.
I was told to get real.
As you probably have experienced yourself, most people think that critical thought is a horrible thing to think of.
Dream on. Art now been sold to the highest bidder, the purveyors of junk. Everywhere you look, it now obscenely services the selling of goods.
Sorry.
Most things people call art are high end street graffiti. About like our society. So artists go ahead and strike. Life will be better without your inane sitcoms, coarse jokes and other things society doesnt need. Most real artists died out with the 20th century.?
Speaking of the fine arts, there’s a lot of good stuff around. Unfortunately the Art World is such that it doesn’t get noticed or published except by accident. I suppose this situation has been brought about by the decline of the haute bourgeoisie and the ascendancy of professional dealers, curators, critics, and bureaucrats who have long since suppressed any artistic sensibility they may have once had in favor of professional success.
Commercial art is, of course, commercial, and he who pays the piper calls the tune. We can’t expect any better in this area than what Mr. Market chooses.
We’re on the same wavelength. May your vision manifest in whole and in part right now.
Me too.
Many of us have done that all our lives. Many more or joining. You are either for the Life Force, or you are against it. See 2 lovely women walking their talk; https://www.rokfin.com/post/25672?utm_medium=Email&utm_source=Campaign&utm_campaign=New+Post+Email
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpHd1Z2x-WU&t=4s
TAKE 2 (173 songs on YT)
I already did, Caitlin, some 50+ years ago when I real-eyesed what the music bizness was.
Ariel AZ Alexander on YouTube and Brighteon.com.
ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpHd1Z2x-WU&t=4s
Damn those pesky individual desires. I seriously doubt much creativity would come from a community of artists that all held the same beliefs and goals. The majority of our dystopia comes from various groups determined to force others to abide by their point of view. Get rid of the force, and the dystopia goes away. You want to be a socialist? Be my guest. I will do nothing to stop you. Gather however many you can who are agreeable and carry on. I will however do everything I can to stop you from forcing me to become one. I only single out socialism because of current trends. The same applies to each and every belief, philosophy, etc. The use of force is the evil we endure, regardless how lavishly one may attempt to justify that force. There is only one valid secular law. Thou shalt not steal. Whether that theft be of property, wellbeing, or life. By wellbeing I don’t mean you have a right to steal my property, wellbeing, or life to support yours. I mean it’s a crime to beat the crap out of me even if you don’t steal any property. The very agency that pretends to prevent this crime is the one most often guilty of it. Government.
“There is only one valid secular law. Thou shalt not steal….property, well-being, or life.” How this law is applied in the real world depends on the distinctions we make between private property and public property. Seems to me that the prevailing capitalist system has come to regard increasingly large portions of the physical world as private property, and human beings only as sources of labor and consumers in the marketplace. As a result, we face extreme toxic imbalances in our environment, our economy, and our society that cause massive loss, i.e., theft, of life and well-being. Socialism simply regards those thing that we depend on for life and well-being (environmental quality and basic human rights) as public property. If you believe in the rule of law, you must acknowledge that making these distinctions and enforcing them (by force) is the legitimate role of Government. I hope you believe that it’s time for a change – I sure do.
The vast majority of abuses, to both people and our environment, are the result of state enforced laws other than though shalt not steal. The state protects and supports criminal behavior, by “law”, instead of preventing it. After all, government is bought and paid for by corporations and the 0.1%. The issue isn’t whether property is public or private, its the state enforced theft of property that is. Why would you expect those in control of government , whether socialist or otherwise, not to continue their thievery? The very same corporations and 0.1% will buy them as well. Socialism is a wonderful idea, until its put in place. Those in control are still psychopaths. Some are “more equal than others”. Who do you trust more in possession of property, those who acquire it with honest time and effort, or those who invest nothing but the muzzle of a gun?
First a massive electronic surveillance system spanning from the heavens to one’s own hand in one’s own kitchen was put in place. This was preparation for the Utopia of Equality, the kind described as the great Lie. It had begun in its modern incarnation earlier
“Equality” —from “Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning” by Timothy Snyder
“…equality in the Soviet sense emerged in occupied eastern Poland: Polish citizens learned to distrust one another equally. Everyone became a potential traitor, and appearances were not to be believed. This new reality undermined the old in a matter of weeks.”
https://a.co/cnbhUVC
What you want is heaven. You want utopia, which is nowhere Prometheus rules, this side of power and dominion. We live under the suzerainty of the Lord of this World. We are all enthralled to him. You wish the faithless to live faithfully. You wish sinners who refuse to acknowledge sin to repent. You want eunuchs to bear children. The bourgeoisie are a satanic church, they exist to advance only their own comfort and self satisfaction. Nothing else. You preach virtue to the whirlwind, expect to reap eviscerating shards.
Jesus certainly reaped those “eviscerating shards” you predict for Caitlin. Long before there was a bourgeoisie, there was self-seeking evil in the world, expanding its control of things. Finally, with global neoliberalist capitalism, it seemed close to maxing out and destroying the world in the process. Then along came the pandemic, freezing the neoliberal shark in its tracks, a shark that must swim to breathe, and everything may be up for grabs once again, especially if the virus returns in waves and mutates, as viruses are prone to do. Thus does the uncertainty of reality show that Marx himself also preached “virtue to the whirlwind.” That’s no criticism of him, because that may be the most that any of us can do.
“Then along came the pandemic, freezing the neoliberal shark in its tracks, a shark that must swim to breathe, and everything may be up for grabs once again, especially if the virus returns in waves and mutates, as viruses are prone to do.”
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Seems to me the pandemic has frozen working people in their tracks. Frozen small and medium businesses in their tracks.
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The robber baron sharks and their planet killing, mega corporations, on the other hand, have made trillions since it started.
The plutocrats will exploit the pandemic until there’s nothing left to cannibalize and then they’ll be as fucked as the rest of us. Sure as the sun rises…and sets. When the only world we’ve known is suddenly dying before our eyes, it’s difficult to see it, to acknowledge it. But only when the current death throes are grasped for what they are, by the plutocrats as well as the plebes, will a new world be born. The pre-pandemic neoliberal world was speeding down the highway to hell, most everyone knew it, with nuclear war in the short run, ecocide in the longer. So who in their right mind would ever want to return to it?
https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/ring-out-wild-bells/
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@Newton Finn
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“The plutocrats will exploit the pandemic until there’s nothing left to cannibalize and then they’ll be as fucked as the rest of us.”
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Sounds extremely grim to me. I intend to fight them before there is nothing left to canabalize.
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Sorry, I’m not buying into the dystopian horse dung they’re pedaling.
Well said.
Think you’re making this a lot harder than it has to be. If it makes sense not to “bite the hand that feeds you” it should make sense not to “feed the jaws that bite you”. Artists may be the most visible, but it applies to all of us, bourgeois sinners and eunuchs alike. Self-evisceration to preserve one’s own comfort and complacent self-satisfaction is the unkindest cut of all.
If only the world would “beat their swords into plowshares.”
If only the M I C didn’t have undue influence in Washington.
If only…
https://larryeubanks.com/plowshares-into-swords-or-swords-into-plowshares/
It is a good dream, Caitlin. Now make it a better one by expanding it to include all of the working class.
I think it includes all of us who paint or sculpt or write our lives.
A beautiful ‘manifesto’. The audacity to dream a better world is the first step to its realization.
Caitlin, your words, your clarity and your dream are as cherished as the writings of the recently passed internationalist journalist Andre Vltchek.
My daughter, herself a young artist, will be sent ‘The Artists’ Rebellion’ to contemplate.
Art, and all creative endeavours, guided by such ideology is what is more than needed in the world that you daily elaborate and describe to your audience.
Peace, solidarity and much love.
Ah, such thoughts bring joy to my old heart, Thank You, Ms Johnstone!!
I like it. Consider me onboard. I want it too. I want it. I will share this idea. This idea resonates.
I regularly have the fantasy that everybody stops working until all the evil steps down. That we collectively shutdown everything. If the people all stood together we could institute a complete reversal almost overnight. What’s stands in our way is the erroneous stories the masses believe about what’s wrong and whose responsible together with conflict and the lack of unity the masses have with one another.
Magnificent!! Nothing more to say. The creators can lead the way.
Caitlin, may your well never run dry.
Exactly what I was thinking n
Sign me up! I’m a card-carrying Mexican resident (US ex-pat) author whose writing will follow your dream into reality.
Copied from above…
I am wrapping up a revision to “The Reality Creators” and if you send me an email, I’ll send you a copy of the book in pdf format. It is a full-length expose on just what you are saying. Christopher Hall, chris.dancefarm@gmail.com