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Re: Big ugly Helms posters
Re: question of whether bourgeois artists/in-yr-face-queers are welcome
in our campaign/the current civil rights movement - - - well, all I'm
asking for is some intelligence. I sometimes wonder, certainly, whether
bourgeois artists and intelligence are mutually exclusive, but I haven't
resigned myself to that just yet.
Of course, one silver lining to this would be if we all discovered that
the guy who did the posters had received NEA money at some point. tee
hee hee hee. That would, you know, rule and stuff.
The current civil rights campaign is in somewhat weirder waters,
inasmuch as there are a lotta folks fighting for individual
freedom/expression/etc. while at the same time there's an organized
movement trying to convince Rich White Men to not fire the nice normal
competent queers. Etc. Point being, those motives are often at odds.
Whereas, I would argue, we all pretty much want to defeat Jesse Helms in
some kind of pseudo-free, pseudo-democratic election. Once he's a
private citizen, well, who gives a shit. This calls for, and would
reward, a higher level of articulation and strategization.
Or look at it this way: if you don't like Jesse Helms and you want to
tell him so, then fine. Put up flyers all over Washington, which is
where he spends a buttload of his time.
But if you want to help defeat him in a general election, you gotta try
a little harder than slick, nicely-designed posters of his fat sweaty
face with a lot of ineffectual imagery which conjures up a lot of vague
fears about race and immigration and civil rights and censorship. Good
god. If you want to scare the people of North Carolina into changing
their votes, or into voting at all, yr gonna have to tell us something
we don't already know, ya know?
Which is why I'm saying: by god, if you can convice those 8% undecided
folks that Jesse adamantly DOES NOT represent their interests (primarily
because he don't represent NOBODY'S interests but his own) then there
you go.
But you're going to have to dig into the record of how he does his job.
Hating people probably doesn't help him be a better Senator, but it
obviously doesn't really hurt all that much, judging from the amount of
the stuff that's swilling around up there. Tell me my senator is a
closed-minded bigot and I'm liable to say, well, that's pretty
representative of the 52% of the state who elected him. Probably a whole
lot more than that, really.
But if you remind the dirt-poor farmers, the ones who vote for him cuz
he supports tobacco, that Jesse doesn't give a shit about them either,
and maybe one or two will stay home in disgust. Point ours.
I'm glad, on the one hand, to hear that the TV airwaves are full of
exciting adverts. On the other hand, my non-TV-watching has pretty much
denied me a place at that particular table. Despite the fact that I'm
registered Independent, nobody from either party has phoned me up to
annoy me during the dinner hour, even. You'd think with a race so close,
they'd at least be phoning around to find out how close they both are.
But yeah. I've always paid attention to politics, but this year I feel
less-plugged-in than in years past, and I'm afraid it's because I don't
watch TV. Yet I know for a fack that the stuff on TV isn't going to help
me be better informed, not if the folks in charge are doing their jobs.
So maybe I just don't have the illusion of being informed like I must
have had at one time. Oh well. So long.
Ross
--
"I wish I could play stand up bass...will somebody teach me..."
--5er
"strap that thing around your neck and stand up.
that's all there is to it." --3.2.3
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