Message from a Class Act - What's Next from Barack and Michelle Obama

A class of their own - I am sure in time this will be looked at as the end of an era, America's Camelot.

enjoy your well deserved vacation

Aftermath November 2016 by Tess Rafferty

What's there to add? A hard-hitting commentary by Tess Rafferty:

Aftermath November 2016 from Steve Cohen on Vimeo.

TRANSCRIPT:

In my youth, as far too many of you remember, I saw politics as very black and white. I wanted nothing to do with you if you were Christian or Republican. “Don’t get personal” people (usually Christians or Republicans) always said. What was hard for me was that it was personal. The things I was passionate about were the things that these other two factions seemed intent on taking away from me and they affected me personally. It’s sort of hypocritical of someone to tell you to not take something personal when in fact what they want to do is take away one of your personal freedoms.

Over the years I’ve tried harder to find common ground. I’ve tried to focus on what we have in common more than what separates us. I’ve tried to see what I like about people as individuals and remember that we’re friends and that we have to all be friends when this is all over. And I’ve seen polite discussions change some perspectives. I know they’ve changed mine on issues.

After Tuesday I think my younger self had it right.

I am so damn tired of trying to see it from the “other side,” of trying to discuss nuance, while they paint us and our candidates with the broadest of hateful brushes instead. I’m tired of pretending like it’s somehow reasonable to teach Creationism in a public school with my tax dollars while you tell me that two same sex people who love each other getting married weakens your marriage. If you voted for Trump, I'm tired of trying to see things your way when you sit in your holier than thou churches/white power meet ups refusing to see mine. Am I lumping you in with white supremacists? No. You did that yourselves. You voted for a candidate endorsed by the KKK. For the rest of your lives you will know that you voted the same way as the KKK. Does that feel good to you? (Here’s a hint: it really shouldn’t, especially if you’re Christian.)

I'm tired of pussy footing around what offends your morals while couching what offends mine. Because racism and homophobia and misogyny and xenophobia offend mine. Let me say it here: if you voted for trump I do think you're racist. I do think you're homophobic. I do think you're misogynist. Racism, homophobia and misogyny are all spectrums and you’re on it. You might not be " cheering while a black man gets lynched racist" but boy did you just sell them the rope and look the other way.

Don’t like getting painted with the broad brush of racism? Now you know what it feels like when you get told you want to rip a baby out of a mother’s womb at 9 months when THAT’S NOT WHAT HAPPENS! THAT’S NEVER WHAT HAPPENS! You want to be Christian? Look inside yourself and try to find some compassion for the women who’ve been told in their third trimester their baby’s not going to live. They’ve had their shower. They’ve decorated the nursery. They know the sex and probably have a name picked out. But look at all that and keep screaming baby killers at them and voting against candidates who defend the biological necessity to have to do the unthinkable and I think I’m cool still calling you a racist.

I tried to be polite but now I just don't give a damn because let's be honest we don't live in polite America anymore. We live in grab ‘em by the pussy America now. So thank you for that. Being polite was exhausting.

And don’t come at me with how you just didn’t like Hillary. This was bigger than Hillary. The whole free world knows it so don’t pretend like you don’t. This wasn’t your standard, “I want lower taxes and smaller government” Republican. We had Germans warning us that this guy was scary and still people cried emails or Benghazi or “that voice.” And the truth is there’s been mountains of evidence proving that none of this was a big deal; some of the finest minds in the world have drawn you charts and graphs pointing to why no crimes were committed and you were either too dumb or too willfully ignorant to care. And if you really cared about crimes, you might care about any of the 3 pending against your candidate. Take your pick. I’d start with the rape of the 13 year old girl, but again if you voted for Trump, you probably don’t care much what happens to women. Doesn’t matter anyway. She got so many death threats from your “political peers” she dropped the charges anyway. But ask me again why more victims don’t come forward.

And speaking of smaller government and lower taxes, enjoy not getting mine. If Trump actually does what he says, you and your petty backward states and your small angry towns can pay for your own schools to not educate your children. I live in California, the largest economy in the United States and number 6 in the world. We’ll be fine. Have fun affording all those children your health insurance won't pay for your birth control to prevent. I’m just kidding. You won’t have health insurance. Won’t that just be great (again?!)

And while I’m done being polite, if you voted 3rd party, un-friend me. I don’t care how much we enjoy each other on every other level. I don’t care how much you want to make your 3rd party a viable option. Fuck you. You basically told women and the LGBTQ community and people of color to take a back seat to your need to have another option. Well done. Now, we’re not only in the back seat, we’re actually being dragged behind the car. But how’s that third party coming? What are you doing about it today, November 10th, by the way? Are you volunteering for your third party so you can get more of their candidates into state and local elections? Looking into how to help make them viable for the mid-term elections? I look forward to who you present to save us in 2020, if there’s anything left to save.

Also, while I am at it, if you are one of those people telling me this week how Bernie could have defeated Trump, un-friend me. But kudos to you for living in a world where you think being Jewish wouldn’t have mattered to Trump supporters. I wish I could buy property there. Tell me, what are the schools like that far up your own ass?

The truth is that for those of us on this side, there is no “when all this is over,” things are just getting started. We think yesterday was bad? We don’t know what bad is yet. This isn’t something you get over. This is something you endure. We are going to face attacks on every right we fought the last 60 years to gain. The deck is so stacked against us we may not win. The best we can hope for is gridlock. And that’s just nationally. Internationally, who the fuck knows what’s going to happen with this lunatic. And the scarier thought is that the only thing worse than him is the guy that’s one angry tweet away from the Presidency, Mike Pence, advocate for gay conversion therapy and mandatory funerals for fetuses.

So now’s the time you may want to see things from my side. Because if we’re all “going to have to be friends after this” imagine me having to be polite and respect your vote to take away these rights and freedoms of mine and my friends while we fight desperately to hold onto them. Because that is what you did.

And that all says nothing of what you just said about us as women. I haven’t gotten to that yet because I may scream when I do and if I start I may not stop. So let me just say, you told every woman that being sexually harassed does not matter. Being sexually assaulted does not matter. Working hard does not matter. You took the most qualified candidate we’ve had in decades – a woman - belittled her for every single mistake and misstep she’s ever made while you took the most unqualified candidate we’ve ever had – a man – and ignored every mistake he ever made. But you’re not sexist. No let me tell you: Yes. You. Are. And if you’re a woman, Girl, you got issues. And I say that as someone who crawled out of the bitter, self-hating womb of one of these women. I know that most of these women are damaged and that I should find the compassion for them but I am not there yet because I am so sick of damaged people damaging the rest of us.

And isn’t this somewhat an abusive relationship at this point? If you have friends or family like this, cut them off. I'm giving you permission. They didn’t give two shits about your rights or happiness on Tuesday. You don’t have to pretend like it’s all cool and pass them a plate of turkey two weeks from now. It’s like we’re all abused partners saying to each other, “But you don’t know what he’s like when he’s not racist.” Being racist isn’t the same as liking Dire Straits. It’s not like you just don’t like the same music. Being racist is always racist. And voting for Trump makes you a racist. Protect yourselves, Friends. Because those assholes always do.

Tess Rafferty

TheStar.com - Ordinary folks don't care about arts: Harper

Interesting .......... Only in Canada, you say ........

A must view is the video found on that page:

TheStar.com - Ordinary folks don't care about arts: Harper

This article was originally published September 24th 2008

The Wrecking Ball | New Political Theatre - Margaret Atwood speaks out

To be creative, is in fact, Canadian.

Margaret Atwood responds to Stephen Harper’s dismissal of the Arts, which appeared in The Globe & Mail Thursday September 25, 2008:

What sort of country do we want to live in? What sort of country do we already live in? What do we like? Who are we?

At present, we are a very creative country. For decades, we’ve been punching above our weight on the world stage – in writing, in popular music and in many other fields. Canada was once a cultural void on the world map, now it’s a force. In addition, the arts are a large segment of our economy: The Conference Board estimates Canada’s cultural sector generated $46-billion, or 3.8 per cent of Canada’s GDP, in 2007. And, according to the Canada Council, in 2003-2004, the sector accounted for an “estimated 600,000 jobs (roughly the same as agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, oil & gas and utilities combined).”

But we’ve just been sent a signal by Prime Minister Stephen Harper that he gives not a toss for these facts. Tuesday, he told us that some group called “ordinary people” didn’t care about something called “the arts.” His idea of “the arts” is a bunch of rich people gathering at galas whining about their grants. Well, I can count the number of moderately rich writers who live in Canada on the fingers of one hand: I’m one of them, and I’m no Warren Buffett. I don’t whine about my grants because I don’t get any grants. I whine about other grants – grants for young people, that may help them to turn into me, and thus pay to the federal and provincial governments the kinds of taxes I pay, and cover off the salaries of such as Mr. Harper. In fact, less than 10 per cent of writers actually make a living by their writing, however modest that living may be. They have other jobs. But people write, and want to write, and pack into creative writing classes, because they love this activity – not because they think they’ll be millionaires.

Every single one of those people is an “ordinary person.” Mr. Harper’s idea of an ordinary person is that of an envious hater without a scrap of artistic talent or creativity or curiosity, and no appreciation for anything that’s attractive or beautiful. My idea of an ordinary person is quite different. Human beings are creative by nature. For millenniums we have been putting our creativity into our cultures – cultures with unique languages, architecture, religious ceremonies, dances, music, furnishings, textiles, clothing and special cuisines. “Ordinary people” pack into the cheap seats at concerts and fill theatres where operas are brought to them live. The total attendance for “the arts” in Canada in fact exceeds that for sports events. “The arts” are not a “niche interest.” They are part of being human.

Moreover, “ordinary people” are participants. They form book clubs and join classes of all kinds – painting, dancing, drawing, pottery, photography – for the sheer joy of it. They sing in choirs, church and other, and play in marching bands. Kids start garage bands and make their own videos and web art, and put their music on the Net, and draw their own graphic novels. “Ordinary people” have other outlets for their creativity, as well: Knitting and quilting have made comebacks; gardening is taken very seriously; the home woodworking shop is active. Add origami, costume design, egg decorating, flower arranging, and on and on … Canadians, it seems, like making things, and they like appreciating things that are made.

They show their appreciation by contributing. Canadians of all ages volunteer in vast numbers for local and city museums, for their art galleries and for countless cultural festivals – I think immediately of the Chinese New Year and the Caribana festival in Toronto, but there are so many others. Literary festivals have sprung up all over the country – volunteers set them up and provide the food, and “ordinary people” will drag their lawn chairs into a field – as in Nova Scotia’s Read by the Sea – in order to listen to writers both local and national read and discuss their work. Mr. Harper has signalled that as far as he is concerned, those millions of hours of volunteer activity are a waste of time. He holds them in contempt.

I suggest that considering the huge amount of energy we spend on creative activity, to be creative is “ordinary.” It is an age-long and normal human characteristic: All children are born creative. It’s the lack of any appreciation of these activities that is not ordinary. Mr. Harper has demonstrated that he has no knowledge of, or respect for, the capacities and interests of “ordinary people.” He’s the “niche interest.” Not us.

It’s been suggested that Mr. Harper’s disdain for the arts is not merely a result of ignorance or a tin ear – that it is “ideologically motivated.” Now, I wonder what could be meant by that? Mr. Harper has said quite rightly that people understand we ought to keep within a budget. But his own contribution to that budget has been to heave the Liberal-generated surplus overboard so we have nothing left for a rainy day, and now, in addition, he wants to jeopardize those 600,000 arts jobs and those billions of dollars they generate for Canadians. What’s the idea here? That arts jobs should not exist because artists are naughty and might not vote for Mr. Harper? That Canadians ought not to make money from the wicked arts, but only from virtuous oil? That artists don’t all live in one constituency, so who cares? Or is it that the majority of those arts jobs are located in Ontario and Quebec, and Mr. Harper is peeved at those provinces, and wants to increase his ongoing gutting of Ontario – $20-billion a year of Ontario taxpayers’ money going out, a dribble grudgingly allowed back in – and spank Quebec for being so disobedient as not to appreciate his magnificence? He likes punishing, so maybe the arts-squashing is part of that: Whack the Heartland.

Or is it even worse? Every budding dictatorship begins by muzzling the artists, because they’re a mouthy lot and they don’t line up and salute very easily. Of course, you can always get some tame artists to design the uniforms and flags and the documentary about you, and so forth – the only kind of art you might need – but individual voices must be silenced, because there shall be only One Voice: Our Master’s Voice. Maybe that’s why Mr. Harper began by shutting down funding for our artists abroad. He didn’t like the competition for media space.

The Conservative caucus has already learned that lesson. Rumour has it that Mr. Harper’s idea of what sort of art you should hang on your wall was signalled by his removal of all pictures of previous Conservative prime ministers from their lobby room – including John A. and Dief the Chief – and their replacement by pictures of none other than Mr. Harper himself. History, it seems, is to begin with him. In communist countries, this used to be called the Cult of Personality. Mr. Harper is a guy who – rumour has it, again – tried to disband the student union in high school and then tried the same thing in college. Destiny is calling him, the way it called Qin Shi Huang, the Chinese emperor who burnt all records of the rulers before himself. It’s an impulse that’s been repeated many times since, the list is very long. Tear it down and level it flat, is the common motto. Then build a big statue of yourself. Now that would be Art!

Adapted from the 2008 Hurtig Lecture, to be delivered in Edmonton on Oct. 1

The Wrecking Ball New Political Theatre

Related Article, initially published September 24th:

http://www.thestar.com/FederalElection/article/504811

The video attached to this article is a must see!!!

The Wrecking Ball | New Political Theatre - An open letter to Prime Minister Harper from Wajdi Mouawad

An open letter to Prime Minister Harper

From Wajdi Mouawad, Governor General Award-winning Canadian playwright; Knight of the Ordre National des Arts et des Lettres, France; Artistic Director of French Theatre, The National Arts Centre of Canada

Monsieur le premier ministre,

We are neighbours. We work across the street from one another. You are Prime Minister of the Parliament of Canada and I, across the way, am a writer, theatre director and Artistic Director of the French Theatre at the National Arts Centre (NAC). So, like you, I am an employee of the state, working for the Federal Government; in other words, we are colleagues.

Let me take advantage of this unique position, as one functionary to another, to chat with you about the elimination of some federal grants in the field of culture, something that your government recently undertook. Indeed, having followed this matter closely, I have arrived at a few conclusions that I would like to publicly share with you since, as I’m sure you will agree, this debate has become one of public interest.

The Symbolism

Firstly, it seems that you might benefit by surrounding yourself with counsellors who will be attentive to the symbolic aspects of your Government’s actions. I am sure you know this but there is no harm in reminding ourselves that every public action denotes not only what it is but what it symbolises.

For example, a Prime Minister who chooses not attend the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, claiming his schedule does not permit it, in no way reduces the symbolism which says that his absence might signify something else. This might signify that he wishes to denote that Canada supports the claims of Tibet. Or it might serve as a sign of protest over the way in which Beijing deals with human rights. If the Prime Minister insists that his absence is really just a matter of timing, whether he likes it or not, this will take on symbolic meaning that commits the entire country. The symbolism of a public gesture will always outweigh the technical explanations.

Declaration of war

Last week, your government reaffirmed its manner of governing unilaterally, this time on a domestic issue, in bringing about reductions in granting programs destined for the cultural sector. A mere matter of budgeting, you say, but one which sends shock waves throughout the cultural milieu –rightly or wrongly, as we shall see- for being seen as an expression of your contempt for that sector. The confusion with which your Ministers tried to justify those reductions and their refusal to make public the reports on the eliminated programs, only served to confirm the symbolic significance of that contempt. You have just declared war on the artists.

Now, as one functionary to another, this is the second thing that I wanted to tell you: no government, in showing contempt for artists, has ever been able to survive. Not one. One can, of course, ignore them, corrupt them, seduce them, buy them, censor them, kill them, send them to camps, spy on them, but hold them in contempt, no. That is akin to rupturing the strange pact, made millennia ago, between art and politics.

Contempt

Art and politics both hate and envy one another; since time immemorial, they detest each other and they are mutually attracted, and it’s through this dynamic that many a political idea has been born; it is in this dynamic that sometimes, great works of art see the light of day. Your cultural politics, it must be said, provoke only a profound consternation. Neither hate nor detestation, not envy nor attraction, nothing but numbness before the oppressive vacuum that drives your policies.

This vacuum which lies between you and the artists of Canada, from a symbolic point of view, signifies that your government, for however long it lasts, will not witness either the birth of a political idea or a masterwork, so firm is your apparent belief in the unworthiness of that for which you show contempt. Contempt is a subterranean sentiment, being a mix of unassimilated jealousy and fear towards that which we despise. Such governments have existed, but not lasted because even the most detestable of governments cannot endure if it hasn’t the courage to affirm what it actually is.

Why is this?

What are the reasons behind these reductions, which are cut from the same cloth as those made last year on the majority of Canadian embassies, who saw their cultural programming reduced, if not eliminated? The economies that you have made are ridiculously small and the votes you might win with them have already been won. For what reason, then, are you so bent on hurting the artists by denying them some of their tools? What are you seeking to extinguish and to gain?

Your silence and your actions make one fear the worst for, in the end, we are quite struck by the belief that this contempt, made eloquent by your budget cuts, is very real and that you feel nothing but disgust for these people, these artists, who spend their time by wasting it and in spending the good taxpayers money, he who, rather than doing uplifting work, can only toil.

And yet, I still cannot fathom your reasoning. Plenty of politicians, for the past fifty years, have done all they could to depoliticise art, to strip it of its symbolic import. They try the impossible, to untie that knot which binds art to politics. And they almost succeed! Whereas you, in the space of one week, have undone this work of chloroforming, by awakening the cultural milieu, Francophone and Anglophone, and from coast to coast. Even if politically speaking they are marginal and negligible, one must never underestimate intellectuals, never underestimate artists; don’t underestimate their ability to do you harm.

A grain of sand is all-powerful

I believe, my dear colleague, that you yourself have just planted the grain of sand that could derail the entire machine of your electoral campaign. Culture is, in fact, nothing but a grain of sand, but therein lays its power, in its silent front. It operates in the dark. That is its legitimate strength.

It is full of people who are incomprehensible but very adept with words. They have voices. They know how to write, to paint, to dance, to sculpt, to sing, and they won’t let up on you. Democratically speaking, they seek to annihilate your policies. They will not give up. How could they?

You must understand them: they have not had a clear and common purpose for a very long time, for such a long time that they have no common cause to defend. In one week, by not controlling the symbolic importance of your actions, you have just given them passion, anger, rage.

In the dark

The resistance that will begin today, and to which my letter is added, is but a first manifestation of a movement that you yourself have set in motion: an incalculable number of texts, speeches, acts, assemblies, marches, will now be making themselves heard. They will not be exhausted.

Some of these will, perhaps, following my letter, be weakened but within each word, there will be a spark of rage, relit, and it is precisely the addition of these tiny instances of fire that will shape the grain of sand that you will never be able to shake. This will not settle down, the pressure will not be diminished.

Monsieur le premier ministre, we are neighbours. We work across the street from one another. There is nothing but the Cenotaph between our offices, and this is as it should be because politics and art have always mirrored one another, each on its own shore, each seeing itself in the other, separated by that river where life and death are weighed at every moment.

We have many things in common, but an artist, contrary to a politician, has nothing to lose, because he or she does not make laws; and if it is prime ministers who change the world, it’s the artist who will show this to the world. So do not attempt, through your policies, to blind us, Monsieur le premier ministre; do not ignore that reflection on the opposite shore, do not plunge us further into the dark. Do not diminish us.

Wajdi Mouawad

(with thanks to John van Burek for the translation. For the original French, click here)

The Wrecking Ball New Political Theatre