Wednesday, September 02, 2015

Artists in the Firing Line.


A pig pushed his way into my flat today after flashing a bullshit badge, ostensibly to look for defects in the recent renovations but possibly he was a spy, hoping to incriminate me. He marched about like a gorilla with a broomstick up his arse and took photos, and when I complained that he was invading my privacy he stood over me like a thug, making me feel like I had a serial killer on my hands.

(Who was he? I don't know. A cop sent to harass, a thief casing the joint, a brute contractor squeezing out more renovation work he can overcharge for? His dumb greed over-rode my need for rest and convalescence, he didn't give a shit if I was dying in my bed. So many dicks are out to strip the flesh from whomever, it's a cold and callous world here in 2015.)

His thuggery scared me, in my paranoid delirium I imagined THE POWERS THAT BE didn't take kindly to my recent art show wherein I succinctly, intelligently critiqued THEIR criminal, cruel, stupid MO in running the world. The art from "The Fool's Journey Thru Sydney in 7 Pictures" went all around the world, shared by many Libertarian friends and groups on Facebook, and Big Daddy Censor in the Sky probably hated it, if He noticed it that is. I believe Fascism didn't get defeated in World War 2 but carried on, having learned nasty techniques in eliminating people, all on behalf of a powerful/wealthy elite made up of industrialists, aristocrats, pseudo-celebrities, judges, generals and politicians.


And in times of trouble, the Fascist forces crack down heavily on even the slightest of resistance, THEY can't handle any critique, especially if it's spot-on. Think of the tyrannies throughout history, Bolshevick Russia up to Putin's rule, Maoist China up to the Central Committee's rule, Nazi Germany, Fascist Spain, the oligarchies of South America, artists and free-thinkers are some of the first rounded up and disappeared. It's not just agitators and activists who quickly get put in front of the firing squad, sharp art gets quashed, these days under the banner of "the war on terror" and "the war on drugs", or how They got me, "property-crime", I got framed for an armed robbery, whatever.

Things are getting real bad on planet Earth. Economies are crashing, vicious wars destroying all, stateless refugees flooding across borders in their millions, workers conditions eroded, industrial accidents exploding, the environment collapsing, the climate changing, disasters piling up and up, and in the face of all this shit Fascism rears its ugly head, to control populations and preserve the privileges of the Elite. Whatever "liberties" have been given to the people can be taken away, unless there is great resistance.


Whatever the Police State dictates many citizens obey, out of conviction, stupidity and wimping out. While a few artists/intellectuals resist and fight the robopathic bullshit, most toe the line and in their art say nothing, they're still wiping their arse across the canvas and calling it "abstract expressionism" or painting soothing landscapes so as to forget the poison raining down on us all, or they paint still-lifes that go very well with the wall-paper, matching the fabric of their furniture, or they pile on heaps of oil-paint like cow-patties to represent dickhead half-famous nobodies which then hang very nicely in corporate boardrooms, the very place where a lot of psychopahic acts are instigated against the world.


I know this sounds like the rave of a loser from the lunatic fringe, I don't give a shit, to me art should speak to world events, reflect the society the artist is embedded within, critique the fuckers who own and rule the world, (because the media and the arts mostly trumpet "the party line"), and report on the human condition in contemporary times. Art for art's sake has had its day, they are now just wimps looking for the money and fame, too chicken to talk about reality: when Fascist forces are jailing, torturing, starving, killing people, art has a duty to speak up.


THEY framed and tortured me once before, in the '90s, because of my activities and artistic endeavors, THEY may come again to crush me, but what can I do? This is my Art, replying to THEIR outrageous rip-offs is ingrained in me, I've been a freak since childhood, it separated me from the herd. And now I'm 66, my life's nearly over, I'm not going to change and I have nothing to lose, I don't mind the Big Sleep when IT comes, it's been a long hard road.

Being a rebel is even supposed to be part of the Aussie character, to question, to not follow blindly, to stand up to one's oppressors. But you wouldn't know it by looking at Auz today, our present govt. is the worst that's ever been voted in, everyone is a "terrorist" to them, if THEY get Their Fascist way even graffiti artists will go to jail for life. It's almost back to penal-colony times, the poor being whipped near to death on the chain-gang and fighting over a crust of bread. Our right-wing Pollies are climate-sceptics, against marriage equality for gays, want to do away with environmental-impact studies in the name of mining profits, and hope to curtail the freedom of expression and put us all under constant surveillance to name just some erosions of our "democracy". It's 1984 writ large only with 100 brands of toothpaste to give the vacuous a cheesy smile.

I know this rave sounds hopelessly Utopianist. How else to run the world you may say? But surely the human race could have done better than this mess, that looks like it's heading for nuclear war, among many possible catastrophes? I can only dream on, wanker though I be. Though this Blog is now filtered, blocked, de-linked and banned in much of the world it may somehow survive and inspire a few, it has much of my art in it and altogether it is my "artist's manifesto" and I'm sticking to it.




If you enjoyed this story please go to the WEB address above and consider buying my book of tales about growing up anarcho-queer, rock and roll punter and mystic adventurer in Australia and India of the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s.