This Time Bomb is Poli-Ticking!

Recently I became aware of an Atlanta area based artist who has been bucking the political art trend, abandoning the “liberal chic” art world for a more in your face style.  Her name is Frances Byrd.

After observing Frances’s artwork I felt that this is close to what art that Ayn Rand herself might have produced has she become an artist rather than philosopher and writer.  Byrd’s artwork explodes with frustration in our political system.  For me it was refreshing to see this kind of angst used by an artist who was standing up for the rights to man to himself be free, not a slave of the establishment.

I would have to agree with Frances that most of the artists, whether they are overtly political or whether they are subtly so, artists inundate us with a politic of collectivism – that the individual matters not in the grand scheme of thing.   But I was curious to hear this from Frances Byrd in her own words, so I asked Frances what, as an artist, bothers her most about the politics of today’s art world?

“The thing that bothers me most about the art community is its lack of tolerance for other people’s point of view” said Byrd, “Artists preach open mindedness and freedom of speech. What many of them really mean is they want everyone else to be open minded to their point of view. I’m not upset that most artists are liberal. I’m upset that they can’t accept any other opinion from an artist. As a political artist with a libertarian perspective, I find that most artists are offended by my work.”

To tell the truth, I have seen what Frances Byrd is talking about in our daily lives.  I have people almost question my sanity when we talk about the “two party system”.  A gong goes off in my head when I hear people tell me how they hate the two choices they have  and that they are considering not even voting so I politely invite them to consider the Libertarian candidate for a change.  This is the part when they tell me they don’t want to waste a vote on someone who has no chance to win!  What was it Einstein said about the definition of insanity?  Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome…?

Bringing this back around to art, there is no better reflection of where a society’s values lie than to look at both contemporary art and at the media.  I was just in the United States last month and all I could hear was “Obama this” and “McCain that”.  I remember on my way to the airport to return to Asia that on one particular AM radio program, the name of which I can’t recall because I’d never heard it before, when three commentators were discussing Obama vs. McCain on the economy and one made a radical “free market” statement one of the others quipped “Be careful now, or you will find yourself voting for Bob Barr!”  And the three had a chuckle.  That is the only point in the talk show that the Libertarian candidate’s views were discussed.  For shame!

Frances Byrd’s point that the art world is no different.

I would assume that this has something to do with the fact that many libertarians tend to be business owners with left brain focuses but it could also do with the biases that come with the “training” that many artistic types undergo in Liberal Arts faculties at many of our colleges and universities.  So even when one takes a look at the ratio of artists with liberal convictions compared to libertarian convictions we will be forced to see many more of the lefties out there.

But the question remains for those libertarian leaning artists – how can these artists support libertarian causes?

“In my experience, there are not that many artists working from a strictly political perspective,” said Frances, “I think the best way for an artist who doesn’t express their politics through their work to support libertarian causes is to become active in politics some other way. The most important thing anyone can do is to be knowledgeable about their representatives in government. Do some research; find out how they vote before you make a choice. Just because a politician wears the label Libertarian, doesn’t mean they support Libertarian ideas. Not all Libertarians agree on all subjects. Make an informed decision. Spread the word, and help change your government one step at a time.”

This won’t necessarily bring about more artwork with a libertarian feel but it does increase the activism out there.  This activism is where we as a group of freedom lovers become the “sand in the shoe” to those Republicrats who simply use the system as their life line for special interest pet projects and pork barrel politics.  We libertarians do our best to get the word out through non-traditional media.  And Frances is putting her money where her mouth is on this as well.  She is voting for Bob Barr, the Libertarian Party’s candidate.  Why?

“Before Barr entered the race, I felt like there was no one to vote for this year,” explained Frances, “I’m tired of voting for the least offensive candidate. We have a Democrat and a Socialist running on the major party tickets this year. Bob Barr is the only choice in this election.  For the first time, I have contributed to a campaign and done volunteer work on Barr’s campaign.”

Some people would say that everything we do or produce is political – that whether we intend for outcomes to have political effect or not that political results are inescapable products of thought and action.  But should artists be accountable to the public for their “political outcome”?  Do artists have a responsibility to be political?

Frances Byrd’s take on these questions is interesting.

“I think artists need to create art that serves their own needs first,” said Frances, “Trying to produce work that other people want doesn’t do anyone any good. Producing art for the sake of shocking people is ridiculous. If an artist is interested in producing political art, they should know something about the subject they are rendering. The thing that bothers me most about political art is the blind emotion behind it. Everyone and their brother are painting George Bush in devil horns. I want to see political art that means something and makes an individual statement. As far as responsibility is concerned, I would say stick to your principles and don’t worry about what is popular. Art is a good way to spread your opinion and awareness of the problems with our government. The biggest responsibility in political art is to engage the viewer and add something to the political arena, rather than saying the same thing everyone else is saying.”

So what’s behind Byrd’s MachinePolitick website?

“I came up with MachinePolitick as a marketing tool. I thought it would be good to have something that would stick in people’s heads and I kept coming up with the image of the gears. Machine fits because I’m always generating ideas and doing research and I want to use my art to fight back against the overbearing nature of our government. I used politick because it is defined as: ‘to engage in or discuss politics’. The combination of words fits my personality, and the combination of the name and logo make a strong image that engages people and makes them wonder what I’m up to. I decided to combine the image of the gears with the flag to appeal to people who are patriotic or interested in returning our government to its intended role in our lives.”

What is Frances up to lately?  “Well, some of my current projects include a series on Obama’s blueprint for change and a comparison of Hillary to Eva Peron,” says Frances, “Ucoming projects will include works on Che Guevara, congress, the similarity of Republicans and Democrats and whatever strikes me.  I’ll eventually touch on the writings of Ayn Rand and the founding fathers after the [2008] election.”

Frances Byrd was good enough to send some of her latest work, new to the public.  She explains these in her own words:

Eradicating Independence

“This sculpture is my second attempt at multimedia work. It is a companion piece to How to Deconstruct a Federalist, my first multimedia sculpture.  I look forward to doing much more work in multimedia now that I am growing comfortable with it. My Scarlet Liberty and How to Exorcise Conservative Thought are the related paintings in the series. They are all part of a series on the mentality of artists and the petulance and cliquish nature of the art community.”

“This piece is meant to be a self-portrait, with the figures representing me. The heads of each figure are filled with concepts of freedom, liberty and independence. As a Libertarian, I tend to offend both conservatives, and liberals depending on the subject of my work. I have found, however, that liberals tend to react to my work by either patronizing me or insulting me. I get the impression that I have violated some unspoken code of conduct. Because I have no inclination to fit in, this is of little concern to me. I feel that we all have a right to our opinions and individuality.”

The Gaping Maw of Entitlement

“This painting was inspired by a conversation I had with a performance artist one day. The general idea was that we, as artists, have a right to ‘expose’ people to our art who would not seek it out themselves. Of course, that comes with the expectation of being paid for our work, although money is evil.”

“The entitlement mentality reigns supreme! I think the imagery of the painting expresses my feelings on the subject pretty well. The world owes us nothing for our art. We are not special because of our creative abilities. We have no right or duty to force other people to experience our art.”

“As with anything else, if there’s a market for a piece of art, it will sell. No government intervention is needed or appropriate. I do not support the NEA.”

“This piece is a companion to the paintings titled: How to Exorcise Conservative Thought in an Artist, Mr. Moral Superiority, My Scarlet Liberty, Give Me Your Money, ‘cause I can’t Sell my Work Otherwise. The sculptures How to Deconstruct a Federalist and are also part of the series.”

“This painting, as well as the others in the series, is meant as a criticism of the typical artist’s mentality. It’s easier and preferable to have the government dole out someone else’s money to you because you need it. The hypocrisy and unfairness of such behavior is infuriating to me.”

Mr. Moral Superiority

“This painting was inspired by a conversation I had with a couple of artists who feel that we have a duty to provide the world with culture and preserve the community’s historic integrity. The general idea was that we, as artists, have a right to ‘expose’ people to art and culture. The gripe was about the gentrification of poor communities by big business and yuppie culture. I’m trying to figure out who has a right to deem a particular art form as culture, or to force it on people who don’t want it. People have a right to be ignorant and uncultured. As for gentrification, that’s a subject best left to the people involved. As much as I prefer historic homes to high rise condos, I recognize a person’s right to sell their property to a developer if they wish. The developer has the right to do with that property as they wish. The only solution is for private citizens to buy the property and restore it. As ugly as high rise condos and shopping centers are, they serve a purpose and typically improve the neighborhood by driving out crime and providing jobs close to people in the neighborhood who would be commuting to the same kinds of jobs farther away.”

“This piece is a companion to the paintings titled: The Gaping Maw of Entitlement and Give Me Your Money, ‘cause I can’t Sell My Work Otherwise. They are all meant as a criticism of the pompous and self-serving attitude of many artists and patrons who hold themselves superior to the common man.”

Recently I had responded to a letter to the editor in the Tulsa Beacon which was also picked up and commented on by Third Party Watch (and I even put it on my own website just in case the others eventually take it down).

It is an interesting read if you think that John McCain is the only candidate with something to fear from Bob Barr’s campaign.

I would like to add also to this that Ralph Nader isn’t out of the woods with Bob Barr.  Many people voted for Ralph Nader as a “none of the above” vote.  They did this on name recognition alone.  But at the same time as Nader was a known commodity in the race he garnished much more news than did Michael Badnarik, the previous Libertarian candidate and he gained far more media attention than Michael Peroutka of the Constitution Party and David Cobb the Green Party candidate.  I believe as the Libertarians gain speed on this many of the people who still don’t like the Republicrats will come our way.

And, by the way, I am not from Tulsa!

State chair of Illinois Libertarian Party sheds light on “Big ‘L’” support for Bob Barr

I have had some very interesting communication with a newly introduced friend of mine over the past several weeks. That person is Valiant “Val” Vetter, state chair of the Libertarian Party of Illinois. What I find very interesting and reassuring is that with all this talk about the New Hampshire Libertarians threatening to leave George Phillies on the ballot and the Arkansas Libertarian Party chairman threatening to put Daniel Imperato on the ballot, we do have a strong partisan spirit going on in Illinois.

Prior to the Libertarian National Convention in Denver Val told me that he wasn’t sure about what to make of Bob Barr and it seemed that he had a favorable opinion of Barr’s challenger, Mary Ruwart. When I asked him how he greeted the last minute decision of Bob Barr to join the race for president he gave me what I believed to be a very thoughtful, honest reply:

“As with many news bits I hear, I greeted Bob Barr’s announcement that he was throwing his hat in the ring for the LP’s nomination with mixed feelings. First off, I don’t know that much about him, but I do think I’ve heard that some Libertarians have questions about his positions – which isn’t unusual at all. I am concerned that folks like Bob Barr and Mike Gravel will get a fair number of followers at the convention because they have ‘experience’ in politics that our home-grown candidates don’t have. I think they feel this is an advantage and I don’t agree. Look at Ron Paul. He has tremendous experience, is a dyed-in-the-wool libertarian, and even ran for a “major” party – and he STILL couldn’t get the respect he deserved. No, a ‘name’ running as a Libertarian in November will not likely be a factor – UNLESS we can get somebody like Clint Eastwood to run. I do worry that Johnny-come-latelys (to the LP) like Gravel and Barr WILL steal the nomination opportunity from long-time LPers like Mary Ruwart who really DESERVE our nomination because of their long-term support and work for our party. Unfortunately, if Barr or Gravel gets the nod, then get shunned by the press during the race and get less than 1% of the vote in November, they’ll abandon ship, and the LP members will be demoralized (again) and we’ll lose even more members and support.”

But since the Libertarian Party made their decision and have nominated Bob Barr, Val Vetter is fully on board. When I asked him whether he would be working on the Bob Barr campaign and voting for Barr his answer was a hearty “Hell yes!”

Val and other Libertarians have spend six months doing their best to insure that the LP candidate has ballot status in Illinois but that is not the only reason that Val Vetter and other LPers will vote Barr this fall. Val explains it best in his own words…

“Whether people like Barr or not, my default position would have to be that the very ‘best’ candidate that the Democrats or Republicans can field would be an inferior choice to the ANY candidate the LP can put on the ballot.

“Is Barr a ‘perfect’ Libertarian? (Does that even exist?) Probably not, but as Ron Paul’s campaign showed us, unless a major party candidate fully buys into the party plan, maintaining the status quo, and answer to his or her handlers, they will NOT receive the support and money of their party. So we know that Obama or McCain will do just as they’re told. Should someone like Barr (or Gravel) get elected as a Libertarian and have a partial reversion to their old party’s beliefs, ANY amount of libertarian ideal they brought to the office would be an improvement.”

I personally feel that the combined presence of Bob Barr and Ralph Nader have Barrack Obama now clarifying and emphasizing his Iraq position – and either way this will bite him. Why do I think this? Simple, Obama doesn’t have to differentiate himself much on this issue in a two way race, but a recent CNN poll showed Nader and Barr eating into the overall vote, approaching 100% of those polled. I personally believe that this is the reason why Obama is stressing his Iraq policy at this point – to differentiate himself from Barr and Nader who are actually serious about getting out of Iraq.

Often, Libertarian candidates influence politics even if they don’t gain office simply by causing candidates to stress their points policy that are similar to Libertarian policy or shift their positions totally in order to escape a sizeable chunk of votes heading to the Libertarian Party. Val Vetter agrees:

“Many, possibly all, Libertarians will agree that the Libertarian doesn’t even have to win the election to affect public policy. Once an LP candidate starts threatening to win – even getting 10 or 20% of the vote for a major office, the D’s and R’s will see the light and feel the heat, and start making some concessions to win back those votes.

“The fact is, we don’t care what party banner the guy who wins the election runs under. What we DO care about is that that person “move public policy in a Libertarian direction” – just like it says in our purpose statement. There were very few Libertarians who didn’t like, no – love, Ron Paul. We’d be thrilled to see him in the White House – even as a ‘Republican.’

This is a facet of democracy that our Republicrat brethren don’t seem to understand when they calculate winners and losers. Fair enough. But I think Bob Barr will wake them up to a bit of that reality this year.

I have been seeing lots of mumbo jumbo in the media about Bob Barr hurting John McCain’s chances for election as the United States president.  I would respectfully disagree with the general assertion that Bob Barr’s candidacy overwhelmingly supports Barrack Obama to McCain’s detriment.  For one, I believe that our mainstream media has fallen into the ill logic that equates Bob Barr’s candidacy to Ralph Nader’s independent run in 2000.  Here the media concluded that the Nader run cost Al Gore the presidency.

Simply put, to believe this conclusion is to accept that only Florida’s vote
mattered in deciding the year 2000 presidential election.

Concerning the matter that Bob Barr will cause John McCain more pain than Barrack Obama is to deny the fact that first and foremost Bob Barr is running as a small government Libertarian candidate which neither Barrack Obama nor John McCain are doing.  Libertarian candidates like Bob Barr are for minimizing government influence over our lives and shrinking the governmental apparatus.  If Al Gore was in fact “Naderized” it would have been more due to the fact that Ralph Nader ran on very similar issues to the Democrats.  Ralph Nader simply put an anti-establishment spin on his message and as a result it resonated well with many younger liberal voters.  Bob Barr on the other hand has serious differences with both John McCain and Barrack Obama regarding the war in Iraq, how to deal with Iran, the overblown fiscal budget, border security, the detainees in Guantanamo and many other issues.  Secondly, not only is Ralph Nader also in this race but so is Cynthia McKinney, who is running for the Green Party.  She is not only a former Democratic congresswoman but she is also an African American. Both Nader and McKinney will put a drag on Barrack Obama rather than John McCain.

There are clear distinctions on the Libertarian sides of the major issues facing our country as opposed to both the Republican and Democratic sides.  I would hope that Americans would be much more responsible in looking closely at the candidates rather than simply whining that a third candidate only hurts their candidate’s chances of winning.  When it comes down to it, if there is more merit in John McCain’s positions he won’t have to worry about Barrack Obama nor Bob Barr.

Personally, I think anyone should look at where Bob Barr stands before deciding against him.