Genocide in Us: How Creative Artists Depict the Armenian Genocide

On April 24, 1915 the Turkish government began to implement a policy that amounted to the genocide of Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire. On that date hundreds of Armenian intellectuals were forced from their homes, taken to Constantinople, and murdered. Read more

Exposing American Mythology

The word myth is defined by the Concise Oxford Dictionary as “a traditional story concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events; a widely held but false belief, a fictitious person or thing, an exaggerated or idealized conception of a person or thing.” Diana Secchiaroli of the Yale-New Haven Teacher’s Institute defines it as representing “a culture’s values and ideals and/or helps explain to people where they came from.” Read more

Peace March 20: End the Infamous Daze of Decay

Peace March 20 is a Free Articulator initiative to mark the fifth anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq as a day of mourning and reflection. But also to urge Creative Artists everywhere to pick up the message other creative activists such as John Lennon have forwarded with creative works such as “Give Peace a Chance.” The importance of such works to move people to seek more constructive solutions than war is vital to the advance of civilization, culture and the addressing of important and pressing conditions that face the entire human race. How can you and your work help improve the world we live in today, tomorrow? Read more

Artists Embedded within the Military-Industrial Complex

In 1961 U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower warned of the “unwarranted influence…by the military-industrial complex.” By the time Eisenhower uttered his speech the military-industrial complex (MIC) was 20 years old. Beginning in 1941 after the U.S. officially entered World War Two, the U.S. industrial and manufacturing industries began to produce the weapons and vehicles needed by the military. As a result of the MIC’s creation, the U.S. economy rebounded from the depression that had plagued it since the 1929 stock market crash. Read more

No Room for Protest Music on Corporate Radio

In the 1960s the Vietnam War raged, the military draft was in place, and young people took to the streets in protest. The radio waves burned with protest songs. Bob Dylan sang about the death of the military-industrial complex in his song Masters of War, and in their song For What its Worth Buffalo Springfield proclaimed, “We better stop, hey, what’s that sound, everybody look what’s going down.” Read more

As the Dollar Falls and Fails Creativity will Rise

Those who know how to make nothing into something are going to come into their own in the next few years.

This is really about the power of words. I remember when the current Bush administration came into office—I call it the Badministration because it’s bad, really bad. I also call it the Budministration because it’s a corporate crony thing. I remember Cheney saying one word that sent a shudder through the nation and the world.

“Recession.”

I knew then that we were in for a rough ride. That word was loaded and timed and given deliberate intolerable emphasis that came straight out of Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine: the Rise of Disaster Capitalism. I’ll never forget that moment.

Cheney’s pose and stance reminded me of Adolph Hitler. I could see and feel the relish with which Cheney delivered that word, as if he knew all that he was setting in motion, and in hindsight, I now know that he did in fact relish that moment.

It was one of his first speeches as Vice President. It was one of those defining moments in history, one that you remember, that niggles at you because you know it was important and it won’t leave your mind alone. It ties up attention in a knot that won’t unravel, but that you pick at anyway, determined to grok, and which with persistence and time you will connect to the right dots so that the full understanding occurs, and you finally realize its significance.

The Fall of the Dollar Empire is an excellent analysis of economic history over the last decade or so. I remember how buoyant America felt during the Clinton years—it felt like the American nation was finally going somewhere and that it would get there. There was optimism in the air that you could touch and hold and caress with confidence. One word destroyed that feeling. One word.

With one word Cheney defined what he was about to do with his bush-baby president, create a recession, a world-wide recession.

I wrote about the power of words recently. America is about to learn a hard lesson in humility that is going to have far reaching affects on the entire world.

So I want to say this:

In the face of doom, creativity—in all its positive and constructive forms—is the most important thing to nurture and support, for when everything becomes nothing, that is when creativity steps up and makes something from nothing.

You cannot create much of any use to anybody when you are in despair, so look to those things that offer hope, which lift spirits, provide levity and luster to an existence the weight of which would otherwise crush.

There is another side to globalization that is happening and it’s not all doom, it’s optimistic, it’s positive and it’s an alternative system to that which already exists. It’s all around us right now, an element here, an element there, a spark there, a flare over here, warmth in a cold and otherwise bleak moment. Those are the things that are going to pull humanity through what’s coming.

Create!

I’m Going Green in 2008

This year in New Zealand is an election year, as it is in several other countries, and as far as I am concerned, it is time to have a Green Government in power in every nation in the world. Here’s my reasoning. Read more

The Myth of Progress: The Grecian Harvest-Home

In Gordon Jackman’s first article in the Myth of Progress series, he shared his discovery of a rare book of etchings depicting the progress of human knowledge and culture, the original paintings of which still adorn the Grand Room of the Royal Society of Arts in London, as they have done since they were painted between 1777 and 1801. Read more

Shall we Shovel the Last bit of Dirt into the Traditional Music Industry’s Grave?

It gives me no pleasure to see an industry that was borne by immense talent take its last gasps, and know that once again, I was right. Today I read Wayne Rosso’s CNET article Recording Industry should brace for more bad news. He’s right too. Read more

Thinking or Skimping in Western Society - The Editor’s Desk

If you look around the blogosphere for any length of time, you’ll find that 90% of the posts on most blogs are short snippets - often no longer than 300 words - that say “me too!” to a news item or post on another blog. Read more