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Well, my buddy,
Steve Pearcy
, has been at it again: starting trouble, that is. I don’t know what’s gotten into the guy’s head exactly, but he absolutely insists on regularly exercising his First Amendment right of free speech, thereby evoking howls of outrage from whole scabs, er, scads, of, you know, them patriotic-type Americans.
His latest foray into acting like we live in a free society or something centers on his painting that depicts the U.S. (superimposed with the American flag) going down a toilet with the tag line -- “
T’anks to Mr. Bush!
” -- running along the canvas’ left side. The work is an entry in a California Lawyers for the Arts exhibit being held in the cafeteria of the California Department of Justice (DOJ) building and, man, has Steve got nostrils a-flarin’ and hostiles a-swearin’.
Again.
Actually, I feel very lucky to know Steve and his wife Virginia, a couple of real-deal patriots who actively defend the Constitution and have been willing to take the heat for it. That’s an awfully weird sentence to write, but such are the days of hysteria in modern-day America. For the second time in just a few months, the Pearcys find themselves atop a mountain of controversy made by molehill-sized minds.
The Pearcys and I have been friends, like, forever. Well, actually, maybe it’s really only been a few years. All right, all right, I first met them in February, OK? But regardless of my personal “tic” involving name-dropping and, uh, lying, they nonetheless remain the folks who first caused a bit of a stir among certain (alleged) life forms here in Sacramento, as well as nationally, with their anti-war displays at their Land Park neighborhood home last winter.
That’s “displays,” plural, because the first one (a dummy dressed in camouflage fatigues, hung from the house’s gable with a noose around its neck and sporting a sign that said “Your tax dollars at work”), got ripped off, one half at a time, by two different trespassers. The second display (another dummy, similarly attired, sans noose and with a sign that said “Bush lied, I died”) was stolen, too, this time by a lone, obviously more competent thief. The first acts of vandalism were fully caught on videotape by a local news crew; the last theft was not filmed, but the perpetrator certainly was as, immediately afterwards, he was more than happy to give an interview to on-scene reporters, after which he drove off in a truck, its license plate captured nicely by the camera.
The Sacramento County district attorney
declined
to prosecute, though. The reasons? Well, here are two: “insufficient evidence” and “no witness[es].”
Hmm…
Oh, but the fits of pique over those displays (while they lasted). What was really pique-ish and even freakish, though, was the absurd meanings the screamin’ memes assigned to them, even though the message was obvious: George W. Bush criminally sends U.S. soldiers to kill and be killed for his immoral, imperialistic war. The Pearcys, however, were viciously attacked for being “anti-troops” (and much worse) by myriad muddleheads. They were also threatened with death, as was a writer friend of theirs who penned a column about the events. The whole affair’s culmination came when a group calling itself “Move America Backward,” sorry, “Forward,” staged a “Loudly Proclaim Your Idiocy Evening” (that may not have been the exact title) opposite Steve and Virginia’s home one rainy night, countered by an equally enthusiastic and approximately same-sized contingent (about 125 people) who apparently
have
read the Bill of Rights at least once in their lives.
Flash forward to present-day Sacramento, where the nitwits twitter anew over Steve’s painting. No accusation is too outrageous to make about the piece, but my favorite is the claim that “T’anks to Mr. Bush!” somehow aids our enemies (whoever they are this week) and thus leads to American soldiers’ deaths. I can only imagine the following conversation deep within a tunnel (somewhere in Iraq):
“Hey, Omar. The Pearcys are at it again.”
“Really? Praise Allah! Time to step up the car bombings.”
Yeah, that makes sense, ’cause I’m sure if, say, the Chinese invaded our country and later occupied us after we failed to make good on all the U.S. Treasury notes we’ve happily sold them to prop up our house-of-cards economy that they’d one day unexpectedly called in, and in the process slaughtered over 100,000 Americans and destroyed numerous cities (all for own good, mind you), I’d probably be all, like, yeah, whatever, about the whole deal until I somehow managed to grab a copy of the
Beijing News
metro section carrying a story about some local couple protesting their government’s war-like ways.
Now THAT would be the moment I’d get all fired up in a hurry, boy, and finally become double-ready to go out and kick some serious Chinese ass.
Just for the hell of it, though, let’s pretend that one of the deep thinkers from Move America into the Thirteenth Century, beating odds roughly equivalent to those of getting eaten by a shark (on land) or Dick Cheney possessing a soul (his, not others’), managed to actually comprehend the message of “T’anks to Mr. Bush!” which is, of course, that Dubya’s policies have sent this country spinning unceremoniously down the loo. Could, then, the painting and, thus, Steve, be legitimately dumped on for having plunged too far? Would such criticism hold water? Well, let’s flush, er, flesh it out:
George W. Bush: lied the country into war, irrefutably proved now by the
Downing Street Minutes
(for those who had any doubt); approves of and has authorized torture; presided over the most devastating attack ever on American soil, oddly doing everything within his power NOT to prevent it; has ordered years-long indefinite detentions of hundreds of people (including U.S. citizens) without the filing of any criminal charges; employs known traitors; has piled up astronomical deficits; led the charge for the passage of the mammoth Medicare drug prescription/Big Pharma welfare bill while his administration lied to Congress about its true cost; heads a White House that functions solely as a non-stop corporate wealth enhancement center; owns the most dismal jobs and labor record since Herbert Hoover; mangles the English language beyond recognition (if it is, indeed, English he tries to speak); is completely indifferent toward, if not outright contemptuous of, the 45 million Americans without health care; acts like he’s never read the Constitution (well…); single-handedly has forever given new meaning to the old adage “It’s just like riding a bike”; endorses launching unprovoked first-strike attacks that are nuclear even though he can’t even pronounce it; seized and has retained power illegitimately; believes he’s on a mission from God (a notion perhaps abetted by his misunderinterpreting people’s muttered exclamations of “Jesus!” when they see him); uses the bribed, compromised, and complicit corporate media to further facilitate his dismantling of America; lies about everything even when telling the truth would better serve his underhanded purposes (‘course, if you’ve never told it…); glorifies stupidity; disdains knowledge; trashes science…
Yep, no doubt about it: Steve’s full of shit, all right.
It’s those last three on the list that folks who comprise Move America onto the Autopsy Table so amply manifest, when, upon receiving a new spew cue (as recently issued over the local airwaves by a
hatred-belching
, no-talent, Limbaugh wannabe), they obediently flock and then reactively squawk, uncannily resembling nothing more than a bunch of big, thick-headed parrots, except they don’t have feathers or beaks and can’t fly or do a few other things that parrots do, like build nests and stuff. I’d bet pooping on cars wouldn’t be a problem, though. (Sorry. Add “employs cheap scatological humor” to “name-drops and lies.”)
As directed, the constitutionally constitutionally-challenged held their group hissy spit outside the DOJ building to once again voice their indignant displeasure that an American -- one with an actual brain, no less! -- would have the gall to express views different than theirs (or, rather, what they’ve been told their views are). Per Steve, herewith follow a few of the more enlightened comments the Borg-like ones lobbed during the all-day affair toward him and the trusty pro-free speech gang that showed up to support his right to say whatever the hell he damn well pleases:
“U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” (Honestly, shouldn’t this be retired and trotted out only when America miraculously beats the Russians in Olympic hockey?)
“Move to France!” (Honestly, shouldn’t this be retired, period?)
“Get a job!” (Honestly.)
Steve reports there was also the predictable rendition of “God Bless America.” Off key, of course.
Cretin-ly, I mean, certainly, it was another pungent moment in the anals of American political discourse. Still, the smell factor of the above jingoistic and irrelevant emissions was overwhelmed by the malodorousness permeating the execrable ejaculation of Karen Hanretty, a spokeswoman for the California Republican Party (thus accounting for the aroma):
“I don’t know why we need to tolerate the cheap artwork of a gadfly with a worldview that is so offensive to a majority of the people,” Hanretty harrumphed,* just before someone stuffed a copy of the Bill of Rights, First Amendment first, right up her upturned nose. (Damn -- I’m lying again! It was actually inserted into the hole in her head. [No Republicans were harmed in the making of this tale: the opening had already long been present.])
Meanwhile, back at the right wing-ding in front of the DOJ: Unfortunately (or fortunately, really, ‘cause, for one thing, I really hate “God Bless America,” even when sung in tune), I was only able to spend thirty minutes there early on, well before things heated up later. I
was
treated to the following priceless exchange, however, as I stood near Steve during his interview by a twenty-something from some radio station that shall remain letterless, mainly because I can’t remember any of them, although I’m pretty sure one was “K” (quotes are per our best recollection since the tape has undoubtedly long since been burned):
Radio Kid: “What is your name?”
Steve: “Steve.”
Radio Kid: “Where do you live?”
(By this point, I was thinking of Monty Python for some reason.)
Steve: “Sacramento and Berkeley.”
Radio Kid: “What do you do?”
Steve: “I’m a lawyer -- and an artist.”
Radio Kid: “Do you agree with the painting’s message?”
Steve: “I absolutely agree with it.”
Radio Kid: “What is it in particular about the painting’s message you agree with?”
Steve: “Everything. I agree with everything in it. But maybe I’m just biased, since I painted it.”
RK was chagrined but then quickly went on the defensive by saying: “Well, you could have told me.”
I immediately thought, “Well, yeah, either that, OR, you could have done your job by first doing, say, one or two minutes of research and then using your brain and those obviously well-honed reporting skills of yours to put one and one together.” (My already-low opinion of the sorry state of journalism was in no danger of spiking anytime soon.)
As for the Pearcys’ detractors, when it’s all shouted and done, no one can reasonably argue that people don’t have the right to say as many really stupid things as they want in this country. After all, just look at the president. (No, not Cheney; Bush.) Besides, to take such a tack after just arguing otherwise would not only be anti-constitutional, but also unforgivably hypocritical. (Something best left to specialists, like today’s Republicans and their fellow fanciers of fascism.)
When Americans, though, who not only should know better, but, by birthright,
are charged with the responsibility of knowing what the Constitution says,
believe they are somehow justified in engaging in criminal acts, inciting violence, or even threatening death, for cryin’ out loud, because they are “offended” by someone’s speech, then they are monumentally -- and dangerously -- mistaken. Personally, I can’t stand those meaningless yellow “Support Our Troops” magnets, but I don’t go ripping them off cars or posting pictures of their owners on the Internet with fake blindfolds over their eyes and guns pointed at their heads (as has been done with a
photo
of Steve).
The outright hysteria displayed by many of the Move America to Third World Status members and others of like “minds” clearly shows many of them are not only off-base, but off their rockers, too. Anyone who cares about what may remain of the well-being and future of this country should be deeply concerned by this type of behavior and not blow it off as just run-of-the-mill ignorance, because it is disturbingly reminiscent of what other countries have experienced before entering some very long, dark
nachts.
The other day, Steve e-mailed to me a couple of URLS to a two-part song he’d been sent by a right-winger who’d thanked him for the “bittersweet inspiration.” I’m no music critic but I play one in this column, so here’s my two-word review: auricular assault. Listening to something that ear-grindingly awful to its plain bitter end indisputably proves my creds right there as the Pearcys’ good friend. (You know, just in case anyone, uh, had any doubt.)
Bu that really isn’t the point. (Honest!) In the sick, surreal world that is today’s BushAmerika, one can’t safely take two steps without needing to be on the lookout for the ubiquitous piles of stinking irony constantly discharged by the fascists in charge which, in turn, are then so carefully tended by millions of oblivious, ovine Americans. Accordingly, the title of the tune Steve forwarded my way pretty much sums up the sort of perverse, brain-dead opposition against which we struggle: “Free Speech Gone Wrong.”
Free speech gone wrong? It’s not possible.
Ever.
Copyright © 2005 Mark Drolette. All rights reserved.
* Quote is from Matthew Rothschild’s Pearcy
piece
in
The Progressive
. (Did I mention I know Steve and his wife, Virginia?)
(Published originally in
SmirkingChimp.com
on August 10, 2005.)
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