Re: [-empyre-] Encounters with the right

[Jeff Gates <jgates@outtacontext.com>]

> You can chit chat about Deleuze and Derrida until you're blue in the face,
> but these monsters don't care. They are out to destroy and intimidate voices
> of resistance. This episode with indymedia ( and all the info being

Interestingly, I was thinking about this as I tossed and turned early this 
morning. We have been talking about the ability of art to mobilize in the 
political arena. But, quite honestly, it pales by comparison to the effect 
of a political sign (a Barthe symbol?) sitting on a lawn to provoke an 
impassioned response. When I wrote about my lawn art in August 
(http://outtacontext.com/life/archive/000259.shtml) I didn't think it 
would come to this point. Sublime suburbia? Not lately.  

> That Mr Gate's Kerry signs would be uprooted by his neighbour in (let me
> guess - you're in Takoma Park? I lived there in 85-86 and my ex-GF still
> lives there) a liberal suburb of the belly of the beast, the Heart of the
> Empire, only serves to show just how far it has all gone. When nutty
> paleoconservatives like Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul are voices of reason in
> the Republican Party, things are very very bad.

Actually, not Takoma Park (which locally is known as the Berkeley of the 
East). I don't think there is a Republican in that town! -grin I'm a bit 
west of there. Interestingly, in today's Washington Post is an article 
called "The Great Divide." 
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38502-2004Oct16.html). 
While we think of the polarization of this country in terms of blue and 
red states, the DC metro area is also a patchwork of blue and red.