Monday, December 26, 2011

Revolution 2012

 

Inciteful


Officer John Pike has struck a chord with our national psyche. The images of Pike casually pepper-spraying a group of college students as they peacefully protested signaled a disconnect between the power holders and the powerless majority.

When FOX News aired its coverage on the pepper-spraying attack, correspondent Megyn Kelly said “it’s a food product essentially...” and fellow correspondent Bill O’Reilly responded with, “we shouldn’t be Monday morning quarter-backing the police anyway...its a liberal campus.”

In this way, FOX News deliberately misleads viewers into believing that being liberal somehow warrants police abuse. Studies show that those who watch FOX News know less about current events and answer more questions incorrectly than those who watch or listen to no news at all. 

I felt it necessary to make the connection between the ignorance and violent nature of this officers actions and the inciteful rhetoric that is the mainstay of Fox News. 

(Inciteful, india ink with vinyl and acrylic paint on birch wood, with raw steel frame, 24x24x1.5" copyright 2011 Brian Morgan)

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Revolution 2012


 

"Citizens United vs. FEC" vinyl and acrylic paint with india ink on Birch wood, raw steel frame, 24x24x1.5 copyright 2011 Brian Morgan


While hundreds of thousands of Americans are being laid-off, or taking pay cuts, people at the top of the economic ladder are reaping record profits and sharing none of the wealth.  If the Occupy Wall Street movement is about anything, it is about this economic inequality. The recent 2010 Supreme Court decision for Citizens United vs. The Federal Election Committee grants corporations the same rights as people and therefore has opened the floodgates for corporate spending on elections.  Now, corporate money can control whom we have in office and what they do when they get there. All in the name of keeping the rich richer. This corporate greed and power is threatening to control our democracy. If the Supreme Court believes that a corporation is a person, then this painting is my interpretation of what that person looks like.

Mother Jones just wrote a story about this today (12/15/11) and it supports this very scary interpretation of the law.  Corporations are not people.  Real people do not have hundreds of millions of dollars which they can give to political parties so they'll pass laws allowing them to abuse their neighbor's rights and health.  If the Supreme Court wants to consider corporations people, then they should also consider a reasonable cap on campaign donations.  Something that all real people could have an equal chance at donating, so that all people have an equal voice in their government. A cap of say $100.00 per citizen.  By publicly financing campaigns and providing ANY citizen with the ability to use that money for their election bid, the game would be open to the hundreds of thousands of honest businessmen and women, educators, environmentalists, and hard working middle-class Americans to run for office. 

It is time that we are governed by people who actually represent what is best for the people of the nation as a whole.  No more rich guys bickering over ridiculous religious ideologies while sending our young and vulnerable citizens to die in wars that these pricks profit from heavily. Dick Chenney boasted about super-profits for his Halliburton corporation which runs most of the domestic needs for the troops. A contract the Bush Administration handed over at more than twice the highest bidding estimate of any other contender for that contract.

Some people think the government is itself the problem. The real problem is that a majority of those in government are simply cronies for the big business' of this country. Or they are simply top people from those companies who temporarily relinquish their positions so that they can get into office and make sure their companies get those super profits...like Dick Chenney.  These politicians, mostly Republicans, serve only their corporate donor's needs and make a heafty profit for doing so.

Remove the donors and give back our representatives, and throw out the dicks!