Elliot Crown

Images operate the same way that memories do; images have this deep-seated attachment to your mind and I like to think that the images ingrain themselves into people…It really makes them want to stop for a minute and read the article. And hopefully it’s not a terribly biased article. And hopefully the image, in itself, …

Miami's Community Avengers

Have No Fear the Community Avengers are Here! As the right wing mob mobilizes to shut down democratic debate on health care reform; as Van Jones is forced from the White House through distortions of the truth and plays on racial and political fears; as the recession deepens – the masked marauders known as the …

Oh Yes They Did! – artnet Magazine

My take is a little different. If anything, I think activists are already excessively focused on the media. People often judge the success of a demonstration primarily on how much media coverage it receives, rather than seeing demonstrations as a place to gain confidence, meet people and groups, and build the core of a long-term …

Politics as Product

Happy Spokesmodel Selection Day to one and all. I am certainly not the first to comment on the commodification of American politics in general and this race specifically, but a little more can be said before we’re on the next distraction tomorrow. This election has been primarily a contest between the values of experience and …

Laugh at a Campaign Pitch? Sure. Visit the Grandparents? Not So Much. – NYTimes.com

MIAMI — When Sarah Silverman told young Jews to get their lazy rotund rear ends to Florida to persuade their grandparents to vote for Senator Barack Obama, one question loomed: Would they go? This weekend was the first big test, a kickoff for the so-called Great Schlep, and so far, momentum has been building with …

I’m Rubber, You’re Glue …

by Jonathan Alter Published Aug 23, 2008 From Newsweek magazine issue dated Sep 1, 2008 It’s hard to predict what will stick. ‘It’s the economy, stupid’ was a hand-scrawled sign hung in Little Rock. When NEWSWEEK reported earlier this summer that the McCain family owns at least seven houses, few outside the hothouse of politics …

Get Your War On: Terrorist Watch List

This is a new video from 23/6.com a political-ish comedy site. The video is about a serious issue, but treats it in a comical-ish way. Which is a fine strategy if done well, but I there’s just not quite enough substance here. All you really get from the video is that there’s a terrorist watch …

How George Carlin Changed Comedy

via: Time When the culture began to change in the late 1960s — when the old one-liner comics on the Ed Sullivan Show were looking pretty tired and irrelevant to a younger generation experimenting with drugs and protesting the War in Vietnam — George Carlin was the most important stand-up comedian in America. By the …

John Pilger – Freedom Next Time

This is great speech by journalist John Pilger on the powers and dangers of corporate media. I think what’s most interesting about it is that he breaks from the Left/Right dialectic that plagues social change movements and takes liberalism to task for some of its crimes. The liberal Clinton administration increased the size of the …

Hans Haacke

Hans Haacke lecture Gallatin School, New York University, April 15, 2008 S&S: As a political artist, how can you know when you’ve been successful? Haacke: I’ve been asked that question many times, and that question requires one to go around it before one really avoids it. I believe it is a relatively new phenomenon that …