It is not a new thing to try and shame or blackmail an individual into silence. Whether the evidence is real or doctored doesn’t matter; only the judgement of the public is needed to destroy a person's credibility. Governments and criminal organizations have deployed this tactic for a long time. The U.S. government used these methods against civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr., in an attempt to discredit his message. Foreign leaders have also been the victims of honey traps, which in turn led to photos of them indulging in sex acts; the Soviet Union used attractive women...
Anti-War Blog – Apparently, not evil. Just War.
In the past those of us distant from war could only see it in the print media and television. It was curated with the intent to gain sympathy, or conceal the brutality of those who we were supposed to be sympathetic for. As censored as it was at times graphic, though it was just in fragments. Now, we have an endless stream of images and video. If we dare to see them. War is a peculiar thing, it allows for the most horrible to occur on a grand scale. It is precisely because of the scale of such acts and who is committing them, that the insufferable horror continues on. Despite the savagery...
SadoMailerism and the kink of arrogance
In his appearances on shows like Dick Cavett’s, Norman Mailer often showed himself to be an immense ego. Especially while seated across from his ever contrasting, literary sparring partner, Gore Vidal. Mailer as curmudgeon and as one audience member yells, “chauvinistic,” was there to declare himself as his generations Hemingway, the ‘literary champion’ of the world. The master of American letters. Mailer was a great writer, he knew that and demanded the world know it as well. From an era when the writer was held in regard, many then read, television shows often had authors on to debate and...
Ye and Punk Protest
When I was a kid, I was confused by the punks' strange use of the swastika. It was in their graffiti, on their clothing, or tattooed on their bodies or faces along with spiked hair or shaved heads. The media loved the imagery of punks; disaffected youth, outcasts, and vulgar contrarians. Comical punks like in Police Academy or Zed and his gang to the anti-social bus rider in Star Trek IV stirred unease. The media told us to feel this way and many of the punks wanted it that way—which is why there was applause when Spock incapacitated the punk and his "filth spewing" boombox. It was not that...
The Art
I am an artist therefore anything, I produce is art. Or, Anything I produce is accepted as art, therefore I am an artist. I pondered both outcomes, as I walked through the art gallery in the city. A combination of native works, landscapes that captured an Australia when it was a frontier, pioneers and ‘Aboriginals’ in an ancient land. Religious works of human whose eyes that looked beyond the viewer with empty gazes, golden orbs around their heads, immortalising them. To the paintings of important people or the aristocracy of the past and maritime moments, each done with passion, talent and...
100 Memers vs One Pamela Anderson
The social media feed gruel has switched it’s serving of slop from the speculation about the potential outcome of one hundred men versus a gorilla. The content creators who recycle the same shit, because of algorithms and trends now concern themselves with the apparently ‘vile’ imagery of one Pamela Anderson, now in her late fifties, daring to present herself in public with no make up on, and without the assistance of filters. The mostly males from behind their meme accounts are shocked, armies of anime avatars and tradcon bros shriek in outrage. How dare this woman age! This woman did not...
Anti-War Blog – Too Thirsty to Cry
In the photo essay, Ethiopia : The Scorched Earth, Mary Anne Fitzgerald writes in the caption beneath a photo of a young girl crying, “Tears of hunger are a good sign. During the final stages of malnutrition children are too weak to cry.” There was Live Aid and U.S.A. For Africa, once for Ethiopia. Millionaire singers, millions of viewers and millions of dollars raised, despite that millions starved. Well meaning intentions moved on once the songs slipped from the charts, the misery inspired single with little lasting impact for those in the place that had inspired it all in the first place....
The Settlers and the Exposure of Settler-Colonialism
The talent of Louis Theroux is his ability to ask the most obvious questions with a disarming innocence. To draw out truth is a forgotten or less than celebrated trait in modern journalism. In his latest documentary, The Settlers, Theroux is not a mouthpiece for the establishment, though the production was done through the BBC. Theroux follows in the footsteps of Robert Fisk by giving the microphone to the innocent—and their tormentors. In doing so he has drawn controversy, but not because he manipulated or changed words. He simply let people speak their minds; the truth is harmful, even to...