McCarthyism – Duped by the media

I just finished reading Andrew Breitbart’s Righteous Indignation and started reading Blacklisted by History: the untold story of Senator Joe McCarthy by M. Stanton Evans.

Breitbart’s book is about what has become the left controlled media and culture in America:  how to identify it and how to combat it.  It’s a quick read and has some fun and interesting anecdotes about his life, past and present.

You know how you learn a new word and then see it everywhere? After reading Breitbart’s book, I’ve been more conscious of what I’m reading and hearing in the media. So, that happened to me today when I started reading Evans’ book. The book begins with all the redactions he found when researching documents regarding McCarthy and all the  missing documents related to him. Documents missing from the National Archives, for instance. Documents that would have supported or debunked a lot that has made Joe McCarthy an evil legend, to most.

The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post all had written about McCarthy at different times, including obits that related to “victims” of his governmental communist hunt. And every one of them, even in crossword puzzle clues, as well as all the history I’ve read previously about McCarthy, refer to his HUAC – House Un-American Activities Committee.

Do you see how easily duped we’ve been by the main stream media in this country? A senator cannot chair a HOUSE committee…

“It seems inconceivable, but is obviously so, that there are people writing for major papers who don’t know we have a bicameral legislative system, that a senator wouldn’t [couldn’t] head a House committee. And while such bloopers are amusing, they can have effects that historically speaking aren’t so funny, pinning responsibility on McCarthy for things to which he had no connection (e.g. the House committee’s investigation of Reds in Hollywood, often imputed to McCarthy.)”

Already rethinking that Arizona boycott

From the Los Angeles Times:

Two much-debated City Hall issues are expected to converge this week when the Los Angeles Police Department’s red light camera program moves to the front of the line for an exemption from the city’s contracting boycott of Arizona over that state’s new immigration enforcement law.

On Tuesday, the City Council is scheduled to consider — and appears likely to approve — an exception to the boycott allowing a 10-month extension of a multimillion-dollar agreement with Scottsdale-based American Traffic Solutions.

The firm operates cameras at 32 city intersections that catch tens of thousands of red light violators each year. The council’s Public Safety Committee says the exception is justified because red light cameras provide a “significant benefit to public safety.”

Coming soon: Shepard Fairey’s Tole Painting Class

As a one time art major (until I figured out that I could not make the kind of living that I wanted to make) I can explain something about pop art and how truly bogus *most* of  it is.

And this is how easy it is for you to do at home:

Take a photo of Campbell’s tomato soup, for instance. No, really.  Take a photo of it. Put it in a projector/enlarger that reflects on a canvas or watercolor paper or wall. Pencil the photo onto the canvas or wall. Then, start painting or coloring it in.

That’s how easy it is. That’s what Warhol basically could do with a soup can or a photo of Marilyn Monroe or any number of famous people. That’s how I painted a mural, in high school, of Minnie Mouse on a hallway at my alma mater. (Now to be clear, this is not exactly how Warhol did it. He silk screened the image of Marilyn onto canvas.)

Called "Gold Marilyn Monroe" this is Warhol's portrait that hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in NYC.

Photoshop and other web sites online will also allow you to take a photo (maybe of yourself) and add effects that make it look like a cartoon or a painting. (And considering that Fairey admits to deleting computer files, I have to wonder how much Photoshop or similar software was used in his Obama poster.)

With these “techniques” anyone can be an artist. Kinda like dummy-ing down art or maybe “Art for Idiots” or to be less offensive, “Art for the Paint Brush Challenged.”

So, this brings me to Shepard Fairey and his now infamous portrait of Obama.

From the beginning, this guy was a thief. He stole an idea, an image and modeled it with “technique.” That’s all he did. Technique cannot be confused with talent. Anyone can learn a technique, but not everyone has a talent or a gift.

Fairey is a street graffiti artist; in street vernacular, he is a tagger. He is nothing more than that. And now with his latest admission that he lied to his attorneys (in addition to the court and everyone else) that he used another photo rather than the one that the AP claims he used and his admission that he deleted computer files to cover up his lies, he will never be anything more than that. And any art piece he does from this point on will be viewed as suspect.

Anyone can learn the iambic pentameter of a sonnet and write one. But not just anyone can be William Shakespeare or write anything like he did. Anyone can learn the technique of painting on wet plaster (fresco) but not just anyone can do Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel.

Look familiar? It's my avatar: the finger of God at the creation of Adam. From the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo.

Anyone can learn Photoshop software and do this:

You guessed it: that's my face, imposed over a Chaplin photo.

But not just anyone can be Charlie Chaplin.

From this point on, Shepard Fairey will be nothing more than a man who learned some techniques and arrived at *almost* the right historical place at the right historical time.

Warhol pulled it off. Fairey never will.

The AP photo and the Fairey rip-off.

More at BigHollywood.com.

Older but interesting perspective from the LA Times.