I don’t really go by Relevant Magazine anymore because the content there reeks of their evangelical and modern roots. However today I was perchance at a blog that linked to them, and I cam across this atrocity: When Artists Say “Give Peace a Chance” and I’m so livid I have to respond.
If you read it, and read my stuff at all, you’ll realize why I’m so pissed. The anti-artistry and just war themes are evident in each paragraph.
True peace is not an ideal birthed from passive intentions. To live peace means to preserve it. To live peace means to be bent on it and to be emphatic about it. This kind of peace expresses itself in actions that give back to the world, that seek out the hurt in the world and preserve all that is good. Is that what the majority of America’s pop stars mean when they flash the peace sign? No, they mean, “Let’s not fight …Let me sing my song and return to the Hills so I can stay safe in my surroundings and income.”
I don’t even have to talk about just war. Just go read my article in sevenmagazine. The author here, Bobby Anderson, is obviously a just war advocate. That’s fine, he’s free to say his opinion there, although I wonder about statements like:
However, if the mathematics are done correctly, there is a time for both, and war can be instrumental in securing peace, when and if it is threatened. This kind of war would not be based on hungry colonization or political pride. Rather, it is a defense mechanism. It is an opportunity to preserve the quality of life and ideals that are highly respected, such as freedom, love and goodness. If these ideals are threatened, they must be defended. If we are to lose these ideals, then we are indeed lost.
I expected a bible quote, but if the mathematics are done correctly??
But let me come back to my first quote there, the one about artists going up to the Hills (capital H), safe in {their} income. Clueless. I’m sorry, but fucking clueless. The only artists Bobby encounters are on his TV set and in the movie theatre and in People magazine and Rolling Stone. The fact is that the average artist salary is somewhere around 20k a year. If you think Chuck Prophet or Tom Conlon or…I could go on for pages and pages…are safe in their income, you need to educate yourself. Yes Madonna is an artist too, but the Madonna Bobby sees, and whose art he consumes, and spends his money on, is the artist that a corporate machine has marketed to you, has forced upon you with their monopolistic production and distribution chains.
Ooo I get pissed over this stuff. This is why one of the main objectives of Integration Research is to educate. Hopefully those of you reading this blog are getting some of that. Thanks for listening to me rant.