PHILLIPEDOAN

THE POLITIKS OF MODERN ART: AMERIKAN ADDICTIONS: 18×24, mixed media on canvas with a Europa frame, 2003…SOLD!

With this piece I believe that I went beyond the medium of paint. I wanted to compose a ‘painting’ without using paint. The variety of media was collected with a challenge. Similar to all my art, I composed this painting out of improvisation quite spontaneously. As the title implied, these media represent certain ‘addictions’ that we Americans face with our evolution as a civilization, as a nation, as a people and as post-modern consumers. We are enslaved by these addictions whether we realize it or not. We are in bondage through economic slavery and we don’t even know it. In fact, we’re not even conscious of this bondage. This says a lot about how much control that the status quo exerts upon us. Marx called this notion ‘false consciousness.’ It is an illusion the socio-politico-economic institutions created to keep us in line as slaves. This is very crucial to comprehend and resist so that we can live better fights. The post-modern bourgeoisie has evolved to this since its birth, especially since the collapse of the Soviet Union at the very end of the Cold War. The final victors happen to be the neo-capitalist imperialists that had been ruling over us since the beginning of the Reaganite regime.
These neo-conservatives, through the political economy of Reaganomics, are the latest descendants of the classical and modern bourgeoisie. Their institutions (judicial, familial, religious, political, economical and the informational Media) yield tremendous power over the population of this empire. They are the top five (5) percent of this post-modern Babylon. Under the rule-of-law, via neo-capitalist imperialism, that they maintain control over us, therefore, over our existence. Through two of the most powerful institutions, such as Uncle Sam and the Media, their propaganda proved to be extremely successful, considering the power they have over us. Their propaganda has been successful considering the fact that the level of indoctrination has been extremely successful. This phenomenon is crucial to understand should we want to resist this post-modern bourgeoisie. We can and must continue this class-war. For this class-war is the only war that is not only legitimate, but also worth fighting for. This battle against Empire is the only battle worth struggling through resistance…
The computer motherboards symbolize the advancement of technology that we greatly depend on for our evolution and survival. The same technological advancement has turned us into macro-slaves. We are enslaved by this progress by depending on, thus addicted to, modern technology. Yet, we don’t even know this fact. In fact, we don’t even know that we don’t know. This ignorance is the present norm.
The batteries are indicative of our dependence on energy, such as oil. This was the real reason as to why we declared war against Iraq as a rogue-state. The U.S. Empire is now in complete control of the world’s second largest deposit of oil. Yet, through the second most powerful out of the aforementioned institutions, that is the institution of the Media, we are being indoctrinated with the Big Lie: that we went into Iraq for political reasons, as opposed to economic reasons. That fact is that we went into Iraq for both political and economic reasons. They lied to us and we devoured this Big Lie then and now. This ‘regime change’ in Iraq proves to be Uncle Sam’s most successful foreign policy just yet. Another fact is this whole deal with imperializing Iraq is going to drag on; sort of like what happened in Vietnam at the height of the Cold War. Sovereignty my ass! Democracy my ass. Freedom my ass. Liberation my ass…
The condom obviously represents our attitudes toward sex: it can be dangerous, counter-productive and unhealthy to have unprotected sex. It is really scary to have sex now a day. The risks are too great to gamble with. Safe-sex is out the window. It is all about ‘safer-sex’ now. Either this or celibacy, if not abstinence. For these reasons, I have since chosen the route of abstinence. The consequence (s) prove to be too great of a risk not worth taking. Besides, this planet is extremely over-populated with human beings, the most destructive of all the species…
The dollar sign and the pennies symbolize the money, thus the greed, that capitalism teaches us that greed is not only good, but also it is ‘natural’: that it is in our ‘nature’ to be greedy. We are addicted to being wage-slaves and that this type of slavery is perfectly okay to be victimized by, that greed is good and that it is okay to be economical slaves. This notion is similar to the (voluntary) S&M mentality. Meaning, that slavery is normal and natural. Perhaps this notion is absolutely true and fully justified…
The shotgun is representative of the fact that we are the most violent society and we love every minute of it. If it’s not the gangsters from the ghetto, then it is the military killing and maiming foreigners over natural resources such as oil. The post-modern bourgeoisie, the top five (5) percent of the population, meanwhile is relaxing with joy, knowing that their private capital (s) are being protected by the military. While all this madness is going on, Uncle Sam is still too busy indoctrinating the naïve/ignorant voluntary women and men of the military, with the Big Lie: that they are fighting for ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy.’ What a joke! We are all sheep that are being herded by blind shepherds. The institution of the military is the weapon of the ruling class. It exists to acquire and protect the class interests of the bourgeoisie through the rule of law and through violence. Besides the police, the military is the most violent, thus oppressive, wing of the government…
The swastika perfectly fits the phenomenon of this New World Order by way of the Empire’s neo-capitalist imperialism. I honestly am convinced that we are living in new times of fascism; that this country is a fascist country. The U.S.A. Patriot Act proves my point. It broke the last straw off our backs. While protecting the ‘private capital’ (what Marx called ‘private property’) via ‘national security,’ the government is thus legitimized while negating our civil liberties each and every day, Yet, we as a nation, is perfectly fine by this. I don’t know if this is because of our ignorance or is it because of our weakness: meaning that we are completely helpless and thus cannot withstand the necessary struggle against this oppression. Unless it’s S&M, no one deserves to being enslaved via, first, suppression and then, second, oppression. I think America is the biggest slave society that ever existed. We are supposed to be the most democratic and the most free ever known to man, yet, we have more people being imprisoned than in any other country. Why is it that when others attack us, it is ‘terrorism,’ but yet when we bomb them, it is ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’? Fuck the Orwellian hypocrisy and the double-talk.
This is what Uncle Noam Chomsky called ‘newspeak’ in the Orwellian spirit, pertaining to the propaganda spoon-feeding us by the Media and the government, while legitimizing the horrors they perpetrate through means of oppression. All of this continues to happen because of ‘national security.’ Bullshit. We must question their legitimacy while demanding their justifications. We must counter their lies and propaganda. We must hold the power-that-be accountable for their crimes because we should and we must. If this is a ‘democracy’ then let us have the freedom that we were born with: our civil liberties. No one, and I repeat no one, should have the right to negate our, what I would call, ‘positive freedom.’ Don’t tread on me. Perhaps, being obvious in this Orwellian age of the New World Order, slavery is freedom and war is peace? Fuck the lies: their lies, not ours. These words of warning to the New World Order that I speak of: Beware, the nature of your oppression is the aesthetics of our anger. Enough already…
Below the swastika is an empty box of Marlboro, symbolizing our addiction to cancer (i.e. cigarettes). Meaning that we are slaves to what would eventually annihilate us. We know this, yet, we think we are too weak to resist. This is apathy, not some social weakness. We, as human beings first and then as Americans second, should realize that we do matter, simply, because we are living in democratic times. Change is always possible in a free society. This means that our actions, through resistance, voluntary re-education and through the ballot box, do matter in the long run. This is after-all the biggest democracy and the biggest Empire in the world. And, that real changes through activism, voting and resistance through voluntary re-education do prove to be not only possible, but also optional…
The marijuana leaf is representational of our addiction to, our love of and our consumption of drugs: both legal and illicit. There’s not a damn thing Uncle Sam can do to change this. No matter how much money they’re spending against the outdated and the lost war-on-drugs, we as Americans, love drugs God damn it. The drug war is the biggest joke ever. It is the most illegitimate of all wars. Our civil liberties are being negated while our freedom is being denied. This is socially illegal and morally unjust. The hypocrisy is blatant while the injustice is self-evident. While the poor class is being imprisoned for dealing illicit drugs in the ghetto, the bourgeois pharmacists are getting paid by the millions for dealing us drugs that eventually turn us into slaves via addictions that kill us in the end. Where is the necessary logic for such anti-democratic and anti-freedom phenomena? The CIA turns out to be the biggest drug dealers in American history. They practically introduced crack cocaine to the ghetto by selling cocaine to the Blacks, while using this same money to purchase arms given to the right wing and counter-revolutionary army of the Contras during the Reagan years. Furthermore, the Media literally showed the ghetto class how to make crack cocaine through Connie Chung’s investigative journalism. Again, where is the logic in this illogical action? Besides the drugs, the CIA also introduced the most commonly known and used, weapons of mass destruction, such as guns of all calibers, to the Black gangsters, as a result homicides through gang violence sky rocketed for a very long time. This was especially evident during the twelve (12) year reign of the Reagan-Bush mafia. No wonder the DEA hates the CIA for committing such crimes. Again, there’s no logic because of the illogic.
Yet the Reaganite administration under Reagan denied any knowledge of such crimes committed by political gangsters such as the CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA), even by those that belonged to the Reaganite administrations of Reagan and Bush. To the Nicaraguan’s Sandinista regime, those twelve (12) years that the Reaganites’ reigned were probably the longest and the most politically evil years ever. All Reagan had to say was he had no idea what was going on. Uncle Ronald was probably the best liar of a politician in American history, just because he proved to the most charismatic president America ever had. Nevertheless, because of this ‘charisma’ he got away with telling lies to the American people as a whole. So the whole drug war is the most illegitimate and the most unjust war ever imposed upon the American population. The propaganda machine proved to be extremely successful with selling lies to the naively ignorant populace. The war on drugs is the biggest joke ever told by Uncle Sam and we stoners are laughing our asses off at him. While billions are being needlessly spent to activate this prohibition, true Americans are being imprisoned, instead of being rehabilitated through treatment and the most successful form of intervention (versus interdiction) such as prevention. Similar to the Vietnam War, Uncle Sam loses simply because of the sad fact that the American people just don’t support it. Plain and simple…
Should you look closer at this painting, you would find a credit card that’s included. This decision to include such a thing as a credit card has proven to be probably the most crucial just yet. It is very symbolic and has powerful meaning. What this credit card represents to me is the fact that we are addicted to spending, literally, ‘plastic cash.’ This is evident in a post-modern credential society such as America. It almost seemed to be ‘natural.’ In fact, too natural I would say. We are all consumers of these ‘things’ that they said that we ‘need’ in order to survive. This is what Marx called ‘false consciousness.’ These creditors are making economic slaves out of us as naively ignorant consumers. This is why the Media is an institution to be fucked with. Their propaganda machine is so powerful and pervasive, thus successful, just yet. We will keep on consuming until we die. We will consume false needs through our false consciousness for as long these greedy creditors remain sanctioned for (instead of against) by the government. In this age of ‘credentialism,’ spending money you don’t have is a mythical ‘must’ and a ‘needless’ necessity. Or so they tell us. It all boils down to class interests (versus race a few decades back during the advancement of white supremacy). Do we want-to-need or do we need-to-want? I think it is the former more so than the latter: we ‘want’ the necessities while we ‘need’ the commodities. If this is not a dichotomy then it is a contradiction. All contradictions are illogical for contradictions ultimately negate themselves…
The two disposable cameras are indicative of our consumption of and our addiction to disposable commodities. These phenomena are direct results of ‘free-market-ism’ for consumption is the ultimate outcome of the capitalist arena, second only to profiteering. Without consumption there is no business. Without business, there is no trade. Without trade, there is no exchange of money for goods. Without goods, there are no commodities. And without commodities, there is no consumption. So ultimately, if there is no consumption, then, there is no profit. This is why the Establishment continues telling us to keep on blindly consume because this would be good for the market economy. So, the more we consume, the more profit the capitalist class would gain. The logic is very simple to grasp. This is why we must consume less thus we must spend less…
The photo of the infamous godfather of gangster rap, that of Eazy-E (RIP) of the late Niggaz With Attitude (NWA). It is representational of one in three young Black males being imprisoned by Uncle Sam’s racist and fascist rule of law via the criminal (in)justice system (CJ). The majority of these judicial victims, representing the majority of people that are locked up in general, are behind bars as a result of victim-less crimes such as vice-crimes like drug related, prostitution, non-violent crimes. These are what criminologists call victimless crimes and at the same time ‘working class’ crimes committed by blue-collar workers (versus white collar crimes such as those that Enron had committed thus endures silently by the modern bourgeoisie). Lower class females are typical victims of the CJ system versus lower class males. The latter usually commit violent crimes such as homicides and man-slaughter crimes that resulted in non-felonies) Statistically, the class that is not victims of the CJ system’s classist and racist sanctions through their rule of law are the typical bourgeois, white collar, and usually heterosexual adult males. The reason being that representation in a court of law boils down to one factor: can the criminal afford the best defense lawyer that their money can buy. For if their representation in a court of law is as poor as they are, then they are fucked. For example, look at O.J. Simpson. The man was a murderer, although he is Black, and he got away with slaughtering two defenseless victims. The statistics show that the majority of the victims of the CJ system of the post-modern bourgeoisie are of the lower class caliber. This is not a coincidence. It is about the CJ system’s criminal codes. This is a great way to sanction against those who seemed to get out of control for whatever reasons. Those that are un-governable: young, poor, Black and female. They are all under-educated rather than un-educated. Thus, they have fewer opportunities than the rich, white and heterosexual males. The unjust CJ system needs to be revolutionized instead of reformed. It’s authoritative, thus hierarchical, nature almost negate the fact that it needs to be undone. In order to change it externally, it needs to be turned upside down if not inside out. The present CJ of this nation is nothing more than a tool of the bourgeoisie existing through mandates, thus giving them enormous power over us. It is about controlling the masses through their rule of law, while protecting the ruling class’ interests such as their private capital/property.
This is why the racist death penalty has to be abolished before it negates anymore human freedom and human lives. If we kill people that kill other people to show that killing is wrong, then why don’t we rape rapists to prove that rape is wrong? We, as an Empire and as a civilization that is just, should change the system from within/without by all means necessary, simply because we are (supposedly) the most free, thus, the most democratic and the most just civilization, in comparison to other countries. Particularly when compared and contrasted to other democracies of the past and present. Being the most democratic and the freest empire of the past and present, yet, we imprison more of our own countrymen. Something just doesn’t add up. This is blatantly contradictious if not hypocritical. Shit, we even surpass the Soviet Union under Stalin’s rule and we beat China, considering how repressive and oppressive their empire is. Something isn’t right. This proves that the class war, being waged against the majority of this country by the ruling class, is probably the biggest class war known. This Empire has yielded so much power that it has turned into the biggest fuckin’ police state in the world, past and present. Fuck reform. Just give me revolution.
The cd means that we are addicted to the medium of music, of its entertaining nature and purpose. Proudly, I am addicted to music more so than I am obsessed with art. Music is about the collective unconscious. It is of pop culture of the past, present and future. Music is probably the best form of communication known to mankind. It is the most popular medium, sort of like the visual art. Music by far is what makes us conscious of our collective unconscious. Music sharing, such as Napster, is the best thing that ever happened to music lovers on an international level.
The “Lords of the Rings” card tells us that we love cinema because we are addicted to it as a popular medium. Like visual art, cinema caters to the collective unconscious that we, as Americans, like to be entertained by violence through cinema. We are obsessed with violence, either perpetrated by us as individuals or as government, especially in times of war..
The globe is indicative of Mother Earth and how we, as a civilization and an Empire, are treating her. We have no respect for our Mother. It saddens and enrages and arousing my anger when I think about how we, as citizens of the global community and as Empire, treat her. The ways in which we abuse this wonderful planet through the exploitation of the natural ‘resources’: pollution, consumption, weapons of mass destruction through warfare, etc. Slowly I am starting to lose hope for the human race whenever I stop and think the ways in which we rape this poor plane in our evil ways. We are raping our own Mother. Not only that this is fuckin taboo, it is immoral. We have responsibility to ourselves and nature and we should hold people responsible for the crimes they commit against the Earth. Whether the perpetrators being individuals or corporations, environmental laws ought to be legislated. Those who are environmental criminals should be sanctioned in so far as the punishment fits the crime. This is why some, if not most, environmental legislations are ineffective because of a systematic weakness inherent in the Empire. Environmental laws should be institutionalized therefore forcing us, as individuals or as corporations, to really respect and protect Mother Earth. As taboo as this might sound, we are raping our own Mother, it is nevertheless true.
This is environmental incest and enough is enough already. We must transgress before it’s too late. Something has gone wrong with our evolution as a species in comparing to other species that also inhabit this beautiful paradise. I refuse to believe that all of this is inherent in us, which means natural, as a species. We are the only species that is capable of creating thus producing weapons of mass destruction. No other species is known for killing beyond survival. We are so evolved that we’ve devolved back to the level of self destruction. No other species is capable of so many crimes and injustice against this unique planet. Transgression now or annihilation later. Something must be done fast. Values, ethics and attitudes must be revolutionized if we are to survive as a species and as civilizations. ALL corporations and individuals should be held responsible for crimes against this planet. Environmental laws and regulations need to be upheld and regulated through tougher legislation, thus consequences must be harsh. Especially where it hurts environmental criminals the most: the pocket book. The bigger the criminal, the tougher the punishment ought to be. All environmental laws must be regulated with the maximum punishment. If these facts were taken into consideration, then we would see greater changes in attitude and action…
You should notice that the flag is upside down. I put there for a reason. I refuse to be labeled as anti-American or even unpatriotic. I love this country as a nation, for I grew up here for twenty (20) years, but despise it as Empire. This is my home in as much as it is yours or anyone’s. I am very concern about the amount of power that the bourgeoisie possess and their abuse of it. At the same time they turn us into economical slaves, they’re telling us to enjoy it because it’s ‘natural.’ This is not supposed to be a by-product of our evolution as a species and as civilizations. Transgress now or regret it later. Uncle Sam, as an Empire, is nothing more than a political gangster with a monopoly of the greatest power in the world. No other civilizations of the past had yielded the amount of power that we as an Empire has. We control most of the world’s resources through our private capital that we had gained through means of wars and trade.
The fact that our Empire is an empire doesn’t negate anything criminal that we do in the name of freedom and democracy and justice and human-hood. We should be held accountable like everyone else. We are living in probably the greatest epoch and era. We have the responsibility for this wonderful unique planet. Like how we treat our homes and families is how we should treat Mother Earth. Earth liberation will be the last frontier for those who believe in freedom and cherish it as a value thus upholding it as morality. In spite of all the lies, whether big or small, and all the shit that happens in this world, we as a civilization and as a moral people ought to transgress and repent for all the wrong shit that we’ve done. This includes all the wrong besides all the right.
First and foremost, I by nature am a libertarian (except for economics) before I am a socialist. I believe in changes, if not through reformation then through revolution. One of these methods has to work. Despite what we’ve been indoctrinated with: that war is peace, that hate is love, slavery is freedom and despair is hope, etc, These are contradictions and lies being perpetrated by the bourgeoisie in order to advance their class interests. The truth is very universal. And the objective truth is: that war is not peace, that hate is not love, that greed is not moral, that slavery is not freedom and that despair is not hope. To think otherwise would be fooling ourselves. I refuse to be a slave who is hopeless, violent, hateful and greedy. I refuse to believe that we’re nothing more than sheep being herded in the wrong direction by a blind shepherd. Fuck this Empire. Fuck its capital. And fuck its oppression. Don’t tread on me. My liberty might be negated. But fuck with my freedom and you shall see just how oppressed I really am. God bless us all.