ALL MATT DAY AT REAL ART

Longtime Real Art readers know that my old pal Matt periodically sends me cool links which I periodically slap onto my blog. This is such a time, and these are, indeed, some good links.

Here goes.

Retro vs. Metro

Matt's found a cool site who's mission is to try to get a handle on the ideological divide that seems to be plaguing America at the moment:

Understanding the uncivil war

The Uncivil War affects every American, whether raising kids on an hourly wage with no health insurance, or dodging bullets on the streets of Baghdad, or ingesting dirty air and water, or wondering if our votes will count in the coming election. This conflict is as old as the 13 Colonies and as new as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Until now, the two sides have never been precisely defined --- or named. We call them Retro and Metro America. On this website you can learn about these two Americas and how the escalating war between them affects each of our lives. You also can order the groundbreaking bestseller: The Great Divide: Retro vs. Metro America.

Click here for the main site, and here for an issue by issue breakdown of this Great Divide.

For Matt's next link, he bravely dredges Drudge and finds some good stuff:

BUCHANAN BOOK DECLARES:
'NO CONSERVATIVE PARTY
LEFT IN WASHINGTON'

After warning about the "Death of the West," bestselling author and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan now declares: "There is no conservative party left in Washington."

Buchanan is set to launch his new work WHERE THE RIGHT WENT WRONG: How Neoconservatives Subverted The Reagan Revolution And Hijacked the Bush Presidency -- a work ripe with cutting observation and opinion.

Some quotes from the book:

On the Bush Doctrine:

“[A] prescription for permanent war for permanent peace, though wars are the death of republics.” (6)

The Bush National Security Strategy “is the imperial edict of a superpower out to exploit its present supremacy to make itself permanent Lord Protector of the universe.” (26)

“This is democratic imperialism. This will bleed, bankrupt and isolate this republic. This overthrows the wisdom of the Founding Fathers about what America should be all about.” (35)

On the War in Iraq:

“[L]istening to the neoconservatives, Bush invaded Iraq, united the Arab world against us, isolated us from Europe, and fulfilled to the letter bin Laden’s prophecy as to what we were about. We won the war in three weeks -- and we may have lost the Islamic world for a generation. (84)

“[I]f Iraq collapses in chaos and civil war, there will be a ferocious fight in this country over who misled us and who may have lied us, into war....into the dock will go the neoconservatives whose class project this was...” (236)

On the War on Terrorism:

“Terrorism is the price of empire. If we do not wish to pay it, we must give up the empire.” (237)

“America’s enemy in the Islamic world is not a state we can crush with sanctions or an enemy we can defeat with force of arms. The enemy is a cause, a movement, an idea.” (87)

“[T]errorism is not a nation, a regime, or an army. Terrorism is a tactic, a technique, a weapon fanatics, dictators and warriors have resorted to through history. If...war is the continuation of politics by other means, terrorism is the continuation of war by other means.” (89)

“We are not hated for who we are. We are hated for what we do. It is not our principles that have spawned pandemic hatred of America in the Islamic world. It is our policies.” (80)

“U.S. dominance of the Middle East is not the corrective to terror. It is a cause of terror. Were we not over there, the 9/11 terrorists would not have been over here.” (236)

“Often, terrorism succeeded in the 20th century, and, when it did, the ex-terrorists achieved power, glory and immortality, with streets, towns and cities named for them....America today recognizes every regime to come out of these wars where terrorism was a common tactic.” (123)

Click here for more quotes.

I must admit that I've always had a grudging admiration for Patrick Buchanan. He's a likable character, despite his homophobia and mild racism, which I don't like at all. His rebel rousing in the GOP has made me smile numerous times, and I just have to love his pro-labor, anti-globalism rhetoric. I bet this is a fun book. I may steal a copy myself.

Finally, Matt comes across a cool Spike Lee interview speckled with political tinges from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (which is, I believe, Matt's local newspaper):

Spike Lee weighs in on Cosby, Moore and more

We cannot have a generation of young black kids growing up not being able to read or write. More importantly not wanting to know how to read and write. Because, somehow, in the twisted mentality we have today — which is really pumped out by gangsta rap — these kids equate getting an education with trying to be white. (Long pause.) Which is genocide.

"Intelligent kids dumb down because they don't want to be ostracized. They don't want to be called a white boy or a white girl. Or a sell-out. Or an Oreo. Somehow, they equate ignorance with being black and being real and being street. Being ghetto has become a badge of honor. And that's more than insane. That's bananas."

Click here for the rest, and you'll probably have to register, but at this point, it seems most papers are insisting on that, so...get used to it.

I don't think I've really said all that much about Spike Lee here at Real Art, so here's a quick statement. I didn't really get into his first film, She's Gotta Have It, because I don't really think I understood his aesthetic at the time--I was pretty young. Over the years, however, he's really won me over. Do the Right Thing is a fantastic treatise on race relations with a kickass soundtrack. Mo' Better Blues, starring Denzel Washington, is a bittersweet jazz pic. Bamboozled does more to explain racial stereotyping than anything this white guy has ever experienced, while poignantly asking what it means, exactly, to be black. Malcolm X, also starring Washington, is quite simply one of the best films I've ever seen: it is Lee's magnum opus. His new film, She Hate Me, is bound to be, at the very least, pretty darned good.

Thus ends this latest installment of All Matt Day at Real Art!

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