The Chickadee is Liberty 2020. Acrylic on American flag, 48 x 30"
While perusing older Throop publications searching for Stuckist meat for my upcoming book Making Friends With Wild Dogs: Reflections on Stuckism for Its 25th Anniversary, I stumbled upon this 2018 rant against Israeli Apartheid, terror, and ethnic cleansing. Not much has changed besides all out genocide of the Palestinian people. It’s been going on a looong time. Nearly a century.
Yuck.
From Political Opponent (Freeflow Books 2018):
I made four paintings in as many days. During these creative hours I noticed worldly adult men, maybe women, but I only see men, playing apocalypse games with my life and destiny. So I decided to write about figuratively wrapping my fingers around their windpipes and squeezing until all heads pop off. Using my dream arsenal to fight fire with fire must work, else old, dying men like John McCain and Benjamin Netan-YaHoo win, and all hopeful children of earth, lose big time. Netan-YaHoo. I stress the last two syllables in the name of the Israeli prime minister to remind readers that we are dealing with pure Confederate flag waving segregationist, and Apartheid-loving evil. He is a yahoo. A pretend Jewish yahoo. He is Jewish like Ghandi was Hindu if being devout meant smiting all people not Hindu with sophisticated weaponry donated by the British. Pretend prime minister Netan-YaHoo is propped up by a U.S. tax paying pretend citizenry. The latter are burdened with a media of which it seems that no published member has yet taken a civics course in his or her (but mostly his) lifetime. A yellow corporate journalism that is bought and paid for by who knows who—certainly not poor painters, nor Oklahoma and Wisconsin bigots who voted a vile and corrupt New York City billionaire to the presidency. The unconnected citizenry (99.99%) have no clue who runs Earth, Inc., though so many of them pretend to know the geopolitical strings that are pulled and state their opinions freely using the yellow journalists bought-and-paid for points of argument.
Because real political information does not flow to the masses, unless provided by an Edward Snowden or “Russian” hackers, or god forbid, a personal drive to acquire a sense of history beyond what the New York Times® wrote was real last night at 7 p.m.—Because all of us, yes, even unsophisticated yet overly opinionated Ron Throop, have no idea what a detonated thermonuclear weapon actually looks like, and that tiny, innocent Israel has about 200 of them aimed at any country that believes fascism is an outdated political philosophy—I bet they even have coordinates set at Yahveh if he too starts to mouth off—Because unmade writers and painters are well-known for crafting nearly endless run-on sentences, I believe that if we don’t wake up soon, these life-hating men will pull the pin on a gigundamundus humanity suicide bomb.
There are takers and givers. The bulk of humanity give and take more or less within a relatively microcosmic framework. Each of us is a thoughtless polluter in a global economy, but few openly push for a resurgence of coal-fired power plants knowing the costs to human health. John McCain, nearly dead Arizona Senator®, runs for President® with a rallying cry “Drill, Baby Drill”, and millions of working class, non-drilling affiliated spouses, have to listen to dumbed-down taker husbands poison the conversation at the dinner table. Divorce happens eventually—the poor stupid jingoes never come to the realization that their young wives agreed to marry them precisely because they did not have political opinions. Love begot marriage, and marriage dissolved when love was not good enough for the taker in the family.
I made four paintings in four days. And the week isn’t even over yet. I also cleaned the house, did some laundry, cooked all the meals, updated my website, lots of other little things that keep life moving in an orderly manner. In microcosm, I am more of a giver than a taker.
I believe 90% of the people I know and remain liking fall at points on the giving plane. But on a national level, dream statistics don’t look so good, even though I suspect it’s still a sound majority. So, hooray for those of us who would not threaten humanity with either fast or slow annihilation because we want to continue to give on this small planet we all share.
Israel is a theocracy-republic with nuclear weapons headed by a psychopath. Iran is a theocracy republic that would probably like a nuclear weapon or two because their “leaders” are also psychopaths. The United States doesn’t know who or what it represents anymore, pretends openly a kind of twisted Billy Graham-like national religion, has a couple thousand hydrogen bombs, and a spoiled rotten, child psychopath President® who tweets information like a teenager drops endless selfies into the sewer of cyberspace. All of these nation’s peoples are represented, rather, controlled, by takers who also happen to be very powerful psychopaths. They are not religious men of peace. Each one in their position is the human opposite of a Martin Luther King. Not courageous, not brave, not admirable in any conceivable way that we measure these virtues by. Likewise, none of them will ever be a you or a me. However, we are all potentially them—that is self-serving, bottom-feeding takers of life.
Bad systems beget bad leaders and bad people.
Good people need to break these systems as quickly as possible. I did my part. So far this week I gave four paintings to the world and completed several necessary household chores. I also said nice things to my family, stayed clear of unsolvable argument, dreamed a bright future for my daughters, and figuratively choked to death the political psychopaths of power.
Your turn. And pass it on.
Thank you!