Ian F. Svenonius - Censorship Now!!

Dedicated to M-26-7

Note: the backward messages contained in this volume do not necessarily reflect the views of the book or its author.

Censorship Now

WE NEED CENSORSHIP. Censorship to stop the radio from spewing its vomit nonstop. Censorship of the free press, which creates a fantasy version of world events and the intellectual framework for mass murder. Censorship of the books that do likewise: hack, ghostwritten memoirs by political figures and celebrities who should be in jail rather than on the lecture circuit. Censorship of the film industry for churning out infantile, imperialist apologia and pro-torture pornography. Censorship of the arts, whose special status of immunity from culpability explains and excuses the degenerate ideology that makes all this freedom possible.

Indeed, of all these systems which require suppression and purging, we start with the arts.

Art is the linchpin. Seemingly inconsequential, freedom of creative expression is a red herring; a beard, a ploy, a false-flag operation. Upholding the inalienable right for art to be anything, say anything, do anything, is a parlor trick, designed by the lords of capital, with extraordinary, insidious implications. It has made artinstead of being the shield, weapon, and broadside pamphlet of the otherwise disenfranchised, attainable to anyoneinto a holy bit of fluff, the well-being of which must be protected at all costs by the muscle of the militarized state. Upheld by the superprivileged, championed by the cosmically degenerate, what point is there in defending this beast? And what has the beast, in such company, become? Art is not purely sensual, nor does it lack intent or effect. Art is in the trenches, fighting for this viewpoint or that, either overtly or covertly. Art, in fact, incites more violence than anything else.

When the state, like a rampaging mob boss, systematically destroys its opponents (MLK, Malcolm X, Mossedegh, Lumumba, Salvador Allende, Che Guevara, Gaddafi, Fred Hampton, Orlando Letelier, Oscar Romero, nuns in El Salvador, untold numbers in Vietnam, Guatemala, Honduras, Laos, Cambodia, Palestine, Afghanistan, Haiti, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Cuba, Angola, Iraq, et al), how are we to interpret their patronizing embrace of the arts? With the regime reacting to its foes with such virility, how can the artist class not recognize the free reign extended to them as the ultimate put-down: the relegation of their work to sophomoric vanity? If art can change the worldwhich of course it can and doesisnt the freedom of expression doctrine really just a way to demote it to a theoretical gulag of absolute impotence and irrelevance?

Dictators from time immemorial have had dicta about what art was acceptable or not acceptable. It was a sign of respect to the role of art and the artist; an acknowledgment that art had resonance, meaning, and power with regard to international consciousness and ideological systems. Art lives on, after ephemeral political leaders, after the circumstances of its moment. It crosses borders fluidly, without visas or permits. It acts as a rallying point for generations; a totem of meaning, bridging the nuances of opposed factions for the benefit of a greater unity. Art serves politics as the woods in lieu of the trees; it provides vision, clarity, and idealism when one is bogged down by detail.

This is why its a dangerous substance which must be regulated at all costs. Yet, as dangerous as it is for humanity, so is it a source of hope. If we believe, for example, that rock n roll demolished the USSR and communism, as is more and more fashionable to say, then dont we believe rock n rollor some such art formcould demolish capitalism, a system wrought by even more contradictions, global discontent, and insane inequality?

Art, and so-called expression, must be placed under threat of censorship, with the means and the will to enforce it. For art to regain any sense of its place in the world, it must live under the shadow of the cudgel and the blackout. And not the passive-aggressive market blackout which is imposed on almost all artists. This is just a cowardly disguise for the ideological proscriptions of the ruling class. They demur to making explicit condemnations. We dare them to declare their objections, biases, and official censure of the contents of our records, paintings, films, and essays, instead of passively-aggressively ignoring them, shunning them, relegating them to the waste bin of penniless purgatory. Art is in a lost state now. Its a mess, without any idea of why it exists, where its going, who its for, and where it comes from. Censorship would immediately grant it a compass, a meaning, a purpose, a direction, give it its power back. An artist who is anticensorship is essentially waving a white flag; declaring their work to be inconsequential; a smudge, a scribble, a doodle, or polka dot.

The music on the radiopop, rock, rap, and country songs which promote class war and celebrate idiocy, sociopathy, immoral wealth accumulation, discrimination, and stultifying social rolesis the thrown voice of Wall Street. All of the brokers values are exemplified in this music. Regardless of whatever charm the pop star stand-ins may have, they are on the radio only because they reify the debased values of the sadist power structure. The elite seek to program, dupe, hypnotize, control youwho they regard as their property, their bitchthrough these proxy singers. Censor them!! Dont let them talk to you that way.

Let them crawl collectively into whatever stink-hole they came from. They can perform in secret for the Walmart buyers convention or whatever loathsome cabal of slime-pimps elected them to be the incessant, vacuous voice of mind control. But they must be barred from the airwaves, the record stores, the Internet, and public consumption. Censorship for the radio!!

The video games and films that the entertainment industry create must be censored. They are a virus unleashed into the minds of a nation; designed to cause violent, masturbatory passivity and to create absolutely obedient death machines. The liberal response to any contention that the stream of ultraviolence flowing from screen to eye to brain might be destructive is the following reductive equation:

Shakespeare is good. Shakespeares plays featured barbaric violence. Depictions of violence and barbarity of the most gratuitous sort are therefore not only edifying, but intrinsic to truly powerful art and part of a wonderful lineage which dates back to Shakespeare and the cradle of Western culture, the Greeks.

Or alternately: Oedipus Rex was a disturbed individual who murdered his father, slept with his mother, and then blinded himself. Why is the Call of Duty video game, which trains its adolescent users to murder efficiently and indiscriminately, any different than a venerated Greek drama?

Hacks in Hollywood, lacking the cleverness to write a decent story with poignant characters, churn out hyperbolic violence because of its sedative effect on the brain. The blood spills, the explosions explode, there is no gratuity left behind in the race to manufacture the vilest images and situations imaginable. The producers collude with representatives from the army, the navy, the DIA, the CIA; in short, the scum of the Earth.