This is a tale of two “tarps”. But it is also a tale of two collaborators, Colleen and myself. The Nelson line is unmistakable and very strong. But what makes it a tale of two artists is that I think we see it in very different ways. If I understand Colleen right, she sees it as a tale of people who suffer and of people who are greedy, callous and oblivious in the face of that suffering. So far, so good. No doubt about that. (Well, maybe there is. Angela?) Does that mean that if we had better people running banks it would be different? I think this is where we diverge. To me, this is a tale of how the gears run in the machine we call our society. Banks and the making of money have very high leverage in this machine. Hunger, disease, poverty, not so much. Some 80 or 90 years ago, W.E.B. DuBois pointed out that since the early 1800′s we have had the knowledge and installed industrial capacity to feed, clothe and house everybody. (With population growth, that now hangs in the balance.) At some point, that has to become the central problem — not “Why don’t we do it?”, but “How can we re-order the machine so we do?”
Well, that’s art. Lotta different views.
Tags: bail out, Colleen Nelson, Haiti, TARP
On target, bull’s eye.
The machine is the driving force and is greased by people drunk on prosperity and material excess who just wait for the machine to take care of the details. Like other drunks they/we tend to live a lie and ignore the pain and suffering by those at the bottom of the heap. That said – nothing is certain – for every king there is a profit.
Humanity is a plague on the earth.
We are running out of water and arable land.
We are polluting the air, the water, the sea and the soil.
Maintaining food production is critical.
We must change our diet — No more meat!
The bankers and the profit takers will also starve.
You cant eat money.
Uh… er… um….
I’m sticking to interpreting coffee grounds from now on.
Fair trade shade-grown organic coffee grounds, of course.