Chicago Tribune | When artists talk . . . does anyone listen?:
the Bush administration continuing to oppose the artistic and entertainment establishment. “What they’ve realized now is that cultural warfare not only works but it triumphs — that stigmatizing, demonizing not only is a device, it is the device,” Gabler said. “It is the way to govern the country.”
“The Republicans ran directly and very successfully against the arts here,” said Alan Woods, a longtime professor of theater and cultural history at Ohio State University. “In Ohio, Bush played the Midwest off against the culture of the coasts. I don’t think the arts are at all persuasive to people in Ohio anymore. Then again, I am not sure they ever were persuasive on a political level.”
All this is second-guessing. The massive endorsement of John F. Kerry by arts and entertainment personalities helped bring his candidacy back from the dead after the persistent slander he endured (Swift boat vets).
Moreover, those endorsements helped him carry an enormous majority of both urban and well-educated voters. And finally, he did win the election. The Bush team just had another more important endorsement from Diebold CEO Wally O’Dell.
Inflated and deflated numbers. Urban districts under serviced as well as undercounted (people couldn’t wait long enough to vote).
The last minute movement to Bush really isn’t credible.
Now we should believe that the Democrats should give up celebrity endorsement. What’s next? Democrats should be wooing instead the endorsement right-wing fanatical preachers? Read the Tribune article to understand how nonsensical this has all become.
Iraqis who take up guns to defend their homeland are terrorists. American soldiers who bring overwhelming firepower to civilian neighbourhoods from ground or sky are heroes and defenders of freedom. Endorsement of the Republicans by crackpot evangelicals is effective campaigning. Endorsement of the Democrats by the icons of the arts and entertainment world is alienating.
Orwell has arrived! Welcome to Newspeak.