Sheep No More: Occupy the NH Primary

art by William Hessian

Occupy the NH Primary is upon us this weekend and it looks to be a rollicking good time, with occupiers from around New England converging on a media circus with no shortage of clowns. I was adamant about not participating in any way in the false dichotomy show of the 2012 presidential elections, but when I saw the lineup of events, actions, and presentations from so many of the 99%, I got interested in the opportunity to meet up in NH.

I still plan to Occupy the Vote come November and really any time from now on when I am faced in an election booth with a choice between two evils: just write Occupy in on the line provided. It would not surprise me if a well-organized effort to do such resulted in that being the leading vote getter in some precincts. Would the corporate owned mainstream media be able to ignore that?

Quite possibly they would. After all, where are you reading about the U.S. preparing to send several thousand troops into Israel besides Mondoweiss and a couple of Israeli news outlets? The corporate false information feed is too busy beating a steady tattoo for war with Iran to report inconvenient truths that might alarm the populace. So while I'm reading about the fact that there are more generals, admirals and other top brass than ever before -- bleeding the national coffer$ dry with their salaries and their perqs and their fully funded retirement pensions -- the MSM is spreading Obama false claims to be paring down the military by firing the grunts, and just using robots like the flying drones wherever possible. Not a very original strategy as sci fi novelists began spinning out this scenario decades ago, including the numerous civilian deaths likely to result from war by remote control. Just ask the children of Afghanistan and Pakistan and Gaza and Yemen and... about it.

Real news from Maine: artists are converging for another Draw-a-Thon, this time in response to the Occupy movement: Saturday, January 21 10am-4pm at the Harlow Gallery in Hallowell (right on Augusta's doorstep). In Manchester, NH this weekend 'll be distributing t-shirts and pillow cases that we printed with some of the stronger graphics generated at Bring Our War $$ Home Draw-a-Thons.