Anyone who knows my work will tell you that I really love parodying famous works of art, and the recent revival of revolutionary action in the streets following the Egyptian government's newly-passed law restricting public protest seemed the perfect time to do my version of one of my favorite 19th Century French paintings: Eugene Delacroix's Liberty Leading The People.Just recently, I was checking out some video footage of the Oakland police attacking the Occupy Oakland camp along with some footage of the Egyptian police attacking Tahrir Square, and for a moment or two there, I almost couldn’t tell the difference… and that isn’t good. I’ve seen good before, and that isn’t it.
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When the shit hits the fan,
you’ll be sittin’ on the can
when the whip comes down!
–rolling stones.
Right now, in Egypt, Cairo’s fabled Tahrir Square is packed full of people protesting the continuing military police state, protesting the release of police charged with crimes of brutality and military trials for civilians.
Right now, in Greece, newly-enacted harsh economic austerity measures have brought students and workers into the streets by the thousands in protest.
Meanwhile, right now, in the Bad Old USA, the Obama Administration has extended the infamous Patriot Act and is preparing to gut Medicare and Social Security as part of a harsh economic austerity program. So, how are Americans responding to this? Why, they’re slobbed out on their apathetic fat asses, falling asleep watching the latest news on Casey Anthony.
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So, just to recap:
When the Egyptian Revolution broke out, it was weeks before Obama could come up with anything to say about it — and when he finally did, it was a bunch of weak, mumbled platitudes about people wanting “change” in remarks that sounded as if they were meant to be delivered at a Chamber Of Commerce convention.
When the Libyan Revolution escalated into civil war, Obama sat on his ass for at least a month before doing the only thing he knows how to do — and, from all accounts, Obama’s just joined the Bush League over there as well.
Meanwhile, in Syria, where the government has called out the military to crush demonstrations and other popular dissent, Obama’s done nothing but “consider sanctions”. I’m sure Assad’s pissing in his shoes over that news.
In Yemen, the government’s escalated its crackdown on mass demonstrations. Nothing from the White House but the sound of crickets chirping.
In Bahrain, the government is ratcheting up its intimidation of journalists and bloggers. Obama’s got nothin’. He did drop some really good Donald Trump jokes at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, though.
And, speaking of combovers… with the wave of popular uprisings against authoritarian rulers sweeping across North Africa and the Middle East, it’s nice to see that hasn’t distracted Obama’s focus on his all-important birth certificate situation; yessir, folks, he’s totally on top of that issue.
In his short, curt remarks following the long-anticipated release of his long-form birth certificate, Obama commented that he didn’t “…have time for this kind of silliness”. What’s hilarious about this is that in his allowing himself to be baited by Donald Trump, he’s only increased the flow of silliness. In response to the release of Obama’s real, actual birth certificate, proving that he was, in fact, born in Hawaii — which became a state about two years before he was born there — the Birthers still don’t believe he’s a citizen, and are now complaining that he’s still not qualified to hold office because he grew up in “a Muslim country” and didn’t attend a US public school, and any number of other excuses.
In a lot of ways, your Birthers are like your Fake Moon Landing Conspiracy nutjobs — even when presented with absolutely incontrovertible evidence that they’re wrong, their brains are ratcheted so tightly that they can only come up with even more absurd excuses as to why the evidence is faked, or that more evidence is needed. Remember when the Lunar Reconaissance Orbiter transmitted its first set of low-orbit, high-resolution images of the Apollo landing sites, clearly showing Lunar Module Ascent Stages, deployed scientific instruments, parked rovers — and, in some cases, rover tracks and trails worn by the astronauts’ boots on the surface? Most folks thought this would shut the Fake Moon Landing kooks up for good. Huh, some hope. As I’d personally predicted among friends, when the first LRO images of the Apollo sites were released, the very first response from the Fake Moon Landing nuts was that the images were faked with Photoshop.
It’s the same with the Birthers; their first responses were some lame crap about how it’s a “layered” pdf, it’s just a pdf image and we have no physical copy to inspect, it’s a fake, it’s a fake, it’s a fake — and the media’s falling all over themselves to cover this clownshit to the exclusion of everything else, except for the Royal Wedding. Dumbasses. Why am I not surprised?
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Note to my American readers: this cartoon requires an understanding of basic scientific principles. If in doubt, consult a high-school science teacher — if he or she isn’t busy pushing creationism in class.
Medium-res grayscale jpeg image, 504kb.I’d hardly had time to catch my breath after millions of courageous Egyptians ran the Mubarak regime out of the country before the scene shifted to Algeria, where they’re getting revved up to fight the Second Battle Of Algiers! Get out there and rock it, Algerians!
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LATE UPDATE, 02.15.11 at 08:15 EST:
Stop the metaphorical presses! This cartoon’s just been picked up by Al Jazeera’s “Eye On Algeria” live blog!
As most of you of a certain age will recall, a boatload of American right-wing triumphalists declared “the end of history” around 1989 or ‘90, right about the time the old Soviet “satellite states” were overthrown by vast popular movements and took the xUSSR down with them. Along with Dr. Fukuyama’s famous screed, there were a whole host of others who also declared the era of revolution to be over.
Uh, ohhhhhhh.
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Here’s a piece that was inspired by a sign I saw carried by someone at last Saturday’s solidarity demonstration at the Egyptian Embassy:
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This video can also be viewed and/or downloaded at the following locations:
via LiveLeak.
via Viddler.
(an mpeg4 download link is also available here)
via Vimeo.
via Archive.org.
(this page contains an embedded viewer and an mpeg4 download link)
direct mpeg4 download via Archive.org.
Your best bet for getting a copy to view and save locally and post to your own video-sharing account is the archive.org link. It’s a 427×240-pixel mpeg4 coming in at around 41mb, and should take you about 20 minutes or so to download.
Sorry about all the multiple-link nuttiness, but it seems YouTube has an issue with my use of The Bangles’ “Walk Like An Egyptian”; they wanted to allow it, but with the audio track stripped out, the pricks. So, ironically, I’ve got my own Internet censorship workaround issues here.
Below, check out some fotos of the day’s event passed along by a comrade of mine:
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