If Aristophanes Could Kill...

"It could be dangerous Art as a real threat" - Refused 'Protest Song '68'

"Art is Individualism, and Individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force. Therein lies its immense value. For what it seeks to disturb is monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of machine" - 'Soul Of A Man Under Socialism' Oscar Wilde.

Imagine a world, with authority on its knees, pleading for survival. Not those in control, but control itself, not those who feed the machines, like you and like me, but the machines themselves. Our war is against Power. The Power that denies a soul to humanity. The Power that enslaves the oppressed to "lack of" and the oppressors to an "addiction of". The Power that continues its war against its ultimate enemies; Thought and Art.

Through Art we find the world. We find the downtrodden, the poor, the weak, the hungry, the screamer, and the fields. We find the factories, the banks, the wealth. Through Art we find the aesthetics of life, along the confusion, hurt, and surprises.

In Art, i mean, sincerely, Thought put into action. Either by pencil, song, film, brush, spoken-word, stencils, those cans that go 'ding-ding' when shaken, and with every motion of life, every thought, every action, every word, we create our own poetry.

With Art we have the ability to destroy the world, in order to create it yet again, though this time the light at the end of the tunnel will become our sun, our light, our guide towards progress; no longer will the light be a "hope" for "change" as some politicians with excellent status and a knack for manipulation say.

We will never reach Utopia, Progress is Utopia!
Real Progress, not some farce saying by some rich fellow willing to sell you chains and proclaim them "ballot!".

Art breeds Progress.
Through the thought-provoking images of Van Gogh, the politico-satirical comedies of Aristophanes, the stories, plays, and essays by Wilde, the Cabaret musicians that laughed at hierarchy and jabbed at the heart of Mammon, the Jesters that were martyred for the sake of comedic-truth by using jest to tear down the gold in the crown to show the dried blood forming around the rubies, the brave women that didn't care about the laws and continued to draw, to paint, to breathe, to live.

Through Art we were able to understand the Nihilists in Russia, the pathetic apathy of the rich, the absurdity of war, the beauty of nature undisturbed by Man and concrete, the longing for freedom and autonomy, the stupidity of power and capitalism alike.

Now, today, where is that Art? All Art is being choked to death by scenes and clubs creating rules, regulations, when all Art is is individualistic means to express, to ask, and to change.
Art is supposed to break the chains, not adhere to them.

Politicians are not the leaders of the world, those continually engaged in absolute Art are the leaders.
Artists like Mother Teresa, Gandhi, George Orwell, Marcos, Aldous Huxley, Arundhati Roy, Oscar Wilde, Joe Strummer, Cesar Chavez, Ammon Hennacy, Peter Kropotkin, Dorothy Day, Emma Goldman, and millions more, today, yesterday, tomorrow. The Knowns and the Unknowns.

You don't have to know how to sing or draw or write or paint to be an artist.
Putting Thought into Action is Art.

Embrace Art, and unleash it upon those in Power, upon those in fear, upon those you love, upon the haves and have-nots, upon the world.

The World is a canvas, your thoughts are the paint, and your actions are the brush.