Sunday September 23rd 2007, 3:37 pm
On the colbert report the other day was a guest by the name of Naomi Wolfe who has some interesting things to point out to america in regards to how fascist regimes have come into power in the past that there are signifiers or steps that every dictatorship fascist state has shown during their rise to power.
here is a description of her book THE END OF AMERICA from amazon…
” In a stunning indictment of the Bush administration and Congress, best-selling author Naomi Wolf lays out her case for saving American democracy. In authoritative research and documentation Wolf explains how events of the last six years parallel steps taken in the early years of the 20th century’s worst dictatorships such as Germany, Russia, China, and Chile.
The book cuts across political parties and ideologies and speaks directly to those among us who are concerned about the ever-tightening noose being placed around our liberties.
In this timely call to arms, Naomi Wolf compels us to face the way our free America is under assault. She warns us–with the straight-to-fellow-citizens urgency of one of Thomas Paine’s revolutionary pamphlets–that we have little time to lose if our children are to live in real freedom.
“Recent history has profound lessons for us in the U.S. today about how fascist, totalitarian, and other repressive leaders seize and maintain power, especially in what were once democracies. The secret is that these leaders all tend to take very similar, parallel steps. The Founders of this nation were so deeply familiar with tyranny and the habits and practices of tyrants that they set up our checks and balances precisely out of fear of what is unfolding today. We are seeing these same kinds of tactics now closing down freedoms in America, turning our nation into something that in the near future could be quite other than the open society in which we grew up and learned to love liberty,†states Wolf.
Wolf is taking her message directly to the American people in the most accessible form and as part of a large national campaign to reach out to ordinary Americans about the dangers we face today. This includes a lecture and speaking tour, and being part of the nascent American Freedom Campaign, a grassroots efforts to ensure that presidential candidates pledge to uphold the constitution and protect our liberties from further erosion.
The End of America will shock, enrage, and motivate–spurring us to act, as the Founders would have counted on us to do in a time such as this, as rebels and patriots–to save our liberty and defend our nation.”
Here are some comparisons of some of these steps with real current day events and circumstances taking place in america…
INVOKE AN EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL THREAT= terrorist actions/al qaeda
DEVELOP A PARAMILITARY FORCE NOT BEHOLDEN TO GOVERNMENTAL LAWS = blackwater (research them and you will seriously get freaked out)
CREATE A SECRET PRISON SYSTEM = as seen and reported on recently in the news over the last year or so
SURVEIL ORDINARY CITIZENS = the wire tapping program that now has been supported by the courts
HARASS CITIZENS GROUPS = recent attacks on moveon.org and other groups that speak out against the administration’s policies.
TARGET WRITERS, ENTERTAINERS, AND OTHER KEY INDIVIDUALS FOR DISSENTING = the attitude the administration has taken over the years toward those speaking out against the war and current policies, claiming that disagreement with above actions is unpatriotic and treasonous.
INTIMIDATE THE PRESS= recasting dissent as “treason” and criticism as “espionage”
SUBVERT THE RULE OF LAW= the slow dissolution of our constitutional rights
These are just some of the things that are pointed out in this book as similarities to current events and that of past rises to power of fascist regimes. Is this paranoia? Or is this something we as a nation really should be looking at much closer. All of this is a bit chilling to think about. I recommend that you all pick up this book and come to your own judgments because the book goes into a lot more depth than i can possibly cover here. This just may be something we have to do something about before we all lose.
Sunday September 23rd 2007, 1:28 pm
by H.I.M. is magnificently glorious!!! Heavy, dark, challenging, and deeply satisfying. I cannot wait to see them live at the warfield in november.
Sunday September 23rd 2007, 1:20 pm
…fucking rock!!!!! Went and saw them play in san fransisco in support of their new album. A great and fun show and blazingly fast. The length of their set was average but felt way too short because of the electric energy of their music live just sweeps you up.
Saturday September 15th 2007, 5:51 pm
HOLYBATGALLERY…
There is going to be a month long rotating gallery feature of the original art to my Batman work focusing mostly on the recent arc. This display will be held at The Isotope Comics Lounge in San Fransisco with an opening party to be held on saturday september 29th from 8pm to midnight. Come by and hang with us and let’s have us party!!! details can be found at…
WWW.ISOTOPECOMICS.COM
TEZUKAGOD…
Our trip to see the Osamu Tezuka exhibit last week at the Asian Art Museum in San Fransisco was brilliant. The exhibit was astounding. The amount of work that was produced by him was overwhelming. An absolute inspiration to see so many original pages from across his career. One thing that was a very nice surprise was that they didn’t let Astro Boy (Mighty Atom) out weigh his other, less famous, works to americans. There was a good representation of material that hasn’t had proper translation here in the states. Fortunately Vertical seems to be intent on changing that by bringing over more of the less mainstream oriented material, like they have done with Buddha. They are publishing several of his single novel length books over this next year. That makes me very happy. I’m not sure if Viz will have anything else come out other than the end of Phoenix. The pleasure of seeing so much original art from the master japanese comics was a genuine high for me and I probably will never have such an opportunity again. Since I had never seen original manga art before I was surprised by how small of a drawing size a lot of it was done. Which astounded me even more when seeing the precision of the tiniest details. If any of you haven’t read Tezuka’s works or are just familiar with Astro Boy I highly recommend that you pick up some his more ambitious works like Adolf, Buddha, or Phoenix.
OTHER PLEASURES AND TREASURES….
The Asian Art Museum offers quite a lot of beautiful art and historical artifacts from a multitude of cultures. I was very amazed at how big and extensive this museum is. There are giant tapestries dating back to times older than our nation itself, statuary and sculptures from all of Asia. Full japanese armor and plenty of other beautifully decorated objects of daily use from the histories of those varied lands and cultures. One of the most interesting things I noticed was even though all of this material was from asian origins there was a very distinct difference in styles, materials and palettes from one culture to another. Very fascinating and thought provoking.
We also went to Japan town. That was interesting as well with several shops purely dedicated to merchandise that was japanese specific. That area of the city was much smaller than I thought it would be. The next day we went to China town which is much much bigger than I thought it would be. An endless array of shops and interesting little restaurants where I bought a mah jong set. So I will be learning to play that soon.
LEONARD IS YOUR MAN…
just finished watching the film I’m Your Man. It’s about the songs of Leonard Cohen featuring performances by some very talented artists doing their renditions of his music. The film was intermixed with some insightful interviews with the artists sharing their feelings and influences from his songs along with interludes of Leonard himself sharing bits about his life. It’s a really good film and worth watching even if you are not familiar with his music (and if you’re not, shame on you). I’d say the only draw back to the performances given here is there are 3 that include Rufus Wainwright whose music and vocal style I can’t stand on a good day. So I really didn’t care for his renditions at all and couldn’t understand why there were 3 by him, overshadowing much better artists. Other than that you really should see this film if you haven’t already. His music and lyrical wit by far surpasses many of his peers. Truly one of the greatest song writers ever.
HIS INFERNAL MAJESTY…
Venus Doom, the new album by HIM is arriving this tuesday to a store near you. This is definitely one of best bands to come along in a very long while and the new material is amazing, as to be expected. My copies of the special and limited editions are already shipped and should arrive on my doorstep possibly the day before the official release date. CANNOT WAIT!!! I’m also purchasing my tickets to see them in SF in november at the Warfield.
A JESUS SURPRISE…
when looking for tickets for the HIM show I came across event ads for Jesus And Mary Chain to be playing 2 dates in october at the Filmore. These guys are one of the all time greatest and its awesome to see them back and working on a new album after many many years. I must go see them as well.
Tuesday September 04th 2007, 5:33 pm
WELL…
yep it has certainly been too long since I last blogged. I know I suck. But it is entirely blamed on something else, or rather Directly Company oriented. I’m talking about the absolute dreaded deadline of doom. Basically said company decided to schedule the Batman issues every 2 weeks to make up for another artist being late, at my expense, even though I wasn’t done with my SCHEDULED work and everyone involved knew what my pace is. I always do my best to work as diligently as I can. I didn’t find this out about the shipping until I was half way through the 3rd installment when I came back from con. And the way I found out was when I got lettering proofs for the first 2 issues back to back. So very kind of them to inform me so eloquently. So instead of being an ass about it I decided to not take any weekends off and work everyday until I was finished by a certain time. What a nightmare it turned into. It ended up with me working over a month, with the last day being a 24 hour work day, without time off. You would think I could crash after that, but nope. I needed to do the next Crossing Midnight cover before that ended up being late. So it turns out everything in my life needed to cease in order to get this stuff done in time and it still might ship late because we are so on the wire with this. And that is why there have been no blogs for so long. That is if anyone really cares about what I have to say in these things anyway. So there you have it. My website obligations have already gone to shit. But next time this happens, and it probably will because the companies are shit for planning properly, I’m not going to be a nice guy and help them with such a bone-head decision on their part. That was pure hell and made me not very pleasant to be around, just ask my wife. Enough with this longwinded pity party!!!
The second issue of my Batman arc arrived a short time ago with very positive reviews overall. Just yesterday I went over the final color corrections for the final installment and I think it will fit perfectly as the ending chapter. The overall effect of this arc needed to have this building up to a crescendo feeling and I think it does that pretty well. The 3 issues have a real sense of progression to them with the first being medium on a scale and the final being at the highest. Hopefully most of you will agree when you see it. That this story has this feeling of slowly burning and ramping up.
SIDES…
I just recently finished reading THE OTHER SIDE published by vertigo, between sleep and work. What a great read that was. I’m not a big fan of war stories unless they offer something different than the usual stuff. This one certainly did. I was at first compelled to check this out because of the amazing Cameron Stewart. I love his work. But as I got into the story I was really impressed with how well it was written by Jason Aaron. Very intense, and hard to take at times, but a story like this should be. Cameron drew the hell out of this book, stunning. The combination of Jason’s thought provoking writing and Cameron’s extremely detailed art (that doesn’t forget the emotions of the scenes) made for a powerfully emotional impact. The ending just hits you very hard and haunts you for quite sometime afterward, which is very appropriate. When you see the content you’ll know what I mean by that. Great stuff.
TRADES…
Volume one of the old Tangent comics stuff has come out and some of you may not know that I was a contributor to some of that material. I worked on the Tangent Universe version of Green Lantern one shot, with James Robinson as the writer. This was one of the early experiments I did in regards to shifting styles on a story. The issue was written as an anthology with bridging sequences and normally this sort of thing will have several artists working on the individual stories and maybe one artist for the bridging sequences. For some reason that I have never discovered the editor wanted just one artist for the whole anthology. I thought this was an odd and intriguing idea, so I decided to tackle it as if each story was drawn by a different artist but actually it would be all my work. This was an interesting challenge to me and I hadn’t really considered this sort of thing very much before. I was surprised by the results and how much it really looked and felt like a true anthology when it was all finished. This really opened my eyes early on to the possibilities of where I could take things and led me down the path I went on with other projects. Anyway, if any of you are so inclined, pick this up if you like superhero stuff. It was fun.
MUSIC…
GOD SPEED YOU BLACK EMPEROR—lift your skinny fists like antennas to heaven
KILLING JOKE —brighter than a thousand suns
MOTORHEAD—another perfect day (expanded edition)
THE GOSSIP—e.p.
THE MISSION —god’s own medicine (remastered and expanded)
THE MISSION— the first chapter (remastered and expanded)
THE MISSION —children (remastered and expanded)
THE MISSION —god is a bullet (u.s. version)
MOBY with DEBBIE HARRY—new york, new york e.p. single
KLAXONS—myths of the near future
FOREIGNER—double vision
VCR—power destiny
SKYE—mind how you go
69 EYES —angels
SIA—colour the small one
OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW—big iron world
NINA SIMONE—remixed and reimagined
FIELDS OF THE NEPHILIM — mourning sun
VENUS DOOM IS COMING!!!