Censorship Now!!. Ian F. Svenonius

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      Censorship Now

      WE NEED CENSORSHIP. Censorship to stop the radio from spewing its vomit nonstop. Censorship of the “free press,” which creates a fantasy version of world events and the intellectual framework for mass murder. Censorship of the books that do likewise: hack, ghostwritten memoirs by political figures and celebrities who should be in jail rather than on the lecture circuit. Censorship of the film industry for churning out infantile, imperialist apologia and pro-torture pornography. Censorship of the arts, whose special status of immunity from culpability explains and excuses the degenerate ideology that makes all this “freedom” possible.

      Indeed, of all these systems which require suppression and purging, we start with the arts.

      Art is the linchpin. Seemingly inconsequential, “freedom of creative expression” is a red herring; a beard, a ploy, a false-flag operation. Upholding the inalienable right for art to be anything, say anything, do anything, is a parlor trick, designed by the lords of capital, with extraordinary, insidious implications. It has made art—instead of being the shield, weapon, and broadside pamphlet of the otherwise disenfranchised, attainable to anyone—into a holy bit of fluff, the well-being of which must be protected at all costs by the muscle of the militarized state. Upheld by the superprivileged, championed by the cosmically degenerate, what point is there in defending this beast? And what has the beast, in such company, become? Art is not purely sensual, nor does it lack intent or effect. Art is in the trenches, fighting for this viewpoint or that, either overtly or covertly. Art, in fact, incites more violence than anything else.

      When the state, like a rampaging mob boss, systematically destroys its opponents (MLK, Malcolm X, Mossedegh, Lumumba, Salvador Allende, Che Guevara, Gaddafi, Fred Hampton, Orlando Letelier, Oscar Romero, nuns in El Salvador, untold numbers in Vietnam, Guatemala, Honduras, Laos, Cambodia, Palestine, Afghanistan, Haiti, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Cuba, Angola, Iraq, et al), how are we to interpret their patronizing embrace of “the arts”? With the regime reacting to its foes with such virility, how can the artist class not recognize the free reign extended to them as the ultimate put-down: the relegation of their work to sophomoric vanity? If art can “change the world”—which of course it can and does—isn’t the “freedom of expression” doctrine really just a way to demote it to a theoretical gulag of absolute impotence and irrelevance?

      Dictators from time immemorial have had dicta about what art was acceptable or not acceptable. It was a sign of respect to the role of art and the artist; an acknowledgment that art had resonance, meaning, and power with regard to international consciousness and ideological systems. Art lives on, after ephemeral political leaders, after the circumstances of its moment. It crosses borders fluidly, without visas or permits. It acts as a rallying point for generations; a totem of meaning, bridging the nuances of opposed factions for the benefit of a greater unity. Art serves politics as the “woods” in lieu of the trees; it provides vision, clarity, and idealism when one is bogged down by detail.

      This is why it’s a dangerous substance which must be regulated at all costs. Yet, as dangerous as it is for humanity, so is it a source of hope. If we believe, for example, that rock ’n’ roll demolished the USSR and communism, as is more and more fashionable to say, then don’t we believe rock ’n’ roll—or some such art form—could demolish capitalism, a system wrought by even more contradictions, global discontent, and insane inequality?

      Art, and so-called expression, must be placed under threat of censorship, with the means and the will to enforce it. For art to regain any sense of its place in the world, it must live under the shadow of the cudgel and the blackout. And not the passive-aggressive “market” blackout which is imposed on almost all artists. This is just a cowardly disguise for the ideological proscriptions of the ruling class. They demur to making explicit condemnations. We dare them to declare their objections, biases, and official censure of the contents of our records, paintings, films, and essays, instead of passively-aggressively ignoring them, shunning them, relegating them to the waste bin of penniless purgatory. Art is in a lost state now. It’s a mess, without any idea of why it exists, where it’s going, who it’s for, and where it comes from. Censorship would immediately grant it a compass, a