scenewash project manifesto from a radical centrist Sept 13, 2011 The Scenewash Project is an improbable mix of private tasks publically aired, a collection of random thoughts from a blue collar wanderer racheted into a twisted, noisy vernacular. As a self-educated smalltown lad of modest means, it took perhaps longer than usual to regain what was lost in the flood of social controversies floated into our western consciousness over these past few decades, but let there be no mistake. There are still no university degrees on our walls. Yet, if there is one thing we have learned as dedicated hounds of controversy revealed, is that while a charming education may expand and populate the mind with words and wit and perhaps an invitation to a place and purpose with which to sanction your boredom and live out your life, it rarely clarifies the mind beyond the spectacular needs of the recruitment classes. Since 1997 when this website was founded, we've certainly had our sweet and sour moments, our jostling crowds and our solo rides. But in the wake of _September 11_ (http://www.scenewash.org/vortex/911.html) and the recent launch of _RSN_ (http://www.scenewash.org/radioscenewash.html) on July 2, 2003, we can no longer deny that the spirited faith of our youth has returned. Yes. Our opinion matters too... -Gabriel Thy and the Sworgsters ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- scenewash manifesto WASHINGTON, DC - Forging an identity in these uncertain times is not an easy task for someone who has prided himself on his independence, first and foremost, from most of the reckoning powers pursuing his support or demise, which comes first. As a result of this hesitancy, the Scenewash Project has little to promote but is simply a _slowly developing_ (http://scenewash.org/vortex/intent.html) critical work-in-progress concerned foremost with identifying in fresh terms the strategic forces now influencing the corrosive state of American politics, its public policies, both foreign and domestic, and in postulating, after careful consideration of the formidable body of evidence, a compelling worldview better suited to these uncertain times which try humanity's collective soul, contaminate our air, corrupt our speech, implode our habits, regale our future, and break our very wills to contribute to a sane and friendly but progressive and fearless community. We have considered this task a worthy occupation to the end of our lives, if need be, because we believe that the original promises of these United States of America still beckon, and that the American political experiment, despite its follies and excesses which certainly require checking, is superior to any the world has yet seen. We will not prepare for a collapse of the West, just because a few malingering malcontents clamour for world revolution, whether it be from a Marxist, a Maoist, or an Islamist perspective, but shall fight these perspectives while calling for a more focussed revitalization of America's own backyard. Now more clearly understood as a rather ordinary attempt to peel back the layers of a conflicted mental landscape where art and politics beat each other up while few are they the wiser, we will express ourselves in terms of the past and the present, and will not appeal to an uncertain future which fatalists of every tradition, especially those of religion, of politics, and of science, pay homage to and usually broker every prejudice and every pride in vainglorious attempts to thrust the spirit of humanity onto the flaming pyres of god, gold, state, and imperialist superstition. Originally conceived as a wrecking ball to schoolboy aspirations, this site has no choice but to erupt from the silent passages of time and truth by urging a return to those same aspirations, reflecting a growing inversion of the individual artistic urge and its involuntary suppression by the forces of a co-opting culture. This culture is a mythology in which the artist, the politician, the ordinary citizen and varied patrons are forced by necessities of survival to conspire with lessons and insults to separate the vigorous mind from the expansive spirit with shop-worn tautologies and fantasy, eschewing the everyday, the mundane, the merely indifferent, rendering as obsolete the witnesses of this takeover. A fading youth spent in ceaseless searching, knocking, seeking, and digging only to discover little of lasting value is one whose only inspiration translates an energy dedicated to the enumeration of differences between zero and nothing, self and the other, in recovering value and anti-value based not on a system of indulgences, individually or collectively wrapped, but on an absolute proof that language is mere alphabet dirt and slogans are only wordsuck. Languages run amuck become dangerous constructs perhaps of better service when fashioned into ploughshares of silence than into callous weapons of feathering alienation and mass confusion. Unless followed by actions appropriate to productive language, language has become nothing more than a functionary of aesthetics, and its practitioner, a co-opted pretender. To that end, we offer few strategies or discernable guideposts to the currently self-enchanted. We have no use for those satisfied warriors of the establishment, those who wear the stripes of our enemies, smile the crooked smile, and walk the crooked mile beautifully camouflaged behind the mysteries of selfishness. We shall show how they also have no use for us. With a multitude of theories calling for bombs and abortion, no one is safe in this calculating world. Of course, we - the radical centrists - refuse to be pigeonholed, not by the haranguing extremists nor by the denizens and addicts of apathy. If we are a hybrid breed of political creature, so be it. We, however, boast of a singular aim. To articulate a well-considered argument describing what we believe to be the only hope for America and the world, and that hope, in a phrase, is progressive centrism. The center is nearly always dismissed by the polarizing POWERS OF ENTRENCHMENT as mushy or wishy washy, unable to make up its minds. We however, believe that it is these polarizing powers of the Left and the Right, who fight false wars on false battlegrounds, who make well-choreographed concessions in lucrative soundbytes and photo op activities merely for appearances sake who have truly betrayed this country, and this planet. In the United States with its two party system, the aggragate lobbies and special interests attest plainly to this phenomenon of hypocrisy which disrepects and excludes (while still clamouring for its vote) the progressive centrist. These dialecticians who worship the binary while faithlessly praising the unitary, operate on misguided principles which presume dialectics is an inclusive exercise of expression rather than the polarizing noise only well-entrenched and sometimes well-meaning fools and their followers, unquestionably trapped in status and nuance, can embrace. The byword is moderation in all things but truth. Extremism is killing us all. Polarization is the sword that fertilizes the fields of plenty with the blood of innocence, and rots the crops of destiny. Our manifesto is not the place for specific criticism, but the Scenewash Project web site will by the best laid plans of mice and men, embrace this dialectical mission.The Left and the Right must be reeled in. We believe that the _Declaration of Independence_ (http://www.archives.gov/national_archives_experience/declaration.html) , the _US Constitution_ (http://www.scenewash.org/vortex/usconstitution.html) , the _Bill of Rights_ (http://www.scenewash.org/vortex/usconstitution.html) , and the writings and spirit of _Thomas Paine_ (http://www.thomaspaine.org/) are a good place to start. The greed of the right and the stupidity of the left have rendered the vast majority of us useless, oppressed by the perfumed stench of their theories and their actions. The salt of the earth purifies and preserves. Where do we begin this purification process? Who will be our leaders? Is it possible that a renewed sensibility can arise from the falsifying political landscape now pulled taut like a rubber band by the existing powers that be? We don't know, but we insist on trying. We are reminded of this metaphor. Jesus of Nazareth was walking along the road to anywhere. The mother of two of his disciples who were brothers, rushed up and voiced her desire that he grant her wish that one of them sit on their master's left hand (wing) and the other to sit on his right. The Nazarene's reply was simple and to the point: "You don't know what you are talking about. He went on to describe that the rulers of the heathen exhibit hierarchies of the strong who oppress the little ones, but it must not be so among them, the chosen. I add a footnote. Among the common folk there is a general consensus that politics is the mother of all harlots. Thus, I derive my notion of the "progressive centrist" as originating with this tale. In another of the synoptics, the story is retold without the mother's presence, but it is the brothers themselves who approach their teacher with this request for special position and honors. The remainder of the incident is identical to the other. It is clear. The Left and the Right each boast a portion of the TRUTH, which can be likened to a rubber band that has no beginning and no end. The progressive centrist inhabits the area within the circle created by the band itself, open and free space loosely formed and with equal access to the truth which lies along the circumference of the band. Both parties in the extreme meanwhile haplessly mark battle lines shouting war cries and stretch the band of truth as far as they can by pulling it deep and taut into their own camps, tightening and oppressing the more central and observable truths and those populations which dwell inside the once freely-circulating circle. Once the tightened rubber band has been pulled to its extreme limit and has been popped, truth no longer exists in its most perfect sense with no beginning and no end, of equal benefit to all, but becomes the ultimate weapon of deception, far worse than the chartable deceptions of the band-tightening oppositional parties in their constrained tugs of war. Surely we can recognize the political landscape in this metaphor. There must be a better way to fix what ails us than rupturing the rubber band while trying to maintain the status quo or sending the globe into unfathomable chaos as many on the far left and far right would advocate, each according to their own devices. So while we recall that the life and works of Thomas Paine are a good place to begin analyzing the difference between zero and nothing, the left and the right, extremism and moderation, life and death, we acknowledge that we do not live in his time, and therefore, must invent new methods to render equality, peace and plenty equitably upon the earth. What say ye? So, there is much work ahead of us, and we promise only this: To experiment with the strident advances of web technology and design, deploying each to an oddball degree, while avoiding the genuflection of a generic stylism which furnishes the cynic with a strategic mouthful of pleasure while leaving us sad and purposeless. We will commit to compiling a point and counterpoint latticework mapping the existing political schematic as we find it. We shall then parse, and emerge with what we consider to be the radical centrist position along this _latticework_ (http://scenewash.org/lobbies/chainthinker/lattice.html) . To furnish enough raw material to keep us busy through the thick years of our recorded visitation. To live the literary life along the bold, new terms of hypertextual reality, scratching out both an artistic body of visual work to match the music in our heads, keeping our eyes on our own pages and thus working to defeat the demons of boredom that envy and indifference can frequently induce and inadequately generalize while keeping free from the entanglements of frenzy the world mandates with its emphasis on competition and so-called originality. To work the gravitational pull of our own simple orbit, one field of inertia at a time... Gabriel Thy October 27, 2003 -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
