What's Next?

By Jim Kirwan
4-5-14

While wrestling with what’s happened to so many of the professions that I was once part of: It’s become clear that the basic circumstances by which most ordinary people continue to try to live in the world today have been radically altered—in every way.

First a run-down of exactly how these changes have affected the everyday parts of what once was the society that everyone participated in. If you’re under fifty years of age, this probably won’t make much sense to you but then most of you have become road-kill already so that’s no longer relevant to the wider world either.

When I began to shape the life I wanted to live there were literally thousands of occupations from which to choose—today those choices have been reduced to less than a handful of ‘occupations’ that you can choose to become part of. To understand this massive social change, I’ll use my own experiences to illustrate what I’m talking about.

When I began the arts were flourishing, not in the United States, but at least they were still alive in the rest of the world. I switched from teaching ballroom and modern dance to being a window-display artist in Montreal, where such things were still considered necessary. The pay was lousy but the work was interesting and necessary, both to me and to the buying public.

From that I came back to the states and taught myself architecture. I designed both track and luxury homes, and then moved on to hospitals, clinics, businesses, bars, restaurants and office complexes. I spent seven years in that area.

I left that field for political illuminations and politics from the outside, followed by literally thousands of facial studies, portraits in pastel (above) and graphite, which led to sculpture, etchings, and eventually into oils and commercial-design accompanied by illustration, book and record covers, for major producers, as well as graphics for small television stations in Southern California. From that I went into international prints of my work that were sold both nationally and internationally as posters, prints, notecards and puzzles. By 1973 I had begun a career in murals and fine-art that was what I thought I might end up doing for the rest of my life.

It was about that time that everything began to change, not just for me but for the entire nation. Money for ‘art’ had begun to dry up, in tandem with the first meeting of the Trilateral Group or as some called it, the 300 club.

“Art” and artists were something that had been around for over 17,000 years at that time ­ before IRS eliminated that category and replaced it with commercial-artists-only. Something I’ve actively fought against since 1973. Apparently those of us in that ‘profession’ lost that battle.

When the change occurred people still read books, or paperbacks at least—so book-cover-art was still a viable alternative.

http://www.kirwanesque.net/kirwan-art/black-lizard/

Art was also used for record covers (the 78 version) was large enough to still need images to sell records. Meanwhile everything was changing at a lightning pace. There were dozens of major weekly-magazines, newspapers and periodicals all of which occasionally bought images or articles. The graphic arts were active and productive throughout the sixties. They each continued on for a bit longer but then began to die out. Newspapers took over as the more expensive hardcover- magazines like “Horizon” began to die. The same thing was happening to movie-art, posters and graphic-memorabilia in virtually every field as the arts died and technology moved in to replace the hand-crafted world of individuals in field after field.

When I was young it seemed like magazines and newspapers, records and basic designs would always be part of the landscape. But as everyone can now see, none of that was true. Everything has gone the way of rotary-dial telephones, “public-radio” and silent movies. Everything is determined now by corporations and is no longer dictated by what people might want to buy—instead ‘we’ are governed by corporate-tastes that are determined in board-rooms by the very elite who are surrounded by mercenary thugs that keep them at a safe distance from those of us who disagree with what they continue to dictate as to how our lives shall be lived. And as we’ve all been able to see now, nothing which disagrees with their decisions can be tolerated any longer. (1)

Consequently only political-art still survives, (as illustrated in the hourglass above) and that too is definitely on the edge of oblivion as well. What I never expected to die was public conversations, basic privacy, the actual constitution, or even international law, all of which has now been outlawed…

April 01, 2014 "Information Clearing House - "ClubOrlov" -- The founding principle for this new form of government which emerged in the 18th century, was that the Common Man was the ultimate source of power. Citizen legislators would enact the laws and shape the nation’s destiny. But instead, our republic is now strong-armed by professional politicians. The two dominant concerns of these careerists are to STAY in power and to do the bidding of those who ENABLE them to stay in power. Anyone who doubts this statement might try explaining why campaign finance reform and term limits are perennially “off the table.” Actually, that is an understatement - they aren’t even in the building.

It is bad enough that the President, Congress and the Courts serve the interests of a minority that is so tiny that it is almost microscopic. What is even worse, is WHO that elite constituency is. It is exclusively THE BIGS: Big banks, Big corporations, Big agriculture, Big energy, Big pharmaceuticals, Big health care, Big high tech and the BIGGEST of them all - the military-industrial complex.

The “Vox Populi” ­ voice of the people is now as quaint and outmoded as telephone booths on street-corners. Even when there is a massive outpouring of disapproval for a policy - such as the enormous public outcry against Iraq Invasion 2 ­ the will of the people is disregarded. Instead, the “leaders” kiss the sterns of their financial backers. Ten million irate citizens cannot offset a single Halliburton.

But not only has genuine democracy vaporized, its putrid carcass is used against the ordinary person for whom it was initially conceived. Our demagogues give stirring speeches applauding our inalienable rights and the freedoms that our constitution protects. But at the same time, they barely whimper when a whistle blower reveals that the surveillance grid that is monitoring our behavior is beyond the wildest imaginings of Orwell or Huxley. And when the head of the Department of Omnipresent Surveillance admits that he lied to Congress, he is not prosecuted for perjury. Amazingly, he doesn’t even lose his job.

When the President signs the NDAA act which allows for “indefinite detention” of citizens without formal charges or without the right to a lawyer, it should be utterly clear that the boot of Soft-Core Tyranny is now on our neck. And that unchecked and almost unnoticed power continues to grow at an obscene pace. Examples of this are the militarization of small town police departments, the unending malignant growth of the Department of Homeland Security and the cessation of Posse Comitatus which keeps the military from being used as a domestic police force.

But even though our career politicians only represent the rich and the powerful, and even though they abet the steady erosion of our constitutionally ordained rights, it is even worse! That’s because despite making a mockery of democracy at home, they trumpet its virtues abroad. This is shameful Hypocrisy with a capital H.

What they are really trying to spread is not Democracy but Predatory Capitalism. They want to expand the sphere of influence of their financial backers who want greater market share in more and more markets. They do this through subtle intrusion via the IMF and the World Bank. Concurrent with this, they embrace the most corrupt and brutal local politicians they can find. The saying “He may be a genocidal dictator, but he’s OUR genocidal dictator” is not a punch-line in a joke. It is standard operating procedure for U.S. foreign policy. If this kinder, gentler approach fails, then the next steps are assassination or invasion. So the spreading of democracy leaves death, mutilation and destruction in its wake.

So, in conclusion, it appears to me that America is no longer a world-wide exemplar of how to sculpt a civilized society. Instead, it is far down the road to becoming a full-blown Corporate Police State. It has fallen so tragically, that it is now just a self-deluded leper strutting about the global stage - unaware that the theater has already emptied.” (2)

And in any police-state the first people to go are the artists.

However there is a ray of hope as well. “Massive Deaths of Aboriginal Children in Canada is officially admitted, as Genocide Verdict and Kevin Annett's work are finally vindicated -

“Canada, and the Vatican stand guilty as charged as disestablished criminal bodies” - International Common Law Court of Justice, Brussels.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xcUTiN1mAU&feature=youtu.be

Imagination ~ Limitation

What this short video means is that like Canada, the U.S. has been guilty of the same kinds of criminal behavior toward our native population as has now been proven in Canada. Canada, in July of this year is going to restructure their government along the lines of common-law in order to take back their nation and prosecute the outlaws…

Watch the video and join with Canada to make this a north-American push to dump the corporate-outlaws in favor of a common-law-world where people can take back our voices and resurrect our individual nations along the lines of people first, again?

“Change” and “Death” are the only two things that are certain in this life. We cannot stop the hands of time, but on occasion we can give voice to our demands and sometimes we can give life back to our individual societies again, if we believe enough in having our own version of tomorrow… to fight for the freedoms we were all born with.

kirwanstudios@sbcglobal.net

1) Invisible War on Society

http://www.rense.com/general96/invisid.html

2) In the US Democracy is now a Sham

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38124.htm