"I'll admit it. I was very freaked out. The first thing I did when I got back to my desk was delete the pictures from Flikr. Then I deleted my LiveJournal account, because in it, I talk a lot about politics, and how unhappy I am with the Bush regime."
It's the job of the
U.S. Secret Service to investigate any threat against POTUS (President of the United States). I commend them for doing a great service for our country. You won't find many people that would so willingly take a bullet for someone else.
Having that said, what the Secret Service considers to be a 'threat' has recently expanded.
According to an April 2005 article on Salon.com, the Secret Service paid a visit to an art show in Chicago when they found out one of the pieces was a mock stamp of President Bush holding a revolver against his head. They were there to determine the 'intent' of the artists.
But more recently (as in last week), the Secret Service paid another visit to an artist - Jeremy Lassen of Portland, Oregon. This time it was...err...pretty much the same thing. Lassen had made a collage on his blog entitled "Bush and Guns".
As reported in the June 2005 article on Salon.com:
"After speaking to me," Lassen wrote, "they asked to interview my boss. They also asked me to help put them in touch with my wife, who was out of town -- they would need to interview her also. They also mentioned the possibility of interviewing members of my family... my mother in particular. I'll admit it. I was very freaked out. The first thing I did when I got back to my desk was delete the pictures from Flikr. Then I deleted my LiveJournal account, because in it, I talk a lot about politics, and how unhappy I am with the Bush regime."
Interesting. Freaky.
This makes me think of Seth Godin's article "Unleash Your Ideavirus". He wrote:
"Think of an ideavirus as a big idea that runs amok across a target population. It's the fashionable idea of the moment that propagates through a section of the population, teaching and changing everyone it touches.
'
Raging against the machine' is not a new concept. It is one that has kept a certain 'target population' busy throughout centuries and within almost all countries around the world.
And one could argue that political dissent is an ideavirus; one that ebbs and flows depending on the times, the issues, and the opportunities. Right now there is a wave of anti-Bush ideaviruses spreading through the liberal political establishment, through many parts of our country, and yes, through the art world. These ideaviruses affect 'target populations' and they 'teach and change' the people they reach.
But remember, any virus can only affect someone it can reach. And if someone doesn't like an ideavirus it is up them to provide the necessary anti-ideavirus to destroy it. Bill O'Reilly's a good example. He may not be truthful or honest but he can kill an ideavirus he doesn't like while creating one of his own.
Yet here we have a situation where the Secret Service doesn't provide an anti-ideavirus - they just try to kill it. They try to stifle the dissent.
A note to the Secret Service: Thank you for protecting our President.
Now, please tell...who is supposed to protect us?
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