The Assasination of __________

I just found this on the NY Times City Room blog:

<snip - from City Room>

"This morning, a Boston-born performance artist, Yazmany Arboleda, tried to set up a provocative art exhibition in a vacant storefront on West 40th Street in Midtown Manhattan with the title, “The Assassination of Hillary Clinton/The Assassination of Barack Obama,” in neatly stenciled letters on the plate glass windows at street level."

</snip>

My immediate reaction was just another hack artist relying on controversy to support an easy, dumb project. However there's much more to this than some inflammatory text stenciled on a storefront window. Yazmany Arboleda created a fake exhibition for each candidate which only exist on the Internet in the form of 2 websites documenting the work:

The Assassination of Hillary Clinton
The Assassination of Barack Obama

I don't know if any of the artworks in the exhibition are real or not, but they are really good. The show goes beyond simply being controversial and really probes at the way these public figures have been portrayed by the media and are perceived by the public. All of the tensions, prejudices, and insults underlying the entire campaign are magnified and exagerrated to the point of ridiculousness. Outstanding.

If you read the comments on the City Room blog, it's clear that either the work went waaay over the heads of most people, or they really weren't looking at it at all.

image: from Yazmany Arboleda's Hillary Clinton website

Give it up already!

Even after she loses she can't bow out gracefully and admit defeat. Please, Hillary, give it up already. I don't align myself with political parties, but your really hurting the Democrats right now and unless you want 4 more years of McSame, you need to fall in line behind Obama and bring your supporters with you.

Second post today, still no original content from me, but this cartoon by Rex Babin is too good to not pass along:

Politics as usual or take the exit?
(...found the cartoon on Streetsblog)

Obama vs. Clinton

With the race for a Democrat presidential nominee narrowing, as well as the Indiana and North Carolina primaries today, I thought it would be a good idea to recap the differences between Obama and Clinton, especially when they appear to be very similar on paper. But I'm not going to do that because Ran Prieur did just that on his blog yesterday.

I think he really gets it right, so I'm just going to re-post some of what he wrote. I would just link to his post, but he doesn't leave everything online permanently and there is no direct link. Scroll down to his May 5 entry for the full text and great links to related articles. I've re-posted the meat of it here:

<snip - from Ran's blog>

Clinton is a relentless fighter, but she's not good at working with people, she's not good at adapting, her campaign has shown she's not a good manager, and she's not even good at winning her fights. Her Senate career has been balancing symbolic gestures on social issues with full-on neoconservatism on foreign policy. We are entering a depression, and when the strikes and riots start, Clinton's first instinct will not be to work with strikers and rioters, but fight them (us). She is owned by lobbyists and will take her actions from the interests of lobbyists and take her words from pollsters and focus groups. And worst of all, while she is doing all this, everyone will think of her as a pushy liberal, and we'll get a huge right wing backlash in 2012, just like we got in 2000 after the first Clinton presidency.

Barack Obama is a good listener, an excellent manager, and has done more in two years in the Senate than Clinton has done in six. He has spoken again and again about bottom-up change and transparency, and he is largely owned by the 1.5 million individual donors who have financed his campaign. When the depression hits, Obama is far more likely than Clinton to work with the uppity rabble. He is setting himself up as a tool that we can use to change the system (and we have to, for his presidency to be effective). On foreign policy, he is less likely to attack Iran, and more likely to make peace with the rest of the world in an age where continuing to fight would be catastrophic.

</snip>

The Brand Called Obama

I've been slacking on the blog, and although I still don't have anything original to add I want to share this interesting article: The Brand Called Obama.
Here's a segment:

Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist, has long considered himself a political independent. An Obama encounter at a campaign event inspired him to take up arms for the Democratic candidate. "I see him as a leader rather than a boss." A leader, he notes, gets people to do things on their own, through inspiration, respect, and trust. "A boss can order you to do things, sure, but you do them because it's part of the contract."

You can read the whole article here.

Why I support Obama over Clinton

The results from Super Tuesday aren't final yet, but things are looking good for Barack. Obviously it's a very close race with Clinton, but Obama did win more states and is claiming to have won more delegates overall.

Here are two big reasons why I support Obama over Hillary:

- The war in Iraq. Hillary is not going to end it. She voted for it, but now she says she opposes it. However, she's received more financial backing from the defense industry than any other candidate...including Republicans.

- Obama not only represents change, but has the ability to bring it about. He excites people. Motivated people will translate into action. In addition to the Democrat base, he will do well with the independent vote and even some moderate Republicans. I cannot possibly imagine any Republicans voting for Clinton in the general election...they all hate her way too much. On top of that, I think Clinton supporters will vote for Obama if he is the nominee, but not necessarily the other way around.