Michael Dukakis riding around in a tank destroyed his presidential run. So is the power of imagery.

When I was a teenager a street artist named Robbie Conal put up grotesque pictures around Los Angeles of Ronald Reagan and his cabinet members like James Watt and Ed Meese.

These images had power over the long term and many street posters by Conal, other artists, a left-wing media and academia all worked in aggregate to change West LA which was Reagan’s home district to the left-wing bastion of “people’s republics” communities it is today. I am not asserting that Conal alone had this affect, but in interviews from the mid-eighties, Conal clearly stated that it was his goal to change public perception and public opinion with his art.

That brings us full circle with what’s happening today. Patrick Courrielche’s pieces here on BH blew the lid off of the Obama administration’s support of NEA grants to leftist artists who would harness art, image systems and ideas into political action and power to move the President’s agenda forward. I found this support in action today at the corner of Sunset and Mandaville Canyon in Brentwood California. Yes, this is the same Brentwood made famous by an ex-NFL player and his decapitated ex-wife.

It is an image of the “Monopoly Guy” demanding health care. I have seen this poster at some other locations in West LA too and this artist, who signs his art “Alec,” if that’s his real name, has done some other pictures of “Monopoly Guy” grousing about the economy. This one is at a shopping center in Malibu.

It will be interesting to find out if Alec received NEA funding for these efforts. The first problem I see if he has gotten money from the NEA is that he is committing vandalism by posting graffiti on public property and to rub salt in the wound, doing it on the public dime. He would also be receiving taxpayer money to influence electoral issues. It may be OK to use public money to support art for the public good (I don’t think so, but some do) but the public good is art in a museum or in a public square that is commissioned and approved by the community. It should also support good, high quality art, not graffiti or cheap posters.

The most insidious thing about this graffiti vandalism is that it works. It does influence elections, public perceptions and the zeitgeist of popular culture. When a lie is repeated enough it becomes true in people’s minds. The political left understands this and utilizes these techniques. To adequately compete, those of us on the right must learn to be versed in Alinsky, Soviet propaganda and Machiavelli so we can fight for these ideas in the trenches of popular culture. It is not easy, though. When you have reason, it is hard to fight emotion because emotion lends itself so easily to image systems and simplistic ideas and phrases like “War is not the answer,” “Bush lied, people died,” and “No blood for oil,” etc.

Perhaps we on the right need to use the “Monopoly Guy” image and marry it to a phrase like “No taxation without competent representation”? You know what, I kind of like that one!

The bottom line is that image has power. We had better learn to fight this new form of political warfare with the weapons our opponents have mastered. Like gasoline, matches and empty glass bottles, the raw material for these weapons are cheap and accessible. The battlefield has changed, we must adapt or we will lose.

So, what would Ari David do about the NEA and ACORN scandals?

I would unleash Congressional hearings on ACORN and hearings on all of the government officials involved in the NEA propaganda conference call. I would also immediately call a press conference and do whatever I could to make the media cover the story. One perk of being in public life is being able to draw attention to an issue. These scandals are issues that are screaming for more public attention.

As Ben Shapiro pointed out in his BH piece, laws may have been broken and if they were, we must find out what Obama administration officials knew and when they knew it. We must find out what they did and what they tried to do to either obey the law or break it.

The public hearings I would hold on the NEA scandal would have all the players involved testify under oath. This would include Valerie Jarrett, Rahm Emanuel,  Buffy Wicks, Yosi Sergeant and many others. As we say in Hollywood, it would star a cast of thousands.

I would grill these people and hold them to account for breaking President Obama’s pledge to clean up Washington and keep lobbyists and lobbying out of his administration and then, if criminal wrongdoing occurred and if no prosecution or investigations by the justice department took place, I would call Eric Holder to testify as to why.

On the ACORN issue, I would call the Rathke brothers to testify about the institutional failure and corruption that the community group is filled with and make sure the public had every opportunity to be aware of the collusion between ACORN and the SEIU. I would also do everything I could do to force ACORN to open their accounting records to the public.

The NEA and ACORN scandals must end with accountability for the responsible parties at every level. It would be one of my jobs as a Congressional member to ensure that the public had access to the truth.

ACORN has been involved in a myriad of scandals and it is not unreasonable for any Congressman from either side of the political aisle to question ACORN’s recent actions out of concern over the way they conduct business. Judging from the results of the vote to cut their funding, many Democrats did just that.

The vote passed overwhelmingly, with only 75 House members (all Democrats) voting against the bill. Only the most vehement supporters of the Democrats’ liberal agenda voted to continue ACORN funding, with Congressman Waxman showing his true colors as a member of this fringe.

Waxman portrays himself as a voice of reason and deal maker. The truth is that he’s a left-wing fanatic and an abusive bully who, by siding with ACORN on this vote, revealed that he has no problem with the thug-like tactics and electoral fraud activities of ACORN continuing with the help of  huge amounts of taxpayer money.

As more is revealed about ACORN, I hope moderate, centrist Democrat voters (and there are a few) from Henry Waxman’s district realize that our local Congressman from Los Angeles has totally lost touch with his constituents’ needs and has been seduced and corrupted by extremist views.

Waxman spent years turning over every stone looking for government corruption in the Bush administration and steroid abuse in major league baseball. But when it comes to ACORN’s indefensible activities, the last person to notice or care appears to be Henry Waxman.

As a citizen, candidate, and voter in Mr. Waxman’s district, I thought that this would be a plum of a chance for Rep. Waxman to hear what’s on my mind.

That is when it got weird.

Firstly, I found out that one had to RSVP to the event to reserve a space. OK, I thought, Henry Waxman’s personal popularity has never been higher and people really want to be around him so his magic can rub off on them. Maybe they expect quite a throng and thus must have crowd control in place to make sure that the event runs smoothly.

I called his office and asked to be put on the list. A staffer told me about the ticketing process, and lo and behold the reservation system was not even being handled by Henry Waxman’s office but out of California State Senator, Fran Pavley’s website. How odd, the headliner, Waxman, is keeping access to the event focusing on his landmark energy bill hidden behind the opening act of a rather anonymous State Senator. I wonder why?  Kind of like pitching Bill Smitrovich in “Iron Man “instead of Robert Downey, Jr. and Terrance Howard.  Not to knock Mr. Smitrovich’s wonderful rendition of General Gabriel in last years monster film, but it is Robert Downey, Jr. who puts the folks in the seats.  What is Mr. Waxman afraid of?

Next, I went to Senator Pavley’s website to follow the RSVP instructions for the event and instead of just having an online page to confirm that I am coming, the page took an “application” for the event and requested certain data about me in the “required fields” such as name, email address, organization, position in the organization and (not required) phone number.

I filled this all in and the page gave me a message that my application was being processed and I would hear back from them shortly.

Ok, so minus salary information and my SS# this was equal to the amount of information I gave on my first credit card application.

In an effort to guarantee a friendly crowd, can Waxman and company be running a voter background check on all applicants to make sure that only high propensity Democrat voters, (i.e. leftist crazies) are let in? I can understand this because NPR reported that the conservative media has been sandbagging Democrats at town halls across the land by sending in wild-eyed “mobs” of conservative God-fearing menopausal home makers to wreak havoc on the meetings by berating legislators for destroying the free market system, liberty, and our medical care system.  When Code Pink and Cindy Sheehan did the same during the Bush years it was patriotism, now it’s called mob behavior.  Things change fast! 

There are many issues at play here. One is that the most powerful elected official from the LA area is either afraid of or smart enough not to face his voters after doing his best to wreck their lives with his two latest pieces of legislation. Another is transparency. When the Democrats took over Congress after the 2006 elections, Nancy Pelosi promised to “drain the swamp” of the culture of corruption. This theme was repeated when Obama took office and promised a “new age of transparency and government accountability.”

Some accountability this is. 

Passing thousand page bills in the middle of the night that no one has or could read, rushing the bills through by claiming how urgent they are and then taking a couple days vacation to find the right photo opportunity for the signing… If anything this is the least transparent and most opaque government American’s have had in generations. We have no idea what the Cap and Trade and the health care bills will actually contain once they are written – other than a bunch of horrible things that will make our lives harder and cost us more money.

In order to counter Henry Waxman’s lack of openness, I decided to hold my own town hall meeting at UCLA on the same day as his. 

Mine will be from 12:00PM-1:30PM in the Humanities Building room 169 and I will take an audience of people from all political persuasions and address their questions in an open and constructive way. 

We will also have a panel of experts to answer questions the people have on numerous pertinent issues. 

I hope that these events provide a contrast between Henry Waxman the ELECTED representative of the 30th district of California who is not representing our needs and myself, the NOT-YET ELECTED representative but someone truly representing the district’s constituents and not afraid of them. 

I hope to see you there, and do me a favor: please ask me the tough questions that you would want to ask Congressman Henry Waxman, if you could. 

TOWN HALL ON HEALTH CARE

WITH

ARI DAVID

 Ari will be holding a town hall discussion for the public and the constituents of the 30th district on the issue of health care reform.

Friday, August 21st
Noon – 1:30 pm
Humanities 169, UCLA Campus
405 Hilgard Ave, Los Angeles

Enter UCLA Campus off of Hilgard and park in lots #1, #3 or A

Map of UCLA http://maps.ucla.edu/campus/

Please come and join in this informative discussion with the next Congressman of the 30th district!

 RSVP@AriDavidforCongress.com

www.tinyurl.com/aridavidforcongress

“The first unintended victim of almost every government program is common sense. I would like to bring some common sense back to our political sphere.” - Ari David

Many of you have read my blogs. I have been a producer, writer and stand up comedian in LA for about 10 years. I am now taking on a new project by running for Congress and in so doing, challenging Henry Waxman for his seat.

A wise man once made the observation that all politics is local and a critical issue that I am challenging Henry Waxman on is how local television and film production are disappearing from the LA area.

Henry Waxman has been in office since 1975 and has presided over a massacre in the local entertainment business and been completely out of touch with the constituents’ needs on this issue. If a Congressman from any other district in the nation allowed a local mill or industry to go out of business or move away, that elected official would have had to answer to his constituents and would have been forced to pay attention to the local crisis and provide solutions and financial relief for the industry in order to preserve the jobs and livelihoods dependent upon the industry’s existence. Henry Waxman has done none of this and now is the time for the people of this district to show him the way to a new job and elect me, a leader who is in touch with the district’s needs to save and protect this industry. 

The entertainment business is a source of jobs and revenue for the regions of Southern California but it is much more to our nation. For the whole of the country the entertainment business provides a unified popular culture that unites diverse people from different regions of the country with a common social fabric. This, along with sports and music gives a common denominator of understanding between people who have little in common other than that they are American. This leads to national unity and to a great extent, peace.

Henry Waxman’s Congressional career has been 17 terms long thus far and in that time local film and TV production has headed north to Canada, South to Australia, East to Poland and Bulgaria and West to Hong Kong and Bollywood. Recently Domestic box office revenue has been eclipsed by foreign revenue. This is not such a bad thing upon initial inspection until the true cost is quantified. The true cost being that foreign entities and interests now control the content of American entertainment projects.

Soon Sharia compliant financing entities from Dubai and Saudi Arabia will be financing even more content. This is one of the reasons why, along with political correctness that we rarely see Muslim villains instead of Neo-Nazis, skinheads, white supremacist, capitalists, serial polluters or the nefarious Belgians as the bad guys in most action films.

American entertainment is being tailored not for Pete in Peoria but for the elitists from Cannes and San Sebastian or for Yachting oligarchs on the Amalfi coast.

What can a humble Congressman do to resolve this? Well, if you are Henry Waxman Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee in The House of Representatives, quite a bit actually. If he cared to he could get federal tax breaks and incentives for production activity in the district. Pass special revenue tax exceptions for local filmed material. Help production entities streamline their interfacing with state and local officials to make the permitting process easier and that’s just the beginning. In short, it would be easy for him. Unfortunately, Henry Waxman’s interests lie elsewhere. Our voters must learn that our interests lie with someone other than Waxman. Our interests lie with someone like me.

Can’t Stand HENRY WAXMAN?
Then, You’ll Want To Put This On Your Event Calendar:

Meet
ARI DAVID

8 p.m. Saturday Evening
July 25th, 2009

Meet & Greet

At the UPSTAIRS PATIO of the Famed Hollywood Watering Hole:

FORMOSA CAFÉ

7156 Santa Monica Boulevard
(One block west of La Brea)
Next to the former Warner-Hollywood Studio Lot

Ari David plans to seek the GOP nomination for CA-30, to challenge the incumbent Henry Waxman for Congress. If Cap & Trade seems more like slap and tax; if global warming sounds like excuses to raise taxes and raze jobs; if missile defense cuts make you nervous over Israel’s and America’s safety; if you’re just sick-&-tired of the old-&-tired ‘representation’ by Waxman -

No charge to join us,
No donation required -

Bring your conservative creative compatriots -

Neo-cons, Paleo-cons, Mod-cons & Classic-cons:

This is a Modern Hollywood Conservative event to meet and greet your fellows on the right – as well as the aspiring candidate planning a ‘statewide campaign to defeat Waxman’  in the most ‘Hollywood’ of all districts.

You are The Ones Ari is waiting for.
It’s only 67 weeks left to the election, and time’s a wastin’!

See www.aridavidforcongress.com – then come The Formosa to meet the first Modern Hollywood Conservative candidate for Congress.

Come to a cash-bar/cash-menu drop-in social-political networking event.

RSVP to Ari@AriDavidforCongress.com

“The first unintended victim of almost every government program is common sense. I would like to bring some common sense back to our political sphere. I hope my views on these issues provide it.”

- Ari David

Subject: Declassified Water Boarding Photos. Is it torture? You decide.

A citizen of Siam (Thailand) was recently captured on American soil with trace amounts of an unknown chemical agent. Due to homeland security policy, the foreign national was examined. The trace elements seemed to contain a high level of ammonia felinas, a chemical the EPA recently classified as a toxic greenhouse gas in its vapor state and an eye inflamitant (sp?) in its solid state.

After initial traces were found, the foreign national then distributed a large amount of ammonia felinas into the bed of an American citizen who called in a haz-mat squad and department of Homeland Security (DHO) personnel to apprehend the foreign national and interrogate her for more information about the offense.

These are the pictures of the interrogation and imprisonment of the foreign national. Did DHO torture the suspect? What did DHO and Nancy Pelosi know and when did they know it? You will have to decide.

WARNING! The pictures you are about to see of this incident are brutal:

The Suspect

–

We must find the Intel for the impending attack.

–

Increasing the pressure on the suspect by escalating to the LATHER stage.

–

DHO claims the suspect broke only after a second stage called the ‘rinse’.

–

CIA operatives report good Intel from the previous session so they gave the suspect the towel.

–

The suspect in Solitary at Guantanamo Bathroom Detention Center.

Obama thinks foreign nationals like this deserve full rights.

This week the Obama administration is going to give us another dose of the “America is evil” evidence by releasing photos and other visual evidence that shows Bush, Cheney and others allowing rogue CIA agents to do terrible things to helpless Muslims who were innocently targeted and hustled off to Guantanamo. 

This has made me think of other images of atrocity that I would actually like to see to remind me of our enemy’s brutality. 

On September 11th, 2001 numerous people plummeted 1200+ feet out of the world trade center because they determined that dying of an impact on concrete after falling about ¼ mile to earth at a speed of 32 feet per second squared (the speed of gravity for those of you who aren’t into physics) was preferable to burning to death in the stricken towers. 

I’m not suggesting that it would be nice to see pictures of the splattered remains of Americans on the downtown New York sidewalk but it would remind American’s that the brutality suffered by our citizens that day was infinitely worse than the fate suffered by two avowed terrorists who got some water poured over their heads. I bet the pictures of the bodies on pavement would be a lot more dramatic as well than pictures of wet middle easterners. In fact, I have some pictures of a wet cat after a bath that are much more dramatic and brutal looking than the water boarding “centerfold” spread we will see this week. 

Since the water boarding has been proven to prevent many more 9/11 type casualties, maybe the news media and the general public that gets their information from them would realize how silly it is to harangue our intelligence service personal and Bush administration lawyers over the issue of water boarding anymore. Having brutal pictures from 9/11 released would surely put all of this controversy in perspective. 

One of the attacks that the water boarding prevented was a plot to detonate bombs in subway trains in tunnels under New York’s rivers which would have flooded the city’s underground network of subway tunnels and killed many thousands of people. Another attack was planned that involved flying a plane into the tallest building in Los Angeles with results similar to 9/11. 

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. It must be true because we don’t get to see 9/11 footage on TV anymore. The mainstream media must think it’s inconveniently truthful.

North Korea has taken two American journalists prisoner and charged them with committing “hostile acts” against the regime.

Countries like North Korea, which are the pinnacle of tyranny in the modern world, commit atrocities all the time. What they don’t do is challenge America directly – unless they perceive weakness. The consequence of having a weak president in office is that countries like North Korea are more apt to challenge our resolve. There is no question that by his actions in the last few weeks, taping a message for Iran which legitimized the Islamic government, sending Secretary of State Clinton to Russia with a mislabeled ‘reset’ button, and sending Clinton to Mexico where she blamed the United States for Mexican drug violence, Barack Obama has emboldened all of America’s enemies and emboldened North Korea in this particular case.

It is obvious that the captured journalists are being used as political pawns by the Stalinist regime and it is obvious what Barack Obama will grant them for the journalists’ safe return. Recently two events regarding North Korean foreign policy have occurred. First, the six party talks to negotiate an end to North Korea’s nuclear program have broken down after years of stalling and delay tactics. Second, North Korea has a ballistic missile capable of hitting the United States, sitting on a launch pad. The North is claiming they are launching a satellite with the missile but the capabilities of the missile are obvious for the Korean’s long term goal, which is to carry a payload the size and weight of a nuclear warhead.

The game the Korean’s are about to play is painfully obvious. They are going to promise to commute the sentences of the American journalists, who will surely be convicted in a show trial, as a sign of goodwill – if America agrees to back off trying to stop the missile launch and stop sanctions against North Korea for pursuing their nuclear program.

The fact that American citizens must be aware of, and take responsibility for, is that if we had elected a strong president who was resolute in his foreign policy experience and decision making, the North Koreans would never have tried to pull this stunt.

There are good reasons for enemies of America to fear our president’s potential use of force. It is obvious that the Koreans have observed enough of Barack Obama’s conduct that they have concluded they have nothing to fear from him. Because of this, the Koreans will get their cake and eat it too and this is all made possible because our leaders don’t want to seem insensitive to the suffering of the journalists whose promised return will be conditioned on our inaction against North Korea.

It is fine and good on the surface to have a president in the White House that the citizens of the world love and think highly of. It is not good to have a world, emboldened by this love, take advantage of Barack Obama’s weakness.

I was not surprised or depressed to see the people that supported Obama celebrating in Chicago on election night. Their party was out of power for eight long years and they deserve to celebrate their return to political relevance. I was not unhappy at all to see black people in America celebrate Obama’s electoral accomplishment. I have believed for many years now that Dr. King’s dream of overcoming was a reality for all people in this country but if it took a man of color to ascend to our nation’s highest office to prove it to black people, I celebrate their happiness. If Obama’s election means an end to racial strife and an end to people longing for equality in our country, then I celebrate that too.

But I do despair.

I despair the reality that Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright have celebrated Obama’s victory. I despair that the foolish ideas of 1960’s radical agitating hippies were not vanquished twenty years ago. I despair that the foolish ideas these people espouse have infiltrated our educational system at all levels and our popular culture in a way that seems like these ideas will be with us in perpetuity.

I despair that Americans, concerned with the economy above all issues, chose socialist solutions to address their fiscal concerns.

I despair that a man who does not understand that a confrontational stance must be taken on foreign policy issues to show our enemies how strong we are will lead the free world during this time of war.

I despair because we have a wonderful life in America and if God forbid a nuclear device were to detonate in one of our cities, the human suffering would be immeasurable. I do not trust that a President Obama would confront an enemy that either threatens us with or undertakes such an act with appropriate military reprisal. Would such an enemy be dealt with as swiftly and as brutally as they would need to be? Major acts of terrorism are military attacks not law enforcement issues, and our retribution for such attacks must be merciless against those who perpetrate them. I worry that Mr. Obama has too much mercy for our enemies.

My deepest despair though, is not for us. We have lived lives savoring the sweet fruit of freedom. My deepest despair is for those peoples who have lived and continue to live under brutal oppression in horrible places in the world without hope for change.

I despair seeing Hugo Chavez celebrating Obama’s victory and believe that his socialist revolution is growing. I despair for all who are forced to live in abject poverty because of Chavez’s foolish ideas of wealth redistribution that now dominate Venezuela by his decree.

I despair for the people of Cuba who are still longing for economic and social freedom to end decades of starvation and oppression. Due to Obama’s victory, they will see the Castro brothers gloating over what they probably perceive as an American ratification of Cuba’s backward Marxist philosophies.

I despair for the people living in the Stalinist prison camp that is North Korea who can look forward to more misery, cold, hunger, torture and darkness because Obama may be willing to ‘sit down and talk’ to their ‘Dear Leader’ face to face.

I despair for the young people in Iran, longing for liberalization through government overthrow, who are going to see Ahmadinajad further legitimized by the West and will see the Islamic regime further tighten its vise-like grip on their country.

I despair for Israelis who are now going to be living in the shadow of a potentially nuclear armed Iran.

I despair for all the Iraqi’s, after having the courage to participate in fledgling democracy, being slaughtered by a new tyranny that may fill the vacuum left by a potentially precipitous American withdrawal.

But I despair most for Kenya, the land of Barack Obama’s father. Until recently Kenya has been one of the safest and most prosperous African nations. I despair for the worsening religious and tribal strife there. I shed tears thinking about the coming Islamic law that Barack Obama has not only failed to speak against in Kenya while visiting as a senator, but through his support for his tribal relative, the tyrannical prime minister Raila Odinga, is actually encouraging.

I despair for the women of Kenya who will soon learn the smothering discomfort and humiliation of the Burkha in the heat of the sub-Saharan African sun.

I despair for the young girls of Kenya who will be learning the painful agony and terror of being forcibly raped by the adult husbands they meet after family arranged marriages.

I despair for all the female human beings of Kenya who will suffer the tearing pain of genital mutilation, the asphyxiation of being buried alive and the searing agony of being burned alive all in the name of Islamic honor.

I despair for all of the men and women of Kenya who will feel the impact of being stoned to death or feel the cutting and hacking of having limbs amputated as punishment for petty crimes like theft and blasphemy. These are the punishments for such crimes in Islamic countries.

I despair for the tribal discord that the non-Islamic people of Kenya will suffer having to make the choice to die, convert to Islam or live in virtual slavery as second class citizens in their native land and pay the tax of Dhimmitude. I despair for the peaceful and loving Christians of Kenya seeing their churches razed and having to practice their devotion to their savior Christ in secret.

I celebrate the black people in America who are today filled with jubilation at the prospect of their bright future but for the future of the many black people of Kenya who are going to be suffering horribly soon, I despair.

I despair because of President Barack Obama’s potential future inaction to help the people of Kenya overcome the horrible oppression of Islamic law. The fact that Kenya is the land of Obama’s paternal ancestors is a tragic irony.

Barack Obama spoke in his Chicago victory speech of America as the beacon for all people of the world and that this beacon still shines brightly. Mr. President-elect Obama, if these tyrants that rule these lands are celebrating your victory because they feel safe with you in office, the beacon of hope that America is known for will not shine at all.

Mr. Obama, until you prove that you have the courage to stand up to evil by using American military might unilaterally with moral righteousness and moral indignation motivating your actions, I will despair.

Mr. Obama, I beg you to please prove the despair I feel unfounded by being a strong, responsible, just and reliable leader of the United States of America. The greatest nation the world will ever know because of our ability to confront tyranny, liberate the suffering people of the world and provide a safe haven for the downtrodden to live in freedom and pursue happiness, the rarest of worldly luxuries.