For ten years — this is an understatement, Franklin. While I have known you for eight, I know your commitment and consistency to truth, justice, and freedom extends further, and comes from a long history within your family. And you’ve suffered for years the phenomenon of people shying away from their association with you, or only maintaining private connection because of the perceived blowback. You’ve been called a white supremacist, a fascist, and a far right trump supporter, by people who, whether naively or dishonestly, failed to understand your politics.
And while I’ve sometimes gently guided you away from using certain turns of phrase, I no longer wish for you to hold anything back. The time has passed for delicacy of any kind. As Konstantin Kisin spoke at ARC recently: we are in a fight for our lives. I rue the thought that too many people will realize, too late, that they have sacrificed their freedom for the illusion of safety, and that the fold of people seeking shelter (politically, emotionally, or physically) will bulge, with crowds who only partially understand what’s at stake. May our love not be wasted. May more eyes open to reality. I fear this is only preparation for what lies ahead.
Nov 1, 2023·edited Nov 1, 2023Liked by Franklin Einspruch
The 8,000 signatories have much in common with college students burping up bigoted manure they're being fed in classrooms across the globe. College campuses and the art world are alike in their tendancy to be insulated, convoluted, incestuous little worlds having little touch with actual life. Art world denizens, not unlike college students drunk with their first taste of real personal leeway, tend to be susceptible to whatever pop notions float into their midsts, and tend, in order to gain the approbation of their peers, to hop cheerily onto bandwagons.
In my everyday world (North Central Texas) there has been nothing but speechlessness in reaction to the present grotesquery of antisemitic fervor which seems to have caught everyone here by surprise. As for those who reveal that they embrace antisemitic sentiment or any other bigotry, like those 8,000 signatories via their First Amendment rights, their names and activities should be kept before the public in every way possible. That First Amendment cuts both ways.
Nov 1, 2023·edited Nov 1, 2023Liked by Franklin Einspruch
Yes, the art world should have stuck to its knitting, meaning its own business, then and now, but it has long been overtly, not to say exhibitionistically, in the business of sociopolitical virtue signaling--albeit strictly fashionable PC virtue. Thus, having made that bed, it apparently felt constrained to keep lying in it, even if the bed is not as comfortable now as previously. Maybe the art world is retarded.
I have been disgusted by the number of people, not just in the art world, but those that I know personally who are spouting this "from the river to the sea" stuff. I even asked one, pointblank, if she knows the origin of the phrase and that it is generally acknowledged to mean "wipe all the Jews out of the area" between the river and the sea. Of course I didn't get a direct answer. Even young relatives of mine are in this cult. It is horrifying.
John Post Lee posted this list on his instagram account. We don't hear masses of college students or art types marching for justice for any of these millions of victims of war. I guess it's only a genocide if the Israelis aren't doing it. I wonder why that is.
johnpostlee
Here are a list of casualties from some recent conflicts.
Goldin and Eisenman are indeed free to speak or act as they choose, and (unlike me) they're smack in the middle of the official art world and operate in it. However, though they won't even remotely care about my opinion, I would remind them that trying to have it both ways neither works nor looks good.
There is absolutely a double standard at play in this whole situation, but that, like hypocrisy in general, has been so "normalized" (as long as it's PC) that perhaps it's not evident to all who partake of it. I mean, everybody in their crowd is in on it, so there's a lot of "validation" going on. It's like a cult.
I just had the following exchange on insta, on someone's post saying free palestine:
me: Release the hostages
him: Which ones?
me: The ones Hamas took on oct 7, including children and elderly, and are still holding
him: They’re all dead, killed by Israeli bombs
me: You know this how? Never mind, no need to continue this exchange. We each know how the other feels. We don’t have to do any of that unfollowing/blocking business. Peace.
Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is not the only creative person doing time as a political prisoner in Cuba. Dissident black rapper Maykel Osorbo has been in jail over two years; he was sentenced to 9 years for the alleged crimes of contempt, assault, public disorder, and defamation of institutions, heroes, and martyrs. To my knowledge, people like Jay-Z and Beyoncé (who have both visited Cuba) have not taken up his cause, even though Rolling Stone has covered the story. See link below:
For ten years — this is an understatement, Franklin. While I have known you for eight, I know your commitment and consistency to truth, justice, and freedom extends further, and comes from a long history within your family. And you’ve suffered for years the phenomenon of people shying away from their association with you, or only maintaining private connection because of the perceived blowback. You’ve been called a white supremacist, a fascist, and a far right trump supporter, by people who, whether naively or dishonestly, failed to understand your politics.
And while I’ve sometimes gently guided you away from using certain turns of phrase, I no longer wish for you to hold anything back. The time has passed for delicacy of any kind. As Konstantin Kisin spoke at ARC recently: we are in a fight for our lives. I rue the thought that too many people will realize, too late, that they have sacrificed their freedom for the illusion of safety, and that the fold of people seeking shelter (politically, emotionally, or physically) will bulge, with crowds who only partially understand what’s at stake. May our love not be wasted. May more eyes open to reality. I fear this is only preparation for what lies ahead.
-Your wife
The 8,000 signatories have much in common with college students burping up bigoted manure they're being fed in classrooms across the globe. College campuses and the art world are alike in their tendancy to be insulated, convoluted, incestuous little worlds having little touch with actual life. Art world denizens, not unlike college students drunk with their first taste of real personal leeway, tend to be susceptible to whatever pop notions float into their midsts, and tend, in order to gain the approbation of their peers, to hop cheerily onto bandwagons.
In my everyday world (North Central Texas) there has been nothing but speechlessness in reaction to the present grotesquery of antisemitic fervor which seems to have caught everyone here by surprise. As for those who reveal that they embrace antisemitic sentiment or any other bigotry, like those 8,000 signatories via their First Amendment rights, their names and activities should be kept before the public in every way possible. That First Amendment cuts both ways.
Yes, the art world should have stuck to its knitting, meaning its own business, then and now, but it has long been overtly, not to say exhibitionistically, in the business of sociopolitical virtue signaling--albeit strictly fashionable PC virtue. Thus, having made that bed, it apparently felt constrained to keep lying in it, even if the bed is not as comfortable now as previously. Maybe the art world is retarded.
I have been disgusted by the number of people, not just in the art world, but those that I know personally who are spouting this "from the river to the sea" stuff. I even asked one, pointblank, if she knows the origin of the phrase and that it is generally acknowledged to mean "wipe all the Jews out of the area" between the river and the sea. Of course I didn't get a direct answer. Even young relatives of mine are in this cult. It is horrifying.
John Post Lee posted this list on his instagram account. We don't hear masses of college students or art types marching for justice for any of these millions of victims of war. I guess it's only a genocide if the Israelis aren't doing it. I wonder why that is.
johnpostlee
Here are a list of casualties from some recent conflicts.
Mexican drug war
200,000–400,000+
Boko Haram insurgency
350,000+
Second Congo War 2,500,000–5,400,000
Ituri conflict 60,000
War on terror 272,000–1,260,000
War in Afghanistan, 212,191
Insurgency in the Maghreb, 54,000+
Iraq War, 405,000–654,965
War in Darfur, 300,000+
Kivu Conflict, 100,000+
Insurgency in Khyber, 61,000
Pakhtunkhwa, 45,900–79,000
Libyan crisis, 30,000–43,000
Syrian civil war, 503,000–613,000+
Rojava–Islamist conflict, 50,000+
South Sudanese Civil War, 383,000
War in Iraq (2013–2017), 195,000–200,000+
Yemeni Civil War, 377,, 000+
Tigray War, 162,000–378,000+
Myanmar Civil War, 40,302
Russian invasion of Ukraine, 300,000+
Reported deaths from malnutrition in 2022, 50,000
BRAVO. I also liked what Nina Power and Pierre d’Alancaisez had to say:
https://thecritic.co.uk/the-art-world-is-eating-itself/
https://compactmag.com/article/the-fog-of-art
Goldin and Eisenman are indeed free to speak or act as they choose, and (unlike me) they're smack in the middle of the official art world and operate in it. However, though they won't even remotely care about my opinion, I would remind them that trying to have it both ways neither works nor looks good.
There is absolutely a double standard at play in this whole situation, but that, like hypocrisy in general, has been so "normalized" (as long as it's PC) that perhaps it's not evident to all who partake of it. I mean, everybody in their crowd is in on it, so there's a lot of "validation" going on. It's like a cult.
Wait, how could the New York Times exclude Kara Walker and her views? Isn't that, you know, racist?
I just had the following exchange on insta, on someone's post saying free palestine:
me: Release the hostages
him: Which ones?
me: The ones Hamas took on oct 7, including children and elderly, and are still holding
him: They’re all dead, killed by Israeli bombs
me: You know this how? Never mind, no need to continue this exchange. We each know how the other feels. We don’t have to do any of that unfollowing/blocking business. Peace.
And guess what happened next? Poof! I’m blocked.
Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is not the only creative person doing time as a political prisoner in Cuba. Dissident black rapper Maykel Osorbo has been in jail over two years; he was sentenced to 9 years for the alleged crimes of contempt, assault, public disorder, and defamation of institutions, heroes, and martyrs. To my knowledge, people like Jay-Z and Beyoncé (who have both visited Cuba) have not taken up his cause, even though Rolling Stone has covered the story. See link below:
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-latin/maykel-osorbo-cuba-patria-y-vida-jail-1234657080/