MEDIA ROOTS- As the world of art becomes increasingly homogenized, it is growing harder to come across original art that has societal and political significance. With the exception of Banksy and a few others, rarely do you see a prominent artist putting themselves out there to make a bold statement or provoke controversial thought. Like every other commodity in this corporatist system, popular modern art has become an over-produced, unoriginal, profit driven industry.

In times of perpetual wars and endless threats, dissenting propaganda artists have always been a crucial element of communication, organization and reflection. For our generation- there is Nathan Janes (AKA Red Baron), a propaganda artist and political activist who refuses to sell out to the system.

Janes is the mind behind PUPAGANDA, a pop art website countering the societal saturation of ‘meaningless advertising art’ by providing more inspiring, thought provoking work.  According to Janes, “It’s time people quit living a life of constant entertainment and start engaging in critical thought while questioning the barrage of commercial images and propaganda that they are faced with each day.”

His motivation is to open minds by depicting the machinery the global elite use to advance their own agenda.  And he does it with a man’s best friend – Janes uses the comforting imagery of dogs because they serve as an artistic tool for individuals to explore contentious topics.

Janes’s art has been featured in multiple prominent publications and he has been commissioned to do paintings by celebrities like Caprice Bourret and Pete Wentz of the band Fall Out Boy. Media Roots recently sat down with Nathan Janes for an exclusive interview about his artistic and political endeavors.

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MR: What was your political awakening? Why did you start making political art?

NJ: My political awakening happened about three years ago. My journey began when my musician friend Photon Man gave me a copy of Terrorstorm by Alex Jones. It wasn’t long before I transformed my art from “Pop ARF” to “PUPAGANDA.” My previous “Pop ARF” artwork focused on the heartwarming appeal of dogs; I promoted the message of the prevention of cruelty towards animals but many of my paintings were just aesthetically pleasing without any particular message. While I still have compassion for dogs, my focus today is to awaken the general public to the ways in which we have been trained to follow our masters much like dogs. 

Since I have begun to create more powerful and thought provoking paintings, interest from art publications and other media that once promoted my work has ceased. Today’s artists found in the mainstream media and major galleries, create work lacking careful analysis of society. Artists that make strong statements about the Establishment and the ways in which we are being controlled and managed may never be promoted widely because we are a threat to the status quo.

MR: Why do you paint dogs and how does that fit into the messages you relay?

NJ: Dogs are the perfect subject to communicate my message because people still have empathy and compassion for dogs. We have been exposed to dehumanization through a constant flow of images on television, in movies, and in print depicting so much violence against our own kind that people no longer have compassion for one another. When something tragic happens to another human being, we are unable to react but if a dog is abused in anyway there is a sudden swell of compassion. There are also many parallels between the ways that dogs are trained and how we are conditioned by culture, which make for powerful paintings.

MR: What mediums do you usually work with?

NJ: I work in acrylics and usually paint on stretched canvas.

MR: Did you have any art school training or does painting come naturally for you?

NJ: I am a graduate of the Columbus College of Art and Design in Columbus, Ohio. My work today is a representation of my hard work and incredibly intensive practice.  I began training to be an artist as a freshman in High School. I am not talented or gifted; I have just applied myself and developed my skills and technique over many years.

MR: You just launched an international campaign that sparked attention worldwide, including a plug from Adbusters. What is Unplug the Signal, and why should people get involved?

NJ: Unplug the Signal is a campaign to turn off televisions.  I designed the campaign to create awareness of the gross manipulation of reality that is broadcast by the six major corporations controlling the content of television. With the average American adult watching more than 4 hours of television each day, the television plays a major role in continually creating the perceived reality in which we live.  The television has been used as a weapon of mass deception for the last half a century; it manages society and culture through such techniques as perception management, behavior placement, predictive programming and crisis creation.

People should get involved with this campaign because the television remains our greatest threat to individual sovereignty and the largest obstacle to becoming a truly informed individual. In order for individuals to see the real locus of control and look beyond such things as the false left/right paradigm, they will first need to be able to get beyond the paradigm conditioned by the television. In order for people to wake up, this information needs to be shared between families, friends, and neighbors. The campaign has just begun and already the message is spreading. I am very happy with the feedback it has been receiving.

MR: What are your three favorite pieces and what do they represent?

NJ: My three favorite pieces would be those that focus on the engineering and control of society through television:

Total Indoctrination, Acrylic on Canvas, 48” x 48”, 2009

This painting represents how totally absorbed someone who regularly watches television can become, where they see everything within their lives relating somehow to television. It depicts a life where anything outside TV is rejected and all thoughts and discussions are just recycled conversations from TV and slogans from those sold to us as authorities and experts.

TV Mind Control, Acrylic on Canvas, 36” x 48”, 2009

This piece depicts the hypnotic affect of television as those who watch become a subject of mind-control. Too often the brain is switched to standby and all information is collected and accepted as truth without any questioning.  When viewing television, we do not consciously rationalize the information resonating within our unconscious depths; the hypnotic affect makes us highly suggestible.

Unplug the Signal, Acrylic and Masonite, 20″ x 16″, 2010

“Unplug the Signal” represents the constant flow of information that is transmitted by the television 24 hours a day. It is this signal which places the viewers all on the same page and makes them highly predictable. Plato’s Cave serves as an allegory for this phenomenon. In Plato’s cave, people view the shadows on the wall and interpret these shadows as reality. When one of them finds a way out of the cave and returns to tell the others what is outside, he and his message are rejected. When individuals are so thoroughly engrossed by the message of television, they will reject any information outside of the paradigm it presents while attacking and ridiculing the messenger.

MR: What is in store for Nathan Janes?

NJ: I am currently working on a painting of the President’s dog. This painting is a critical assessment I created in response to the threats to our liberties as sovereign citizens of this Republic. As for what’s in store, I will be working on a painting on Tiananmen Square, Chemtrails, implantable microchips and other projects that will spread the message of the Unplug the Signal Campaign including poetry, song writing, and the development of an literary allegory.

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Find out more about Nathan “Red Baron” Janes at PUPAGANDA, or follow his work on Facebook and YouTube. Get involved in his Unplug the Signal campaign at UnplugtheSignal.com

Abby

August, 2010

nthWORD– “The neutral communications medium is essential to our society. It is the basis of a fair competitive market economy. It is the basis of democracy, by which a community should decide what to do. It is the basis of science, by which humankind should decide what is true. Let us protect the neutrality of the net.”– Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, from his blog in 2006.

The invention of the Internet has arguably been one of the most significant technological achievements in the history of human communications, alongside of the printing press and the telephone. It has restructured the way people live and provides the opportunity for a disconnected and fragmented public to revolutionize into an interconnected, globally integrated civilization. Billions of people now live more productively by having instantaneous communication and unfettered access to information of their choosing.

Since its inception, the unregulated medium of the Internet has always adhered to the fundamental principle of “Net Neutrality”- the notion that all websites, from mega corporations to backroom bloggers, have an equal opportunity to reach people online. Under this principle, every website, regardless of the site’s material and amount of data, is given non-discriminatory treatment from Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like Comcast and Verizon.

A 2006 poll taken by Glover Park Group  revealed that 93% of Americans had never heard of the term “Net Neutrality.” The underreporting of this issue could be due to the fact that the corporations pushing to eliminate this online freedom -the ISPs- also guide most of what the American public sees, hears and reads in the mainstream media.

These companies have been drooling at the Web’s potential for raking in tons of money by eliminating Net Neutrality. In its place the Telecoms intend to create a tiered system of access that will make web users “pay to play,” charging more than we pay now for different levels of speed, accessibility, and quality of service. This would cause greater economic stratification by discriminating against low income households who lack the finances to utilize the Internet for education and employment. According to 2009 Commerce Department figures, 26% of Americans already can’t afford to subscribe to high speed Internet at the rate we pay now.

The controlled system of access will also reduce the representation of minorities in our communities, shutting out vital perspectives. Only 46% of African Americans and 40% of Hispanics use broadband, compared to 66% of Caucasians.

Even though America invented the World Wide Web, this country has fallen far behind other developed countries in Internet speed. Japan’s Internet speed is up to 30 times faster than the US, and many European nations have access that is 10 times faster on average. We already pay more for the service. The lowest Internet price on average in America is typically $35 a month on average for a 1 megabit connection. Speeds twice this fast are offered in Canada and Denmark for cheaper. Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Sweden all have broadband access for less than $20 a month.

In 2008, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) confronted Comcast for abusing the principle of Net Neutrality, by blocking content and slowing user access to certain file sharing websites.

Comcast contested the FCC’s ruling in court, resulting in a high profile case that has placed Net Neutrality in a state of emergency. In April of this year, the US Court of Appeals ruled that the FCC does not have the authority to enforce a neutral Internet, leaving the web more vulnerable than ever before to corporate consolidation. This means that the ISPs that provide and sell Internet access to the public could have the enhanced power of also controlling the limitations of your Internet experience, by deciding what you see and use online.

Salon.com blogger Saturn Smith provides an example for potential abuse-

“The ruling opens the door for companies to be able to slow or even block traffic to competing sites. For instance, Comcast currently runs a site called Fancast. Fancast is like Hulu, only well, less awesome. It offers TV episodes and movies, some news and entertainment stuff, and a lot of advertising for Comcast. Who’s to say now that Comcast wouldn’t make sure that anyone trying to access Hulu found it very slow going?”

Without Net Neutrality, higher costs will be imposed on hosting websites that use more space and bandwidth, and ISPs can start charging fees to companies for higher priority access speeds to their networks or their customers. This could lead to significantly slower access to independent websites and small startup businesses that cannot afford to pay the price hikes, eliminating the ability of the “small guy” to reach the same Internet consumer base as the larger corporations.

The 1996 Telecommunications Act protected a neutral Internet until the April court ruling. In June, the FCC fought back with a proposal backed by the Open Internet Coalition to reaffirm their authority in regulating broadband. They opened a procedure to debate its legal capabilities in overseeing telecommunications under the existing legal framework. The FCC still needs the legal backing to legitimize Net Neutrality and the ethical standard of an open and free Internet, an impossible objective without the help of Congress.

However, due to intense pressure from telecom lobbyists, much of Congress has aligned themselves with the telecom industry, even taking action on their behalf; 74 Congressional Democrats and 171 Congressional Republicans recently presented stern letters to the FCC urging them to abandon their Net Neutrality enforcement and leave the matter to Congress-

“[Regulation of broadband] should not be done without additional direction from Congress. We urge you not to move forward with a proposal that undermines critically important investment in broadband and the jobs that come with it.”

Unfortunately, the telecommunications companies invest big money in attempt to sway Congress. Five of the biggest telecom corporations in the country- Verizon, Time Warner, AT&T, Comcast, and Qwest collectively lobbied $218 million dollars to our Representatives and shelled out $23.7 million in campaign contributions from 2006-2008.

Now that the recent court decision and FCC rebuttal have left the Net Neutrality issue open ended, telecom firms are seizing on the uncertain future of the Web and are planning to hit Congress soon with another lobbying bonanza to ensure they get what they want.

All 74 Congressional Democrats that signed the letter to the FCC have received an average of $50,000 from phone and cable corporations. Representative Gene Green, who pushed through the Democrat’s letter, has received $111,199 from lobbying by the telecom industry.

The Representatives that spearheaded the Republicans’ letter to the FCC, Cliff Stearns and Joe Barton, have already collectively received over $177,000 in campaign contributions from AT&T, and $66,000 from Comcast in the last year alone. The other Republican signatories have similar campaign donation figures.

The respective letters to the FCC contain the typical anti-Net Neutrality disinformation that is spread through numerous fake grassroots -“astroturf”- organizations funded by the telecom industry. The main talking points are that Net Neutrality would bring heavy-handed government regulation, stifle innovation and reduce financial investment from telecom companies for improved broadband access.

In reality, the Internet is one step away from being regulated – by either the government making Net Neutrality a law, or from the telecom industry, which would gain full control to manage and restrict their networks without bureaucratic ramifications.

The government is a third party that is tasked with protecting the rights of American citizens. It is their responsibility to represent and act on behalf of their constituent base. Making Net Neutrality a law would prevent the telecom business from impeding free speech and access to information by making sure the Internet stays open and unrestricted.

Google, YouTube and Amazon flourished into incredibly successful online business models by starting off as small startups. A neutral Internet provides an equal playing field for the cultivation of new ideas. More importantly, it enables new ideas to prosper amongst the already established “big guys,” allowing for the development of and investment for new products and services and a competitive flow in the marketplace, in turn improving users’ options for better prices and higher quality of service.

The ethical imperative of Net Neutrality is about preventing private industries from having the ability to censor information based on their commercial interests. As citizens of this country, we should have the right to freely access information of our choosing, unimpeded and uncensored.

For the past three years, Representative Ed Markey has presented Net Neutrality legislation that would safeguard the Internet’s open future, but the bill has yet to make it past a House Committee. The preservation of Internet freedom will remain hanging in the balance until there is a strong constituency base demanding Congress to take action.

Unless people become involved with this issue, Capitalism will run roughshod. The Internet is a powerful democratic tool providing citizens with the ability to instantly share information. When armed with knowledge, people are more likely to become active citizens engaged with their society, and this is exactly what the power structure wants to prevent.

You can help by joining a network of 1 million + citizens for a neutral Internet at Save The Internet.

Abby Martin is a freelance writer, citizen journalist, activist and artist living in Oakland, CA. You can find more about her media projects at www.MediaRoots.org and check out her artwork at www.AbbyMartin.org

Photo by Abby Martin

Obama, Anatomy of a World Leader
by Alex Grey

“After hearing Barack Obama’s speech in Berlin, and noting the degree of excitement and hope that he generated throughout many countries besides the US, I started to see him as one of the first true “world leaders.” This may be partly because of his extraordinary childhood and political life that has bridged many cultures. Obama’s restraint and intelligence, exhibited as foes were bating him throughout the campaign, his heartful clarity coming through in his talks are all qualities of a highly evolved person. We need to consider our planetary citizenship, because solving the world’s ecological and economic problems, and creating a culture of peace and reconciliation will require the co-operation of all nations. Perhaps you can use this symbol of Barack Obama to send him a prayer of support, to send all the loving hopeful healing and creative energy that we can focus on him so that he can perform the task of leadership in the most effective and powerful way for the greatest good, for the greatest number.”

MEDIA ROOTS – The above statement is Alex Grey’s interpretation of his Obama painting. How can an artist like Alex Grey, one who has supposedly superseded this physical realm, idolize Obama as some sort of spiritual leader? Most of Alex’s art reflects the true essence of our beings by displaying consciousness as a universal energy that we and all living things on this planet share, breaking down the physical reality of our perception of self and body. But the sitting president’s existence in the current political arena serves to bolster a physical illusion that divides the people and cloaks the real power that we humans have within.

Alex calls Obama a “highly evolved person.” Would a highly evolved person be engaging in covert bombing campaigns in multiple countries, killing innocent civilians on a daily basis? Would a highly evolved person be expanding the war machine at the same rate if not more as the Bush administration while spending all of the taxpayer’s money on the military industrial complex as people continue to lose their homes and businesses? Would a highly evolved person reject fundamental rights of due process for human beings and support the continuation and expansion of draconian measures that strip away our civil liberties? Would they award BP with more government contracts after they are responsible for the worst environmental crisis in our nation’s history?

When I think of highly evolved characteristics, I think of Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr., and countless others who have declared that violence, destruction and death aren’t necessary means to any end goal. It is more than disappointing that Alex got sucked into the Obama hype and chose to reflect our president as a spiritual symbol instead of a figurehead to an inherently corrupt and violent machine that has continuously propagandized and manipulated the masses of this country while perpetrating aggression all over the world. Other pieces of Alex’s art display the energetic spirit of consciousness and contain an ultimate truth – a truth that is much more profound than any one puppet. Let’s hope he taps back into that.

Abby