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bioart : Dissecting Kac and Transgenic Art
Posted by horatio on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 (21:18:06) (5 reads)
In watching some of the videos and reading some of the articles circulating almost a decade ago over Alba, Eduardo Kac's gfp enhanced rabbit, and also trying to put that into dialogue with the Leonardo's Choice readings and videos from the UCLA event, a number of pressing questions came to mind. In particular, the questions about ethics and rights that were raised by Steven Best and Carol Gigliotti. But even more than that, the underlying question that we tend to ask a lot in my field, which is what work does this project do? With that in mind, I want to explore a few threads relevant for our class.
Carol Gigliotti writes in her opening to Leonardo's Choice that:
Unlike the majority of discussions on biotechnology, whether endorsing or critical, this volume, as a whole, views seriously the disastrous impact of these technologies on animals themselves. Amidst the wealth of human intelligence and imagination invested in the development of technologies, the natural world and non-human beings have been regulated to proprietary roles, even though our technological innovations could not exist without them. Our long-standing pre-occupation with technological outlooks and technological solutions have obscured the reality and agency of the more-than-human world, or what is left of it.
Gigliotti points to three key moments, following Italian philosopher Paola Cavalieri's trail, which have left a historical imprint in the form of a human-animal binary. These are:
The Greek separation of humans and animals in the polis (cf. Plato's city of pigs).
Descartes notion of mechanistic action and the animal autonomata.
The current techno-industrialization (what Haraway calls 'technoscience') of animals in society.
But Gigliotti argues that the biotech revolution is a new 4th destructive moment for animals, in part because it has the potential to undermine the advances in animal rights and concern for animal welfare, as well as the deeper metaphysical changes in public thinking towards animals, by a re-instrumentalization of the animal as object of science. We can see this in a few different places:
"It is also true and needs to be articulated clearly that the current goals of Western science and technology, bound up as they are with entrenched ideas of animals and nature existing solely for our use, are antithetical to these challenges and are still driving the development of “transformative” biotechnologies." (Gigliotti xiv)
"This collection’s central questions revolve around how Western ideas and practices of creative freedom are disassociated from the impacts they have on the non-human world. This disassociation has contributed to shifting an organic understanding of nature to a mechanistic model in which the image of the non-human world is one of an (mere) inert, soulless machine and in which the agency of animals is obscured." (Gigliotti xiv)
"Animals have been conscripted into these technologies to further an agenda of controlling the creation of all life through the manipulation of various manifestations of code. In today’s biotechnologies, animals have become code." (Gigliotti xvii)
This is where I think a lot of the concern over Kac's work really centers. What work is Kac "trying to do" with his art? Well, here's what he has said in the past about the gfp bunny in context:
"Transgenic art, I proposed elsewhere, is a new art form based on the use of genetic engineering to transfer natural or synthetic genes to an organism, to create unique living beings. This must be done with great care, with acknowledgment of the complex issues thus raised and, above all, with a commitment to respect, nurture, and love the life thus created."
The "GFP Bunny" project is a complex social event that starts with the creation of a chimerical animal that does not exist in nature (i.e., "chimerical" in the sense of a cultural tradition of imaginary animals, not in the scientific connotation of an organism in which there is a mixture of cells in the body)."
As I read this, he is basically taking a scientific practice build around and upon animal exploitation and trying to claim a liberatory artistic potential by pointing to how it can help to open up "complex issues" and perhaps also foster "care" and a vague and unstated "commitment" to the life under the genetic knife. But I don't buy it, not completely, and not on the most fundamental point--ethics. Nowhere in Kac's writing about Alba, or in his other writings on transgenetic art, do I see a real awareness that his ability to even make these transgenic art projects is premised on the acceptance of both animal exploitation and the violability of animal life compared to the human. Sure, he talks about the love he has for Alba, even if he/she? remains locked up in a French biotech lab, while he is busy making money and fame at the expense of this rabbit, nor does he ever acknowledge his perpetuation of animal experimentation as an acceptable practice, even though he wants to claim awareness of the fact. This was really brought home to me in one line in particular of his, where he states:
"I decided to proceed with the project because it became clear that it was safe...Put another way: green fluorescent protein is harmless to the rabbit. It is also important to point out that the "GFP Bunny" project breaks no social rule: humans have determined the evolution of rabbits for at least 1400 years." (GFP Bunny)
The gfp bunny project may not break any social rules if we assume that animal exploitation and experimentation is the norm (which it is), and we also accept that human manipulation of animals for "at least 1400 years" has been the norm (also true), but this completely misses the ethical question of whether these "social rules" are themselves acceptable. Many would say no, absolutely not. And that's the real rub with Kacs, he wants to have his animal friendly-lovey dovey story--and eat his gfp bunny too. But you can't have it both ways. Either the experimentation and manipulation of animals is ethically suspect, or it is ethically acceptable, and where and how that line gets drawn is precisely what he claims to want to interrogate and have a dialogue about, but at the very moment when his own project asks that question, he avoids it, or rather, he falls back into the old anthropocentric trope of, "well we've done this before, so it must be ok to keep doing it." That is not an ethically defensible position, it is an excuse that precisely avoids having to deal with the ethical problems before you.
Now in fairness to Kac, he does respond to this charge, but I find his defense equally lacking. Here's what he says about his project compared to standard genetics or animal breeding programs:
"GFP Bunny" is a transgenic artwork and not a breeding project. The differences between the two include the principles that guide the work, the procedures employed, and the main objectives. Traditionally, animal breeding has been a multi-generational selection process that has sought to create pure breeds with standard form and structure, often to serve a specific performative function. As it moved from rural milieus to urban environments, breeding de-emphasized selection for behavioral attributes but continued to be driven by a notion of aesthetics anchored on visual traits and on morphological principles. Transgenic art, by contrast, offers a concept of aesthetics that emphasizes the social rather than the formal aspects of life and biodiversity, that challenges notions of genetic purity, that incorporates precise work at the genomic level, and that reveals the fluidity of the concept of species in an ever increasingly transgenic social context." (GFP Bunny)
I grant that his project is not about breeding (whether the French lab maintains that same view is a different story), but again his claim to the "principles that guide the work" being different are hard to square, given the ethical problem just outlined above. As far as procedures involved, as far as I can tell the actual, technical science that occurred to make Alba is exactly the same as any other genetic experiment for breeding or trait selection, it just happens that he was engineering Albe to express the gfp gene, rather than say hair sheen or fur color. But the procedures are identical.
He also makes a clever but deceptive semantic slip here by moving from transgenic experimentation to animal breeding in the same sentence, asking us to see how his process is not like traditional multi-generational breeding programs, but that was never a point of debate. We know he didn't "design" Alba for breeding, so to say what he is doing is not like that is to setup a straw man argument which he can easily knock down. The question is the transgenetic process, not the breeding process, and we should not lose sight of that as he seems to hope we will do. The reason I think he makes this claim is because he immediately wants to say that breeding is usually for "a specific performative function," whereas his project is somehow different. I'm not sure that is a claim he can really defend. If anything, I see a gfp bunny as the ultimate in performative function. After all, doesn't Alba function in a performative framework precisely because the rabbit's functions is a symbolic chimera demonstrating the potential of art and science to be fused? This sure seems to be what Kac is claiming when he says:
"As a transgenic artist, I am not interested in the creation of genetic objects, but on the invention of transgenic social subjects." (GFP Bunny)
Here I have to disagree that Alba has been constituted as a social subject. If anything, based on all of the media coverage and attention around Kac and Alba, this social process seems to further reify Alba as a mute object of Kac's artistic creativity. While he may not be "interested" in creating genetic objects, I would argue that is precisely what he accomplished in the form of Alba. To talk about Alba as a subject is to mythologize what he wanted Alba to be, not what Alba really is. While we can surely argue that Alba as a living and sentient subject should be able to engage as a transgenic social subject in these debates, when it comes to actually observing that process playing out, all we find is an absent referent--a silently glowing albino bunny held captive in an animal research lab--and not a true subject. This reality becomes all the harder to swallow when Kacs says things like the following:
"Integrating the lessons of dialogical philosophy and cognitive ethology, transgenic art must promote awareness of and respect for the spiritual (mental) life of the transgenic animal. The word "aesthetics" in the context of transgenic art must be understood to mean that creation, socialization, and domestic integration are a single process. The question is not to make the bunny meet specific requirements or whims, but to enjoy her company as an individual (all bunnies are different), appreciated for her own intrinsic virtues, in dialogical interaction." (GFP Bunny)
It's pretty language, and sounds great, but the reality tells a very different story. Where is the respect for the spiritual life of a rabbit who is the object of genetic manipulation and the subject of forced confinement, when all the aesthetic talk dies down? And that he misses this very aesthetic fulcrum--the point he tries to make so forcefully about intrinsic bunny value--is the saddest part. When he says that "creation, socialization, and domestic integration are a single process," he seems to be talking about the single process of life as an object of transgenic lab experimentation, not a social subject in its own right. And it is the lack of recognition by Kac that this all occurs as a single process, from lab experimentation to media hype, capturing Alba in the gaze of society as transgenic spectacle, which makes it all the more maddening. How else could you explain an artistic comment like the following not sounding amazingly naive and trite:
"Today, our ability to generate life through the direct method of genetic engineering prompts a re-evaluation of the cultural objectification and the personal subjectification of animals, and in so doing it renews our investigation of the limits and potentialities of what we call humanity." (GFP Bunny)
While I may applaud Kac's creativity and desire to engage in these critical issues, I worry that he does more harm than good in the process. And if his more recent projects like "Edunia" are any indication, I still think he is missing the boat in his attempt at transgenic artistic critique. Similarly, exhibits like Damien Hirst's Away From The Flock seem to be stranded in the same boat as Kac. After all, what happened to Kac's beloved Alba ten years out?
On a somewhat related but different not, something which Steve Best mentions in his essay, how do these debates change when the animals in question die or are dead, like in Jessica Joslin's mouse bioart sculptures?
Links:
GFP Bunny
Natural History of the Enigma (Kac's transgenic Petunia exhibit from 2009)
Making Edunia
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Our Official Blog : Political Dissent, Speech Acts and the New School Milieu
Posted by horatio on Monday, October 05, 2009 (01:18:28) (126 reads)
An Open Letter to the New School
10.2.09
As many people at the New School are likely now aware, student protests at a Milano public forum on Homeland Security, where Tom Ridge was the featured guest, have sparked considerable controversy around issues of freedom of speech and political protest. This is a controversy deeply entwined with not only the history and legacy of the New School, but also with the current campus climate and administration of the school. Some of the questions that have emerged so far include:
~ Were students justified in protesting the appearance of Tom Ridge at the New School?
~ Were the specific tactics used to disrupt the Tom Ridge event appropriate?
~ What standards does the community use to judge what is "appropriate" or "inappropriate" actions?
~ Are all forms of protest equally legitimate and protected?
~ What is the relationship between the protection of free speech on campus and the creation of a safe space for academic discussion and debate?
~ Should the university only invite individuals to speak whose values or politics we agree with?
~ What exactly are the core values and the mission of the New School today, and how do they relate to our historical legacy as an institution?
~ Does the university community have an affirmative obligation to condemn actions which pose a potential threat to free speech at the New School?
~ Can issues of political dissent be separated from the political critique being offered by those acts?
These are all very important questions which the university is now grappling with, but which I believe we as a community are not adequately discussing. With that being said, I believe the academic community at the New School has an obligation to engage with these issues in a constructive and timely manner—one which does justice to our political views and positions as individual members—as well as our philosophical obligation as the embodiment or living spirit that defines the New School. We must demonstrate the value of theory and practice in a unified manner in and out of the classroom.
In an attempt to do just that, I offer the following reflections to the New School community. First, by addressing the underlying political issues as I understand them and as I see them relating to the specific issue of Tom Ridge speaking at the New School. Second, by framing the issues of political dissent and free speech in both a very grounded New School context, as well as a larger philosophical context. And finally, by trying to suggest the interconnections between the first and seconds parts, and their immediate ramifications for our school.
Continued in Read More link below...
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Supreme Courts and Objectivity
Posted by horatio on Sunday, June 07, 2009 (02:18:18) (93 reads)
On the Sotomeyer question... reflections to follow.
Q: Initial thought: When has there ever been an "objective" Supreme Court Justice that was not influenced by "his or her social, political or religious views"? and since when has the court ever had a "judge that objectively applies the law to the facts?"
A: to follow...
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Dear Diary : Help me throw 5 million tomatoes at AIG!
Posted by horatio on Friday, March 20, 2009 (20:01:19) (82 reads)
Yeah, I'm not normally a big fan of forwards and whatnot, but this one actually was worth the time. MoveOn, that pseudo-leftist group we all hate to love or love to hate--take your pick--has a campaign about the AIG bullshit that has been happening with our--yes our--tax money thanks to Congress (who elected these idiots?) and President Obama (see, I told you so!). Anyway, the details are irrelevant at this point as so much money has been thrown into this balck hole that the best option sounds like a public takeover of the entire building and, while we're at it, why not the homes of these CEOs too?
So if you feel like throwing some virtual tomatoes at AIG, here's your chance.
The people at AIG who are most responsible for the severity of the financial crisis should be in jail. But instead, they're slated to get $450 million in bonuses. Infuriating, right?
So a MoveOn member created a game to show just how mad Americans are at AIG. It's called The Great AIG Tomato Toss and it's based on the idea that we should stop throwing money at the people who ruined our economy—and start throwing tomatoes.
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Our Official Blog : Adding fuel to the fire
Posted by horatio on Monday, December 15, 2008 (23:12:45) (93 reads)
Well it looks like things are heating up on the New School student front. Too bad it just started at the end of the semester. Well, the faculty is pretty much in agreement they don't like Kerrey, and there is a growing body of students that seem to feel the same way. There will be a whole bunch happening this week on campus, student and faculty-wise, so it should be really interesting to see what happens.
Keep you ears and eyes peeled...
And you can sign the no-confidence in Bob Kerrey petition here...
Here's one or two recent articles on this whole mess:
Chronicle of Higher Ed.
NY Times on Kerrey no confidence vote
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Our Official Blog : New School Faculty Resolution - Vote of No Confidence
Posted by horatio on Friday, December 12, 2008 (03:49:57) (101 reads)
Summary of the results of the emergency meeting of New School senior faculty, held on December 10, 2008, from 2:00 – 4:00.
In order to discuss, and respond to, the current crisis at the University, the co-chairs of the Faculty Senate called an emergency meeting of the University’s senior faculty. Due to concerns of some faculty about employment security, the chairs invited only tenured and extended-employment faculty from all divisions. A few additional senior faculty chose to attend as well.
Seventy-seven faculty members were in attendance at the start of the meeting. As the meeting went on, some faculty had to leave to teach, so that by the end of the meeting there were fifty-nine senior faculty.
Thirty-five senior faculty members came from Parsons; twenty-four came from the New School for Social Research; six from Milano; five from Lang; and five from the New School for General Studies.
The senior faculty discussed and voted on a total of five motions, the first two by secret ballot, the last three by a show of hands.
Submitted by Jim Miller and David Howell, senior co-chairs of the Faculty Senate.
First motion
The senior faculty lacks confidence in the leadership of Bob Kerrey.
Vote: 74 in favor, 2 against, 1 abstention
Second motion
The senior faculty lacks confidence in the leadership of James Murtha.
Vote: 67 in favor, 0 against, 1 abstention
Third motion
Statement of concerns
The Senior Faculty lacks confidence in President Bob Kerrey and Executive Vice President James Murtha.
We can no longer tolerate the constant turnover of provosts – five provosts since the appointment of President Kerrey in 2001.
This turnover has made it virtually impossible for the faculty to be properly involved in thoughtful and effective academic planning; for our staffs to provide proper and consistent academic services; and for the Deans and faculty to help the Provost develop University-wide employment systems that appoint, review and promote faculty in a timely and fair manner.
There is a widespread perception that the President has allowed the Executive Vice President to frustrate and sometimes sabotage many of the academic initiatives of the Provost, Deans and faculty, as a result of which there has been a substantial reduction in the effectiveness and efficiency of all those directly involved with academic affairs.
Besides such costs, we also fear that the reputation of The New School is at risk, as is our continuing ability to recruit and retain the best candidates for top academic positions, and our future ability to recruit and retain students.
We are appalled by the abrupt and unexplained dismissal of Provost Joe Westphal, who represented a welcome transition towards better academic leadership and a greater openness in shared governance with the Deans and faculty. We reject the appropriateness of President Kerrey unilaterally appointing himself the acting Chief Academic Officer of the University for an interim period that is likely to last months if not years. In both cases, there has been no reason given why there was no prior consultation with Deans, the Faculty Senate, or senior faculty.
These events appear to be part of a larger pattern, characterized by unilateral, impulsive, and sometimes secret decision-making, concentrating power in the hands of the President and Executive Vice President, without due deliberation or proper consultation with Deans and Faculty.
The founders of the New School hoped to foster democratic ideals of governance and open inquiry. It is ironic, and deeply troubling, that Bob Kerrey and James Murtha have governed the University in a way that subverts one of its constitutive ideals.
Vote: 65 in favor, 1 abstention.
Fourth motion
The senior faculty has full confidence in all the Deans.
Vote: 65 in favor, 0 against
Fifth resolution
Given the exceptional nature of the votes we have taken today, the senior faculty strongly recommend that the divisional Deans be allowed to meet with a sub-committee of the Board of Trustees and select faculty, in order to help develop a plan for the University as it moves forward.
Vote: 59 in favor, 0 against.
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Our Official Blog : Why the Debate Wasn't but Should Have Been
Posted by horatio on Saturday, September 27, 2008 (17:31:08) (217 reads)
Well, the first Presidential debates are now over, and the outcome seems quit clear. Simply put, this was one of the most worthless debates I have ever seen, not to mention one of the most boring. Not only did both candidates put out numerous positions that make me more hostile to them, but they showed, at least by my standards, why neither of them is ready to be President.
This mockery of a debate looked more like a prep school sparring match with two fighters who don't know how to draw blood or hit a mark, than it did a top level elite political and intellectual debate. Jim Lehrer, the host, was also pathetic and a terrible moderator, never once pushing the candidates with hard questions or cornering redirects, as a good moderator needs to do at this level of debate. I kept thinking to myself, why isn't John Stewart or Ellen DeGeneres or Amy Goodman or somebody vaguely interesting and provocative moderating and forcing them to deal with real issues and not talking points.
So let me offer a few concrete examples of problems, and how they should have been addressed, in my view. And for the sake of my liberal friends, I'll argue as an Obama supporter and trying to make his position stronger (but for the record I don't support either candidate). Let me run through a few key areas that I think he needed to hit on, or respond to, that were totally missed and wasted.
--Venezuela
This was a huge negative for me when he called Venezuela a rogue regime, and reflects the exact 20th century mentality that both candidates were criticizing in relation to Russia and the Cold War. Venezuela is only a rogue regime if you define US interests in purely capitalist and hegemonic terms, and by using and supporting that frame, Obama showed he is exactly the same as McCain and no friend to the American Left or those interested in a stronger and more vibrant Latin America. Many in the American and international “Left” (I use that hesitantly, since the US “Left” is mostly non-existent) are largely supportive of Chavez and his efforts in Venezuela, as well as neighboring leftist movements in Latin America. Sure, it's not all candy and roses, but it's new and potentially transformative in its implications for future continental politics in the Americas, not to mention shifting power into a “multipolar” world, which we desperately need right now as a counterweight to US hegemony. For Obama to attack Chavez and Venezuela as a rogue nation only serves the interests of militarist neocon strategists in Washington who want to keep American in a war-first mode indefinitely.
--The War on Terrorism
This is one issue both candidates seem to miss the point on, and I think Obama could actually hurt McCain on if he was strategic with his points. Here's the take home message: no one will “win” the war on terrorism because you can't win a war that has no fixed enemy, no fixed resources, and no capital to conquer and control. In short, the best you can hope for is destabilizing the support base that allows the terrorist movements to continue to grow and thrive, thus minimizing their effects. You can go back in history thousands of years and find what would likely be called acts of terrorism by today's standards, and we will continue to see them as long as there are people alive on this planet. That's just reality. So if Obama really wanted to show his tactical/strategic knowledges and nuances, here's what he should be saying when they debate Iraq or Afghanistan or the larger War on Terrorism: “Look Jon, or Tom or Jim, whatever your name is, I think your comment about winning the war against terrorism is the exact problem. We're not going to win an asymmetrical conflict by waging a symmetrical war against an enemy that is dispersed and diffuse, and operates across the entire globe. It's just nonsense. Yet this logic of yours has allowed for the continued occupation of Iraq, the failures both there and in Afghanistan, and the continued rubric of fighting terrorism to the tune of billions of tax-payer dollars. And what have we got? An Iraq that is more unstable than it has been in the last century; an Afghanistan that is arguably worse than the height of the US-Russian proxy wars; an international insurgency that is far more powerful than it ever was before 2001; major human suffering and displacement in Iraq and Afghanistan; major human rights violations by both Coalition soldiers and armed insurgents. This is not how you win a war on terrorism John, this is how you make them.”
If Obama said something like that, I think millions of Americans (not to mention the world community) would jump out of their seats and start cheering and yelling Amen! Sure, McCain would respond that such a view is childish and dangerous (just as he did to Obama's militarist view of fighting the war on terror in the debate), would be tantamount to letting the terrorist win, and shows exactly why Obama is not fit to be the President/Commander in Chief. And here is where Obama could really hit him back hard.
“No John, I'm afraid it's you who just don't get it. Our reckless militarism over the last few decades is a central reason that many people hate this country, and is one of the central reasons that fighting more wars, occupying more countries, is making the problem worse not better. The time of US military domination has to end, and the return of American soft power, of global moral leadership not global policing, is on the horizon. If we truly want to make America, the world, safer, we must learn to put the stick down and remember how to extent our hands instead of our guns around the world. And frankly John, your from a generation that refuses to let go of that Cold War militarist mentality, and that's a major difference between us. You see force as the first option, not the last, and the American people, the world in fact, is tired of that approach because it isn't working, it hasn't worked. It must change, and that is exactly what I plan to do when I'm President of the United States.”
--The Economy
This was an area that I was especially disgusted with, because it really shows the class bias of both candidates, elite through and through. Seriously, we're looking at major financial collapse in this country, perhaps on the scale of the Great Depression or worse, the economy is in shambles, wages are dropping and costs are rising, and here are McCain and Obama debating cutting 18 million in por-barrel spending? And wen asked what they would change, they both said nothing at first, and Obama again and again. Sadly, this just confirms for me how out of touch these candidates are with the real American reality, the one that I see and live every day, where worrying about my economic stability is measured in the hundreds of dollars in my bank, not the millions in my investment portfolio. But if Obama were going to really try and hit McCain on this, he blew what I think was his biggest opening ever last night. When Jim Lehrer asked them for the third time how the fiscal crisis would impact their spending, and what they would do, McCain proposed freezing all spending except Defense. Here's his exact quote:
“How about a spending freeze on everything but defense, veteran affairs and entitlement programs.”
Now if Obama were really on his game, he would have gutted McCain like a fat hog for that comment, perhaps saying something like this:
“I'm really appalled at that suggestion John. Freeze everything but Defense and entitlement spending? Right now we're spending over $600 billion alone in DoD and related areas, more than 20% of the entire 2008 budget, yet we're only spending about $60 billion, or 2% of the budget, on something as critical as American public education. To think that in a time like this, when the country is in a major financial crisis, caused in part by the massive costs in Iraq, that you want to freeze everything except the single most costly endeavor? A majority of the American public has shown it wants us out, and have pointed to the costs as a major factor for them, and now we're talking about how to deal with this very financial crisis and your solution is to continue the most expensive part of that problem? It makes no sense at all John, and the American people can clearly see that, and they want it stopped, want the money to stop flowing out like oil from a sinking ship, and yet you want to freeze everything but that. I think that really shows how out of touch you are with the American public, with the average American, to suggest that a solution to our financial crisis is to keep funding the DoD, a major source of the spiraling US debt. It's insane John, it really is. And I know exactly what you're response is, that this would hurt our troops, out them in danger, and will let the terrorists win, but I've already show how that logic is false, how we need to move out of that Cold War mentality.”
Something like that would, I think, really put McCain on the defensive and would force him to go back to his only real area of retreat, which would be to attack Obama for cutting funding to the troops and letting the terrorists win, which Obama has already preempted and essentially left McCain looking like that is all he can talk about, which is in fact largely true. It's either his maverick experience in Congress or his military credentials, that's what McCain always goes back to when he's unsure what to say. Just look at how much time McCain spent talking about the military in the debate, even though most of it had nothing to do with the actual issues. It was all feel good fluffy, hey look at my bracelet pandering. And Obama, and Lehrer, let him get away with it.
But the biggest problem is that neither of them gave any serious response to the economic problems, never acknowledged it was that serious, and showed no sign at all of having seriously thought out what it would mean to their presidency from a big picture perspective, which is really scary!
There are other areas I could go into, but that gives a sense of some areas that really need to be looked at closer by Obama, and which should have really driven this debate, at least in my mind, but it seems that either Obama just isn't there, or his party isn't there, I'm not sure which. Either way, it could have been a good chance for him to really go after McCain, and he didn't. And I think it will cost him.
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Our Official Blog : Stock Market protests in NYC
Posted by horatio on Friday, September 26, 2008 (14:43:46) (94 reads)
Well, I wasn't able to make it yesterday down to Wall Street, but there was a descent-sized protest (actually pretty small if you consider the amount of money and people this will impact). From the looks of it, there wasn't anything major going on event-wise there, although it was clear there was some street theatre and also Billionaires for Bush (McCain)? folks there. This is one of those hard situations where I imagine a lot of people are feeling like, shit, what can I do about this. And rightly so, but that shouldn't stop us from thinking creatively about how to try and deal with these situations. Here's a photo from the rally, and more are available at the link.
WBCS Protest Photo Gallery
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