let the less-loving one be me

Pardon me as I get all Art and Freedom and Politics on everyone

but this megaupload stuff is getting to me (like everyone else), feelings-wise, and I have a lot of political feelings on the subject and co-optation of politics and etc. And this isn’t really my area of political expertise so if I’ve gotten any of my facts wrong, but let me just —

As anyone who’s been watching US politics for the last ten or twenty years can tell you, politics is now a business. It has always been, but with the advent of new media (namely the proliferation of the television and the internet) the need to outspend the competition is absolutely critical to run a campaign. Which means that politicians have to put up with activists and promises and Comcast in order to win. There’s been a number of legislative changes in that regard which have actually loosened the restrictions on campaign finance. When the Citizens United v. FEC decision came down, I remember sort of staring at the New York Times headline about it with this sense of shock and dismay. I felt like we’d lost something. And I still feel like we do.

But this isn’t about my rather virulent feelings on campaign finance reform and the interference of business in the day to day of the US government. This is a post about access. And I have always felt that the best thing about the internet is access; if there’s information out there, you can presumably get to it; if there’s someone you want to talk to, you can talk to them; if there’s art you want to access, you can get to it no matter your geographical location or economic status. Despite what people might try to suggest, television and movies aren’t mindless consumption; they’re art. Sometimes they’re bad art, but they’re a product of a creative effort, and if that’s not art then I don’t have any clue what it is. There is therefore something incredibly troubling to me about very wealthy organizations who contribute to campaign finance deciding that the priorities of the FBI is to limit access to art. Perhaps that’s too bohemian of me. I can’t say I care.

There’s something painfully appropriate to me about this coming off the back of the Occupy movements, which were undoubtedly some messy, messy politics and overall I’m ishy on it as a subject but I’m sitting here thinking about the rhetoric of a 1% dictating the political priorities of those that govern the 99%. Catchy slogan, tends to stick. But this post is so incredibly correct. These are our priorities. And the manpower that goes into something like the mere creation of SOPA, let alone shutting down websites and indicting those involved, is a giant waste of time. It’s also coded in this language of theft and piracy which I think grossly oversimplifies the situation.

First of all, the people who wanted this legislation already have plenty of money and I can’t imagine they’ll have much greater income from getting rid of stupid megaupload. Second, to prioritize that political agenda over the actual truth of the situation — that a good deal of people who pirate are, you know, students and otherwise people who quite simply cannot afford all the dvd box sets in the world — is completely symptomatic of the current political arena. Third, art should be paid for to support the artists, and all of the artists in question are already well supported by ad agencies and contracts and etc. And finally, this isn’t politics anymore. This is money running the show. And I’m a political scientist, I love politics with every fiber of my being, and this isn’t politics. Not to me. While the more critical amongst us will say that politics and money are the easiest of bedfellows, I’m fundamentally uncomfortable with that essentialist linkage.

Politics doesn’t mean the same thing to every person. In fact, I’d venture that you’d find a different definition of politics for every person you’d ask. Sure, the structural response is easy: politics is the government, the government is politics. But politics is an everyday event; it lives in your grocery store, on your sidewalk, in your house, most certainly at art museums, and also on your television. I can’t even define politics for you as I sit here next to my political science reading, because for me politics is pervasive. But I can tell you what politics isn’t, or at least shouldn’t be, and it should not be a mouthpiece for untethered corporate interests. The unfortunate nature of the current political system in the US is that corporate interests are slowly but surely beginning to run the show to, I’d argue, an unprecedented extent. And that’s not politics. Politics is a discourse and a structural concept, yes, but also politics should be a verb, it’s an act of doing and making life happen for people, and presumably trying to make that life better. Politics is not people with a lot of money getting to decide the priorities of this country. But right now it is. And to be honest, I don’t know how or if we’ll ever make our way out of that.

But the point I’m trying to make is thus: everything is political. Unfortunately for us, dear internet, we aren’t holding any cards. There aren’t even any cards for us to find and grasp between our fingers while gust winds try to blow them away. Some would argue with that statement, and yes, maybe I’m being fatalistic. But this is a matter far beyond the fact that I can no longer access season four of Battlestar Galactica and I’m pissed. This is indicative of a broader trend that I don’t know how to stop. I was watching MSNBC a couple weeks ago and the host was talking about how he wants to get money out of politics. One could only dream. But there’s something so transparently horrible to me about a political movement — and I am now convinced this is indeed a movement, just from people who, unlike us, have all the cards — that is about limiting access. It’s about saying, we’re the victims and we don’t think that people who don’t have sufficient wealth or who don’t live in the United States should have access to our art. So now we’re in a situation where both art and politics are owned by people who should not be defining those things, and I still don’t have any cards.