Secretary Rallies Artists

US Department of Art & Technology
http://www.usdept-arttech.net
[email protected]
Washington, DC

Press Secretary
For Immediate Release: March 26, 2003


Secretary Rallies Artists


10:42 A.M. EST
Washington, DC

Randall M. Packer
Secretary, US Department of Art & Technology

THE SECRETARY: Thank you, all. (Applause.) Thank you, all, very much.

I am really proud to be here with the good men and women of the USA
Exquisite Corpse, the artist's call to service. (Applause.)

We're also proud to be here today with our artist friends who have
joined Operation Artistic Freedom. (Applause.) Over the last week the
world has witnessed the skill and honor and resolve of the cultural
community engaged in passionate dialogue and acts of artistic
mediation. We have seen the character of a new generation of artists.
Millions of Americans are proud of our artists, and so am I. I am
honored to be the Secretary-in-Chief. (Applause.)

Every artist in our coalition of the willing understands the terrible
threat we face from our government-in-action. Every artist here
refuses to live in a future of fear, at the mercy of politicians and
the corporate oilgarchy. And every artist here today shares the same
resolve: the only valid experimental approach is one based on the
uncompromising critique of existing conditions and their conscious
intervention.

Our artists are making good progress; yet the war on war is far from
over. We cannot predict the final day, but I can assure you, and I
assure the long-suffering people of America, there will be a day of
reckoning for the President, who has revealed the principles of
arrogance, abuse of power, personal gain and a frightening lack of
charisma, through his contempt for the opinion of the world.

Day by day, George W. Bush is losing his grip on reality; out of fear
of the unknown, pain, and death - the Gods, surfacing from the
immemorial depths of time and space - he has used his lethal weapons
to bring down fire from the heavens, death and destruction that
devours us all.

In the early stages of this war, the world is getting a clearer view
of a terrible and deep anxiety resulting from self-created and deadly
dangers that are growing beyond our control.

Our enemy in this war on war is the existential darkness that has
possessed our government, that grips its soul. (Applause.)

The goal of artistic freedom unites our coalition. And this goal
comes from the deepest convictions of the avant-garde. The artistic
freedom we defend is the right of every artist and the future of our
nation.

The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is the
artist's gift to humanity.

That's what we do. That's our job.

Thank you.

(Applause.).

*******

Contact: Press Secretary of the US Department of Art & Technology
[email protected]

The US Department of Art & Technology
http://www.usdept-arttech.net

The US Department of Art and Technology is the United States
principal conduit for facilitating the artist's need to extend
aesthetic inquiry into the broader culture where ideas become real
action. It also serves the psychological and spiritual well-being of
all Americans by supporting cultural efforts that provide immunity
from the extension of new media technologies into the social sphere.

The Experimental Party
http://www.experimentalparty.org

The Experimental Party - the "party of experimentation" - is an
artist-based political party that has been formed to activate
citizens across the country in an effort to bring the artists'
message to center stage of the political process. This is a political
awakening, 'representation through virtualization' is the major
political thrust of the Experimental Party, it is the driving force.