Now okay…I’m picking on the extreme left here. Not all of the left are this cartoony…but hey…ya know what? That’s true of the right as well despite what television tells you. It’s easy to mock Bush. He’s not an articulate man. He’s a recovering alcoholic. He believes in God. His daughters like to tie one on. Hell…he wasn’t even elected to office. But really come on…do you really believe he’s a Jerry Lewisesque moron? What is being served by reducing Bush and his administration to cartoon characters? (Yes…I realize that Rumsfeld is doing a cartoony Clint Eastwood of late.) These people are not morons and the sooner you come to grips with that, the closer you come back to reality. And please protesters…stop forcing your not-yet-hippie children to carry "War Kills Kids" banners. War kills men too ya know.

In the end, I’m stranded in a hailstorm of confusion spewed forth by the rhetoric of left and right. The task of discovering the cold hard truth becomes that much more difficult. Meantime…oh yeah…well…Hayden recommended that I read the writings of Robert Kaplan. Chomsky calls him a right wing jingo, but don’t believe the hype. Kaplan is a foreign policy writer for the Atlantic Monthly. Two of his recent books are The Coming Anarchy and Warrior Politics. It’s dark stuff, but contrary to what Chomsky says, Kaplan seems to me to be more of a realist. He sees the world as it is and not some ideal that may in fact never be. In short, Kaplan argues that foreign policy and the rest of our social world do not play by the same rules and never have. He points all the way back to the Roman Empire to show endless examples of how foreign policy has always been about shaking ends with one of two evils (ideally the lesser one) and acting out of self-interest. The U.S. is an empire. Naturally, it’s going to act in its own self-interest and do what it must do to protect its assets. Find me a country from the past that hasn’t lived this way? So why all the fuss now? Well…maybe it’s because we (North Americans) are living a very, very comfortable and isolated spectator existence. We think that the peace (9/11 aside) we have was gained by hugs and kisses and diplomacy. Umm…wrongo boyos. Remember them injuns we done slaughtered? Oh…gee…remember dem blacks we enslaved…or maybe you remember World War I or II or the Civil War or how 'bout the American Revolution (an idea inspired by another conflict, the French Revolution)? Any of that ring a bell? Hell…to win sporting events even involves conflict muchacos. From harmony comes discord and discord harmony. That’s the way of the world. I’m not saying it’s how it should be, but rather how it has ALWAYS BEEN.

And This Relates to Animation How?
Still with me? I bet you’re wondering how all this ties in with animation. Well…it’s like this…animation, for my money, continually falls short as a meaningful social art form. Like politics, animation seems dominated by extremes: the ballcap wearing guns ablazin’ bodies a tollin’ kill everyone world of video game animation or the just short of it world of Powerpuff Girls, Justice League and all those violence without effect films I brattled on about last year or any number of phoney baloney films like Spirit, Trumpet of the Swan, Treasure Planet OR (huff huff) on the other side we get the trite preachy wishy-washy let's hug and forget our troubles with a nice cup of Ovaltine (oops...sorry…can't do that…they employ 14 year-old retarded midget giraffes from Kokomo), visions of gee…pick a card any card: Jacques Drouin, Bratislav Pojar, Stormin’ Norman McLaren, Raoul Servais, Paul Driessen, Karen Aqua, Joyce Borenstein, Ishu Patel (Divine Fate…ugh)…and assorted do-gooders (hey…if we can have evildoers, we can sure as hell have Adam West like do-gooders) —- Speaking of which…anyone notice that at least three former Soviet colonies are in the coalition (including Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) — I don’t know if it’s just the nature of animation, the fact that it takes so damn long to do (although that’s increasingly false) or that it’s always been a more personal orientated form of expression….but animation just seems more and more out of touch with the surrounding world. Norstein, Back, Dumala, The Quays, Tilby, Kovalyov, Kucia…the list goes on…are among the leading animators…the voices that, apparently matter, and yet sometimes I think they’re just speaking to themselves. And before you start calling me a fascist…this isn't about the denial or repression of individual expression. It’s about urgency, passion, communication. Where are the outraged animators — either left or right? These be some pretty fucked up times kids...with terrorism fears, Iraq, Korea...and who can even begin to tell what the attack on Iraq is going to lead toward. In these times…hell…most of the time…we turn to culture for some guidance, some suggestions, even comfort…and I can find relevant (past and present) voices in writing, music, live-action, painting (and all those new fangled media arts), but what about animation? I was originally planning to have a look at protest films in animation but ya know what? There aren’t that many and those that do exist are so bloody cloyingly naïve. Where are the voices (past or present — not including propaganda films)? Aside from the ASIFA-East 9/11 project (most of which, unfortunately, included many smug and spoiled "how could this happen to us" responses)…there seems to be nothing out there beyond Flash animations — and even then most of these animators succumb to limitations of caricature.