As an artist and a progressive, I share the pain Sigurd. But the progressive left was wrong to put all it's eggs in the Kerry Republicrat basket, and the Moores, the Chomskys, and the Tim Robbins/Susan Sarandons of the world are going to have to look and the mirror this morning and live with the humiliation of having egg all over their faces.

But it is a painful process, to be sure. They are all good people, who let their extreme emotional hatred of the enemy override their intellects. Their hatred led to their being extremely bound to the energies of the people they hated too much.

Had they stopped mourning Al Gore's loss in 2000 and organized a progressive left that demanded concessions from the Democratic party this year instead of acquiescing and capitulating to it, I honestly do believe the outcome of this election would have been different. The progressive left that the Kerry campaign and the Democratic party thumbed it's nose at this year--especially it's own anti-war grassroots faction--just plain didn't come out to support the Michael Moores and the Noam Chomskys and the Tim Robbins faction this year the way they thought the progressives would.

And can anyone blame the progressive left for phoning it in this year, considering the way the Democrats demonized the left for resisting the party's extreme moves to the right under Clinton (ie the Battle of Seattle, the fight against Clinton's welfare reform, the fights to oust the union big boys old guard factions and union corruption, etc.), the exteme polarization of the left over Nader's run for the presidency in 2000, and the anger at the progressive left for staging such a huge demonstration outside the Dem National Convention in 2000?

The Democratic party won, hands down. They beat back the progressive left in the wake of the 2000 election, no doubt about it. Even when the progressive left around the world poured into the streets to support the US anti-war movement, the Democratic party sold us out to the Republicratic wing of the corrupt Democratic party and the highest bidders this election year: Citigroup, UBS Financial Services, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

And this reality is very painful for artists. Despite the fact that the marketing research has conclusively demonstrated for well over a decade, that the most economically successful US cities all have one thing in common: strong support for the arts and for artists (I'm lucky enough to live in an artist coop in my city), you haven't seen any political support for arts and the artists since pre-Reagan years.

Now, a lot of us cultural creative, progressive left sorts of artists blame that on the rise of the 501(c) or the non-profit industry, which steals dollars from artists big time to pay for their administrative costs, the same way they have done with the Washington environmental lobby, led by the Republicrats whom Kerry led to this disastrous loss this election year.

Some of us believe those cushy environmental and arts lobbyist 501 non-profits created an industry for their academic wing, which is over-educated, over-funded, and who have led the capitulate and compromise move to the right of the Democratic party in the post-Vietnam years. Those people and organizations sold out the folk, big time, especially the artists and activists doing the work on the ground, out in the trenches beyond the Beltway.

Time to pull the rug out from under the Beltway Republicrat Volvo wagon train that the Michael Moores and the Noam Chomskys of the world epitomize, decentralize the progressive movement, and get the money back outside the Beltway political class' pockets, and back into the pockets of the truly progressive grassroots movement. PLEASE STOP SUPPORTING THOSE ORGANIZATIONS!!!

I mean, c'mon. Aren't you tired of paying for their cars that cost more than your house, and their arrogance exhibited in their inflated academic standing that gets them six figure salaries to send their kids to the best boarding schools and European universities their money can buy?

I know whereof I speak, because I have a good number of family and friends working for the sell out class in DC and it's environs. They've made a lot of money, lived a very nice upper middle class life style, and looked down their noses at the rest of the nation, including and especially non-mainstream media artists, as they "compromised" with the devils in DC and gave away our children's and our grandchildren's futures, so that their children might thrive in private schools and inherit their stolen wealth.