Why Art for Democracy?

In early 2004 I was extremely uneasy with the political situation in the United States. The Bush Administration's policies were hard to reconcile with the ideas I held about America's role in the world. I was worried, I was depressed, but mostly I was just plain mad. I'd been writing letters to Congess and sending donations to all sorts of progessive organizations, but this just didn't feel like enough. I wanted to do more. Then one day my wife and I were sitting in our office and she got an e-mail from her sister. The e-mail was about her sister's friend, an elderly woman also extremely unhappy about Bush's policies. This woman named Sally apparently walked around town, and though hardly crazy, she was constantly muttering "Screw Bush" and other epithets to those of her community willing to listen. One thing Sally had to say really struck me though. It was "Is this how Hitler started?". While this statement seems hyperbolic, I couldn't help but reflect on some of the historical parallels.