HoPe DoPe

Before the people realized that behind the “most transparent administration ever” there was nothing but double seasonal adjustments, drones and an impenetrable layer of propaganda and lies, there was…

And change, of course.

Sadly, at some point over the past six years the hope died, first for the people (if not the bankers), and then for the creator of the infamous “Hope” poster himself, Shepard Fairey who told Esquire magazine in an interview that Obama has not come even close to embodying the break with the past administration that Fairey and so many voters hoped he would.

“I mean, drones and domestic spying are the last things I would have thought [he’d support].”

But support them he did while crushing the much promised transparency and freedom for the masses, for one simple reason: money, the same reason why Fairey is almost willing to give Obama a pass, again. Money, and of course, power and control of the masses by the select few.

Still, the confused artist still isn’t fully ready to throw away all his idealism just yet:

I’ve met Obama a few times, and I think Obama’s a quality human being, but I think that he finds himself in a position where your actions are largely dictated by things out of your control.

A “quality human being” he may be, but when it comes to personal motives, money always wins. Just ask the Clinton Foundation. Even Fairey, who says he “agrees with Hilary on most issues” finally grasps that now:

… campaign finance structure makes me very angry, because it means that politicians are going to have to raise a huge amount of money, which narrows the field dramatically. There are only certain kinds of people that either have the preexisting resources or the willingness to work in way that will get them a lot of money from donors. That narrows the field right there. Then there’s the idea that the people who you are going to have to listen to are the people that are going to give you the biggest donation. That means lobbyists, special interest groups, and corporations are going to have politicians eager, disproportionally.

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He adds: “I’m not giving him a pass for not being more courageous, but I do think the entire system needs an overhaul and taking money out of politics would be a really good first step.”

A systemic overhaul by whom? The same politicians who are nothing but “whores” to corporate lobby interests?

Or maybe the infamous artist should just blame the American public for agreeing to be swindled and manipulated by one liar after another, all of whom promise change yet end up merely perpetuating the broken, corrupt system they inherit from their predecessor and make it even worse.

Actually, that’s precisely what Fairey did. This is what he told Esquire:

We also need a public that isn’t so uneducated and complacent. I hate to say Americans are ignorant and lazy, but a lot of them are ignorant and lazy.… When you live in a place that has a lot of good things that make life easier, it’s easier to take them for granted. But what frustrates me to no end are people who want to blame Obama or blame anything that is something that if they were actually doing anything as simple as voting, it might not be as bad as it is. There’s a lot of finger pointing and very little action and very little research into the dynamics that created the situation that they’re unhappy about.

Actually, about that he’s quite accurate

However his message will be diluted and ignored, and the media will do is what it always does when facing a threat to the status quo: crush the messenger.

And conveniently, Fairey made it very easy for them: after all, and quite amusingly, his Hope poster itself was a fraud.

The artist was recently sentenced to two years of probation and fined $250,000 in 2012 for destroying documents and concealing others in an attempt to hide that he had used an Associated Press photograph as the basis for his “Hope” poster. And even more ironic, as Gawker wrote in 2009, Fairey himself was  “lawsuit happy to artists who ape or parody his stuff.”

Unfortunately, in retrospect Fairey’s story is one of “tidiest little package” summaries of the banana republic status the US, and its leadership, has devolved to.