The Michigan Daily-Wednesday, July 23, 1980-Page 15
BAD AR T MAY POISON MINDS
Beware: Art Fair Soviet plot

By JOSHUA M. PECK
The witch hunters of Salem. Joe Mc-
Carthy. Tricky Dick and his enemies
list. The substance that fueled these
grand American endeavors was not
Christianity, patriotism, or
pragmatism; as their practitioners
would have had us believe. It was a
human quality older and more per-
vasive than any of these. It was
paranoia.
The time has come for the paranoids
in puiblic life to come out of their
barricaded little closets. The paranoid
understanding of the world's workings,
after all, is older than any of the current
mainstream theories. Furthermore,
paranoia provides better explanations
for many current events than does any
other world view.
THE EXTREME LEFT insists
Americans are the subjects of ex-
ploitation by a cabal of cigar-smoking,
greedily leering business executives
whose idea of the American dream is a
nightmare.
The far right envisions a vicious tribe
of blacks, Hispanics, and others who
call themselves "victims" conniving to
steal by legislation what the silent
majority has earned by honest labor.
BESIDES THE EVIDENT short-
sightedness of each of these views, they
simply do not cover all the bases. The
coven of businessmen could not
- possibly be behind many of the ills
which afflict the Ralph Naders and the
Teddy Kennedys. Neither could the
huddled masses be responsible for all
* the erosion of the right's values.
That's the beauty of paranoid
politics. It can explain anything. And
paranoids don't really need to research
their views. If it's a given that
somebody's out to get us, what further
documentation do you need?
All of this is but prologue to a con-
clusion I have reached after enduring
three years of the Art Fair-a con-
slusion for which I am indebted to
paranoid politics. It is simply this: The
Ann Arbor Art Fair is a communist
plot. The whole festival is nothing more
than a Bolshevik attempt to subvert
many of the freedoms and spiritual
values we hold dearest.
EVEN IF OUR vacillating comman-
der-in-chief had not allowed our in-
telligence services to become weak, it
would be difficult to get any of the
details of the Bolshevik treachery.
I.

Their plans would be worthless without
the total cloaking of each and every
step.
The Soviet monsters realize, better
even than American natives, that
Americans' economic freedom ig the
core of their civil liberties. The less
money we have to spend as wO choose,
the more restricted are our options in
funding welfare programs, the arts,

Brezhnev will not need to invade-his
favorite candidate will be cheerfully
elected by zombies who were once
rational Americans.
THESE ARE GRAND designs the
Russians have, and it may take years of
coming up with new variations on pull-
tab earrings and balsa flowers before
these profound psychological changes
begin to take root. For that reason, the

The Ann Arbor Art Fair is a com-
munist plot. The whole festival is
nothing more than a Bolshevik attempt
to subvert many of the freedoms and
spiritual values we hold dearest.

enough to eat is one of our most
remarkable achievements.
THE CORE OF our general wealth is
our greatest asset: love of our fellow
man. But now, the Bolsheviks scheme,
can we continue to feel compassion for
each other when we are packed ten to
the square foot into an unsuitable city
during the hottest stretch of the year.
The Soviet will capitalize on human
weakness as they always have, turning
the stink of sweat into disrespect or
disregard for each other, and even-
tually into a commie dictatorship.
Khrushchev wasn't kidding when he
banged his shoe on that defenseless
American table, or when he promised
that our grandchildren would be his
subjects. But the Russians are too griz-
zled and too wise to fulfill their designs
with bombs, or even with tactics as
gross as propagandizing. It is the Art
Fair, that glittery bit of "Americana,"
that will prove to be the beginning of the
end. Parents, protect your children.
Keep them away from this, the Moscow
of the Midwest.
Joshua M. Peck is The Daily's
fall editorial co-director and a rav-"
ing lunatic.
Don't
k'pass up j
yourehanee.
Help prevent
~birth defectsd -
MRHN. E
~wI

md other projects that might enhance
:he quality of American life.
What cleverer path could there be for
ahe Kremlin clique to follow than to
assemble a vast collection of diverse
creations, horribly overprice them, and
yet see to it that they appeal to the
largest, basest cross-section of tax-
payers' art-starved tastes?
I CAN JUST imagine the rotund sep-
tugenarians of the Politburo gleefully
rubbing their hands as they imagine
American dollars going toward trash
instead of toward bettering their lives
or environments.
There are subtler items on the Soviet
agenda that could serve to facilitate
eventual invasion, The Soviets are the
inheritors of a vast wealth of great art,
handed down from countless geniuses
including Pushkin, Tolstoy, Moussgor-
sky, Tchaikovsky, and more recently,
Makarova and Nureyev. Surely the
Russkies understand that the arts at
their best enliven the human intellect,
and prime human- abilities to
distinguish between what is beautiful
and ugly, good and evil, and true and
false.
As Ann Arborites, and by a ripple ef-
fect the rest of the country, begin to
submit to the tyranny of the Fair's
dismal offerings, creations that ruly
deserve to be qalled art will be neglec-
ted. Our intellectual resources will suf-
fer and our judgment will wither.

Bolshevik plotters have back-up plans
that will work quite effectively in the
short term.
Americans will have a difficult time
fighting foreign domination if they are
incapacitated -by severe gastric
distress, diarrhea, or any of the other
lovely maladies that usually afflict con-
sumers of slop for sale as food. Just
think of a sizable proportion of the
American populace made so sick by
stinking souvlaki andputrid pizza that
they cannot take arms against an
aspiring president-ski. The prospect is
truly frightening.
One of the things many Americana
are proudest of is the nation's standard
of living, high among the world's states
even as our economic woes loom larger.
Indeed, the fact that even the poorest
Americans seem to be able to find
A ,

t
Dr. Bop and the-Headliners will entertain at the Second
Chance with fun for all ages. They will be singing. oldies and
rock and roll from July 24th through the 27th.


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