The art and science of crybullying
"It's not enough that you tolerate me. You must also silence yourself."
Crybabies are bad. Bullies are worse. Crybullies, who combine the worst aspects of each into one efficient package, are the most insufferable of them all.
Often associated with the social-justice left, there are plenty of crybullies at each end of the political horseshoe. Indeed, a certain former (and possibly, gulp, future) President with the initials DJT might be the Wayne Gretzky of crybullying.
If so, this gaggle of San Francisco (uh oh) artists (uh oh) are at least the Gordie Howes. And their operation, as reported by JTA (and signal-boosted by Elder of Ziyon) is so shameless I actually kind of find myself admiring the grift:
When the inaugural California Jewish Open exhibit opens at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco in June, the gallery walls will have several blank spaces where works of art were supposed to hang.
The spaces will represent the “missing perspectives” of seven self-identified Jewish anti-Zionist artists who withdrew their pieces in a coordinated protest after museum officials said they would not meet several of the artists’ demands.
So the museum refused to accept and acknowledge the perspective of Jews who oppose Zionism and Israel, right?
Um, not exactly. The artists were taken aback by the museum’s devious plan of accepting their paintings for exhibition:
In a statement posted Friday on Instagram, the artists said they responded to the museum’s open call for works “to make visible the existence of anti-zionist Jewish artists in California.” They anticipated that curators would reject their pieces, which included explicitly pro-Palestinian messages such as “Free Palestine.” Several of the artists openly identified as anti-Zionists in their statements. They were surprised when guest curator Elissa Strauss accepted pieces by seven of the artists in the collective.
On March 22, senior curator Heidi Rabben sent an email to all 54 of the accepted artists alerting them to the fact that the exhibit would include politically charged pieces, some of them critical of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, and requesting that they consent to having their pieces “presented in proximity to artwork(s) by other Jewish artists which may convey views and beliefs that conflict with [their] own.”
So the artists promptly shifted gears and decreed that the museum merely showing their work was not enough:
In addition to demanding that CJM divest from pro-Israel funders, the artists sought extraordinary control over their artwork. They requested that the museum amend the terms they agreed to by giving them the ability to modify or withdraw their works from the exhibit at any time, and to have autonomy over wall texts, artists statements and other framing. (In their Instagram statement, the artists wrote that they were concerned about “potential curatorial both ‘sides-ism’” and about the possibility that their pieces would appear next to ones that “grieve Jewish deaths without acknowledging the genocide of Palestinians.”)
Not surprisingly, the museum very politely told them to screw off. So, of course, the artists are now crying about censorship and silencing:
Another example, as if any were needed, that the great divide in 2024 is not between left and right, or Democrat or Republican, or Zionist and anti-Zionist, but between those who acknowledge peoples’ right to hold beliefs opposed to their own, and those who dream of wearing the jackboots.
Speaking of which…
The one belief I share with Posobiec and Walsh is that I’d love nothing more than for each of them to live under their preferred system of government.
Despite having one of the greatest rock-star names of all time, C.J. Snare’s recent passing (at just age 64) didn’t garner the level of attention usually devoted to rock legends’ untimely deaths.
Mind you, calling his band, Firehouse, “rock legends” is probably a stretch. They had a few top 40 hits in the early nineties, but except for pitiful, backwards-looking, overly nostalgic hair-metal enthusiasts - people just like me, in other words - Snare’s passing has been a back-of-the-paper news story at best.
I still love some Firehouse songs (“All She Wrote” is a particular favorite) but I never much cared for the power ballads with which they had their greatest success.
But someone out there appartently liked them a lot, because one of these sappy ballads - “I Live My Life For You” - was a top 40 hit in 1995.
Think about that for a moment. Firehouse belonged to a music genre whose fall from grace in 1992 was almost as dramatic as that of disco in 1980. (“To Be With You” and “Funkytown” were the last-gasp offensives of their respective genres.) Bon Jovi was too big to fail - consider them the hair-band equivalent of Donna Summer - but lesser groups desperately tried to change their sound to keep up with the times.
Not Firehouse. They knew what they were good at, and that everyone would laugh in their faces if they tried to sound like Pearl Jam, and as a result they were able to stay commercially viable a few years longer. Firehouse having a hit in 1995 was like KC and the Sunshine Band having a hit in 1984.
There’s a lesson there about being yourself, staying in your lane, and refusing to pretend you’re something you’re not. Artistic ambition is good, if you really mean it, but desperation moves like singer-songwriter Jewel trying to reinvent herself as a pop princess or the Village People ditching the macho stereotype costumes for “New Romantic” getup inevitably result in career-killing disaster.
C.J. Snare and his band were smart enough to avoid that trap. My condolences to his family and his fans.