When ever McCarthyism is mentioned it always seems to  be concentrated on Hollywood and the demonisation of screenwriters, actors and directors. Bad as that was, hidden behind the headlines of the HUAC hearings was the wider ranging damage done to 'creative extremists' in America by the FBI's parallel witch hunt and smear campaign against poets, musicians, composers, teachers, stevedores, lawyers etc etc, for daring to think different. On the blacklists were such greats as Langston Hughes, Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copeland, Dashiell Hammett, Pete Seeger and Paul Robeson.

The FBI doubled the number of their agents between 1946 and 1952 from 3,500 to 7,000.

From Wikipedia ;  "Hoover's extreme sense of the Communist threat and the politically conservative standards of evidence applied by his bureau resulted in thousands of government workers losing their jobs. Due to Hoover's insistence upon keeping the identity of his informers secret, most subjects of loyalty-security reviews were not allowed to cross-examine or know the identities of those who accused them. In many cases they were not even told what they were accused of".  Sounds a bit like the faux courts, the military tribunals imposed on the illegally imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay today.

Curators and gallery owners responded to the climate of fear created by McCarthy and the FBI by denying wall space for American social realist painters like Wedo Georgetti , Ralph Fasanella and Alice Neel to name just three. With the amount of money going into abstract expressionism from the CIA - MOMA was drowning in it! - the gallery owners weren't going to miss out on the largesse such promotion would generate from rich collectors, suffering from cognitive dissonance or not! The artists out of favour then are starting to gain some late though well deserved recognition as figurative painting makes a return to favour.

The marginalisation and suppression of artists wasn't just the prerogative of Stalinism.

Soviet socialist realist and American abstract expressionist art 'movements' were badly flawed. Both had an adverse effect on the American and European social realists and both were what the different establishments thought were 'safe' art which emphasised their respective ideologies, one collectivist and the other individualist. If the Soviets could believe that Rock'n'Roll was decadent then they were extremely prone to making serious political and cultural mistakes and an easy target for criticism. The problem with the Americans is they believed and still seem to believe that abstract expressionism was a freely developed art form from amongst the people for the people. Bollocks. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Now I know Mickey likes anarcho-syndicalism, he advertises the fact on his site , so I would have thought he was aware of the role of a state's secret intelligence apparatus in the cultural wars, unless blinded by their smoke and mirrors. Maybe he thinks the suppression of a 'left' artistic sensibility not agreed with is a good thing - the enemy of my enemy is my friend sort of thing. No. Never!?

In Britain our mainstream visual arts world has been really badly corrupted from the money poured into it by Saatchi after Thatcher declared that the arts would be subject to market forces and cut government funding in the 1980s. A political act of class war on the terrain of art that didn't need direct state intervention by the security services. (Saatchi's advertising firm was a major contributor to Thatcherism's electoral success in 1979 in Britain). The Arts Establishment, seeing money as the determining factor for what is 'good' art followed suit, especially the Royal Academy of Art with it's Sensations exhibition that helped push into the limelight the 'Young British Artists' from the Saatchi collection. A couple of years ago the warehouse containing tons of this stuff (warehoused modern art - what does that signify?!) burned down and took a lot of the work with it. Oops. But most was insured - damn. And probably pushed up the prices of YBA works that weren't kept there - double damn.

The Young British Artists, not so much young anymore, like Hirst, have become very rich producing bland wall hangings for the vacuous mega-rich, those who only see art, like they see other people, as a commodity to be exploited. Criticisms also levelled at Pollock when alive and who was not the dogs-bollocks even then. You mention the names of 'YBAs' to ordinary, well informed people and they just scoff, "Who the fuck are they?" - unlike mentioning Picasso or Goya or Brueghal or Blake . You can accuse me of living in the past if you like, but at least the best of their work had, and still has relevance.

(There are exceptions to this caricature of the YBAs of course - like in everything - and I would include Rachel Whiteread amongst them, especially having had the extraordinary pleasure of accidently coming across her 'House' in situ before it was pulled down by a Neanderthal local authority. Tower Hamlets hang your head in shame.)

The artists promoted and funded by Saatchi, the CIA or the Soviets were at the expense of others more aware of and responsive to the human condition in their political times. The artists who didn't want their blood money of support were marginalised or persecuted.

So if you're still looking for modern day 'creative extremists' Mickey, then some suggestions. The first of which are British - if the Yanquis can claim the liar blair as one of them, then have some artists who create truth.

The great guerilla graffiti/stencil artist Banksy to start. His work at racist Israel's apartheid wall is a must see. You had him in the US a few months ago with an exhibition in LA , scroll down for some stunning stuff. What is that elephant doing in the living room?

Banksy's work follows on from another great British artist - Peter Kennard. Kennard first came to prominence in the 1980s with his photomontage work for CND and the campaign against cruise missiles. His work follows in the footsteps of another great photomontage artist - John Heartfield . Kennard took Constables 'Haywain' and turned it into a launching pad for cruise missiles and in the process made The iconic image for peace.  

Constable 1776-1837, lauded as a great British landscape painter, was painting romantic, chocolate-box pictures during the period of enclosures when great tracks of common land were stolen and handed over to the rich. His paintings ignored/hid the great poverty and pain caused. Constable survived on commissions from the landed gentry and Kennard's use of copies of his work in such a fashion was, to me justified. Which can't be said of the Chapman brothers use of Goya's originals in a shallow imitation of Kennard. YBA's as reactionaries, which is the only view that can be taken of the Chapmans during a time of war.

The latest work from Kennard is quite brilliant and so no further words needed.

Playwrights? Hare is writing against war and for humanity, 'Stuff Happens' has had mixed reviews which is to be expected in a time of war - this ones interesting though. And never, ever forget Pinter. (His Nobel Lecture is a must watch ). British again but there you go.  You have great living poets in America like Marge Piercy and Gil Scott Heron .

You are right Mickey, we do need movements involving masses of people as well as individuals to bring clarity, moral sensibility and direction and, dare I add, leadership for changing the world.

Ever visited YouTube? The cyber-place is full of great stuff that is changing peoples ways of seeing. Ordinary people, mostly young people at play (younger than me anyway, which isn't hard), are taking the creation of art to a new, mass level. Mass in both creation and consumption. They are taking images from the internet and combining them with music, their own and other artists to produce new work that challenges the culture of war so beloved by America's mainstream media. Watch this put to a song by The Zed Jones Unit, or this to a song by Sara Thomsen. I've reposted a lot like it on my site if your interested in watching and listening, or you can go to the music category at YouTube and type 'anti war' in the search field. There are thousands.

The first video I found, not on YouTube but CurrentTV , was the four minute short, 'The Battle for America', directed by Alrick Brown and written by Max Skolnik. It made my hair stand on end.

Just a bit of fun Mickey, I hope you don't take it to personally and by the way, fag is English slang for cigarette. Bell-bottoms indeed.  

If people can't play while making revolution they're not worth making revolution with.