The “importance” of Mike Diana? Not?
I saw a review of a zine “book” that caught my eye.
It was Fred Wright’s 48-pg master’s thesis “On Parade: A Psychoanalyitc
Analysis of the Zine Revolution”. —Owen Thomas reviewed it in his
nicely done review zine “Indy Unleashed #4”.
The final chapter 3 “The Effects of Zines on Readers and Society” closes
with a discussion of “the most important testament to the potential power
of zines”, the Mike D trial.
So the notion is that if you draw enuf cartoons of baby-mutilation (and
then some) that someone might eventually toss you in jail: that shows the
power of zines???
I would say the only time a zine could be shown to have power is if
it has a message and its message inspires change. The backlash
might or might not include jail. (The lady from around her–Midland–who
stopped both the local nuke plant and Dow never went to jail.)
It goes without saying that the only power we’re interested in zines having
is positive. —It’s as easy as falling off a log for anything
to be used negatively. To be persuasive. We’re instead looking for
testimonials to awakening.
Possibly Mike D needed public rescue from the System, but maybe only
because he was pitiful. But maybe I’m missing the Mike D
message. It seems like he was just enjoying the pain of wallowing in
shock, an entirely corrupting ever more popular S&M habit.
But maybe he was actually using full-on irony to wake up the world
into saving the children? The world uses the Total Lie to rule.
So obviously the antidote is Total Truth. But maybe that
kind of reading gives Mike more credit than he deserves?
Baby Sue seems to (ALSO?) have gone overboard by exposing pain then
wallowing in it to get contempuous pleasure. NO ATTEMPT TO GO BEYOND
PAIN. No rescue, no remedy. I am gravely suspicious of anyone who
elects to stay down. I.e., it easily becomes more of the same S&M
buloney. Cynical pleasure. Outright pleasure from pain.
It’s catching. It gets out of control? Selling pain is as easy as pie.
A growth market. The burgeoning S&M crowd thinks its time
has come, that it’s onto something new, safe and healthy. Ha.
The power of power is no surprise.
