Where have all the liberals gone? We artists need you lefties, because Columbine has changed the political landscape and that, sadly has affected the artistic landscape and there are people out there, not only those right-wingers, who want to shut down free speech.

Because the right has learned a valuable lesson -- if they don't want guns to be scapegoated as the cause of crime and violence, they have to offer an alternative. They've chosen Hollywood. Now, aside from Ronald Reagan, John Wayne, Chuck Norris, Charlton Heston (now president of the National Rifle Association), and a handful of right-wing actors, the right wing has always hated Hollywood. About the time that Sinatra and the Rat Pack helped get Jack Kennedy elected, the right wing realized that those binge drinking, drug taking loonies on the left coast don't like them very much. But they could never do much about Hollywood, because of that pesky first amendment.

Then a crisis happened. Some kids shot up a school. A crises is a great time to eliminate and restrict rights. Abraham Lincoln suspended the right of habeas corpus (the right to know what you're being charged with when you're arrested) during the Civil War crises. The right wing has been looking for a crises which would help take down Hollywood and reign in the first amendment for years.

Remember the anti-flag burning amendment? The right wing wanted flag burning taken out of the "freedom of expression" category and thrown into the "criminal acts" pile. Fortunately, that keeps getting killed, though some zealots still try to resurrect it every now and then.

Since Columbine, the right wing, supposedly the group of people who believe in "personal responsibility" the group of people who you would expect to say, "playing violent video games and watching movies doesn't cause murder" have decided to clean up Hollywood. They're being helped by a litigious culture who have: a) successfully sued Jenny Jones for putting a freak on TV and telling him that a guy had a crush on him (the freak killed the gay guy and the gay guy's family won a $25 million suit which will never stand up to appeal) b) sued Oliver Stone for Natural Born Killers because some grocery store clerk got shot in a manner no unlike one of the murders in the film and c) keep suing Jerry Springer for televising fights which would be illegal if they were on a street corner.

Yes, Jenny Jones sucks and Jerry Springer is moronic. The Chicago Police are suing Springer, by the way, saying that technically, under the law, his guests should be arrested when they throw down. Springer's rather intelligent response was (paraphrase), "Go arrest the Chicago Blackhawks next time they get in a brawl and then come bug me."

In the Juvenile Crime Bill, Senators have buried legislation which would direct the National Institute of Health to look into the affects of movie violence on youngsters, create a commission, with subpoena powers, to investigate the creation of violent movies, and the restrict the use of federal land for filming violent movies. Those measures passed, by the way, even though they have nothing to do with preventing juvenile crime. I’m a bit worried that some congressional panel should have the right to subpoena artists and make them explain their work. I'm a little worried that the NIH study might become fodder for new regulations on movie content (scientists should never tell artists what to do) and I think it's bull that I can't film whatever I want on public land (which supposedly, is there for public use and I, supposedly am part of the public).

Then Clinton meets with NATO (the National organization of Theatre Owners, that is) and demands that they start carding kids to make sure they don't see the kind of violence that Clinton started in Serbia with the other NATO. You know, there are some R-rated films that teenagers should see. I won't list them here, but if you think about it, I’m sure you can come up with ten R-rated movies which have philosophical, artistic, and historical importance which any educated person should watch. Sometimes, R-rated movies are the best ones out there.

Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers, which the conservatives hate, is actually an excellent satire on media obsession with violence (as is the film Man Bites Dog). You can't spoof that without showing the violence. Its an artistic necessity. There's a context to everything, folks.

Anyhow, I've been looking for support amongst the liberals. The people who are supposed to get frantic about freedom of speech. I’m finding none. The liberal intellectuals are agreeing with the conservatives here. Lefty Ellen Goodman wrote that the ratings aren't enough, that Hollywood needs to "grow up" and manage its content better. Even the liberals are saying that Hollywood is out of control.

ART IS SUPPOSED T0 BE OUT OF CONTROL! Art is beyond Columbine, above the National Institute of Health, and it is more important than ratings systems and juvenile crime bills. It is the breath of our minds and it must not be restricted by passionless intellectuals and government power-mongers.

Michael Maiello is collaborating with author John Gilmore on a completely violent screenplay about Charlie Manson, and he doesn't feel the least bit guilty about it.