Scott Walker/ Justin Bieber mash-up

The bombardment of media and friends inundating me with information, concerns, and experiences with the Wisconsin labor bill and planned parenthood protests has caused me to agonize over another issue: Justin Bieber’s Rolling Stones comments.

While republican Wisconsin governor Scott Walker’s attempt to slash collective bargaining rights from all Wisconsin state employees is appalling, it is, as many have pointed out, pretty much exactly what he said he would do in his campaign.  He spells it out on his website and in many of his campaign videos as seen below:

So why did he get elected?  Maybe because people were busy worrying about abortion, going to hell, and the like.  I know that is a brash, over-generalized comment, but it is really all that is needed to get across the equally simple point I am making.  Here is a video that highlights the use of abortion as a tool and dividing issue used by both parties in the 2010 Wisconsin governor’s election.

These are the issues that elect.  These are the issues that people care about. Why do they care about abortion?

Because Justin Bieber told them to!

Again, gross overstatement and abortion is an important issue.  But when intense moments of government polarization come to such sharp clashes, as with the current protests, recognizing the forces that are leading to such polarization come with extreme urgency.  Justin Bieber taking an anti-abortion stance (and also an evangelical agenda) when he is in a position heavily influence (brainwash) such large populations of very young people is a big fucking deal. I am not trying to make Bieber a bad guy, it is just an event that I can stop thinking about.  Here is a news video that presents a brief, but wide-ranging view of the discourses that are coming out of Bieber’s Rolling Stones remarks:

To conclude my mash-up, I will leave you with this video of the Wisconsin protests. At 0:16 you can see a protester holding a sign with a poster of Bieber and the slogan “Bieber says Hell No!”  What would Bieber say and why does what Bieber says matter?

Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill Protest from Matt Wisniewski on Vimeo.

Justin Bieber talks about abortion, sex, and politics in new Rolling Stone

This post comes as a good follow-up on my post concerning the Justin Bieber “Pray” video.  I think the headlines and the articles below speak for themselves:

Justin Bieber Talks Sex, Politics, Music and Puberty In New ‘Rolling Stone’ Cover Story

Tween evangelist? Justin Bieber film packed with prayer

Justin Bieber Says He’s Pro-Life on Abortion, Wait for Sex: Apparently he wasn’t quite assertive enough for the pro-lifer’s.

A question of empathy: Justin Bieber and the difference between anti-abortion and anti-choice.

While I do think that a clear political agenda is beginning to emerge with force from the Bieber icon, a view presented in the second article, I was swayed by the last article in the Huffington Post to be slightly more understanding and read further into the situation.  Maybe Bieber, still only 16, is just trying to do and say what he thinks it right.

Never the less, the structures of sentimentality surrounding his pop empire and agenda deserve a critical engagement.

Justin Bieber “Pray”

Now I completely ate up the beautiful cheese of pre-teen pop star, Jusin Bieber’s album “My World, 2.0″ in which he expressed, track after track, his undying love for his baby, claiming their hearts and worlds were one.  It was bubblegum pop in its purest form.  That Bieber embraced his icon status and all the hypocrisies that came along with it, even mocking himself (see Saturday Night Live Skit or Funny or Die Skit) garnished a certain level of respect from me.

But his new video, “Pray”, is totally fucked up.  I guess I was ok with him being an authority on something as superficial and ambiguous as love, but this new video gets political in ways that I am not ok with.  Jusin Bieber, social justice super-hot super hero extraordinarire, saving the world.  It seems like he is running for president or something (oh hay Wyclef Jean).  Presenting a facade that Bieber writing this song or his audience listening to it will some how bring about any change is as naive as the facebook meme equating cartoon pictures with the ending of child abuse.  Not to mention the seriously screwy images the video uses to portray some of the “things [that] aint right”.  I think I feel like the multitudes of cuteness and sentimentality employed in this video are manipulative and bad.  I don’t have all of my critical thoughts formulated yet, but maybe putting it in this context will help them along.  Here is the video: