Banksy is peak redditor. Masquerading as a free-thinking activist who happens to agree with every talking point of the established media and global bureaucratic regime.
> Authorities on Thursday placed safety barriers around the statue as growing crowds of onlookers gathered
The fact that the statue was allowed to stay up means that the authorities approved it. So, Banksy isn't really counterculture, he's government approved counterculture.
Your assumption that government power will invariably be (ab)used to oppress messages the people in government do not like is a dynamic of fascism, not a universal truth.
We aren't talking about a painting in a private gallery, it's a big object in the middle of the street. If it was actually unauthorized it would be removed, even if the British government respected free speech. If artists could actually place at night their works and not be removed, the streets would be blocked due to the number of statues.
This clearly seems to be a sponsored work with typical Banksy marketing, like the work that got half-shredded at its auction.
Regardless of whether the physical placement was authorized or not, my comment still applies regarding the specific content of the message.
Authorization could be done with permits, or just tacitly by the notability of the artist. And while one can kind of do some handwaving and liken the latter dynamic to some mild corruption, that is still nowhere near the level of motivated corruption under fascism. And at this point comments invoking phrases like "established media" and "global bureaucratic regime" have a general thrust of pushing us away from liberal institutions and towards fascism, so I find those appeals quite disingenuous.
It's nonsense. Reactionaries want to continue hamming up the bureaucratic power structure as the worst thing ever, so people won't focus on the fact that the only solution they are bringing to the table is bog standard autocracy. In reality, bureaucracy has been decent at tempering the exercise of authoritarian power and we've taken that for granted, now at our peril.
I mean, sometimes the status quo is just that you can continue breathing. To be blindly for or against something just because it is the status quo is abject stupidity. Sawing at the bough which you rest upon is not something to be proud of.
There's always a response that his work is "anti-establishment", despite it often giving support of the establishment's viewpoints (read: liberal).
The hypocrisy seems lost on his fans/proponents.
Just imagine thinking this piece is somehow anti-establishment / thorn in the side of power, yet it was erected in one of the most surveilled areas in London and he's somehow got away with it?
