For Freedom . . . From Wit?

The last time I saw Brian Park was in the spring of 1997. He was speaking through a bullhorn, heckling a group of Latinos that had come to the Civic Center for a congressional hearing on allegations of voter fraud in the 1996 Bob Dornan-Loretta Sanchez race.

“It’s not about politics,” Park intoned, and for a moment I thought he knew what he was talking about. Unfortunately, he continued speaking: “If you like Mexico so much, you can return. You can always go back. How far do you think you would get if you protested in another country? You’d be shot dead. This is America.” Ignoring for a moment that Park had no idea whether anyone in the crowd was a noncitizen, I was struck more by his arrogance than his ignorance.

Then I found out that Park is the state chairman of Young Americans for Freedom, and it all made perfect sense. YAF members are the Sesame Street of conservative politics--immature, sometimes amusing little scamps who often have no clue how clueless they are.

I’m glad to report today that Park, now 22, has now graduated to more aesthetic pursuits--like art.

Last Saturday, a merry band of YAF pranksters showed up at Bowers Museum and demonstrated again their highly developed sense of political savvy.

Ostensibly there to join local Vietnamese protesters who consider a current exhibit pro-Communist, the YAFers had their own agenda. That agenda, as always, is to beg people to pay attention to them.

On Saturday, the plan was to burn some flags of the Communist government now controlling Vietnam. Having done that in other settings, the YAF needed a new act.

So they sprinkled ashes from the flags and immersed them in a jar of urine. YAF leaders then offered the jar to museum officials as an example of art.

What a bunch of cutups.

The jar idea was rife with double meaning, Park says.

Not only did it contain Commie flag ashes, it also evoked the controversy from several years ago over National Endowment for the Arts funding for a photograph of a crucifix in urine. That photo became a centerpiece of the debate over government funding of what many people considered offensive art.

Anti-communists from the Vietnamese community have picketed Bowers since it first displayed about two weeks ago a traveling exhibit of Vietnamese artwork. The pickets argued that the exhibit legitimizes the Communist regime in Vietnam and almost convinced the museum to make a historic blunder--pulling a painting from the exhibit.

After first saying it would remove the painting, which was nothing more than that of a young woman in a Communist uniform forging steel, the museum came to its senses and said it wouldn’t.

Any thought the jar of urine was over the top, I ask Park. “It was very creative,” he says. “It brings attention to the cause that communism is evil.”

Park assures me the urine was real. “We take our protests seriously,” he says.

Well, sort of.

“We like fighting for freedom and having fun too,” Park says. “That’s our motto. It’s always controversial when funding for the NEA comes out. We thought that was kind of a clever idea to take jabs at both of them--the art world and attacking communism. A lot of people involved with art romanticize communism, and it’s a knock on both worlds.”

See what I mean about clueless.

Museum officials wouldn’t accept the jar, either as artwork or as a jar of urine with ashes in it.

I like campy humor as much as the next guy. My observation of the anti-communists in Orange County, however, is that they aren’t especially campy.

Their anti-communism cause is personal and painful.

“The Vietnamese people got the word that we were going to burn the flag, put the ashes in a jar of urine, and that pretty much got the crowd going,” Park says, proudly.

A dignified protest?

Nobody asked me, but I have some friendly advice for the anti-communists in Little Saigon:

If you want to be taken seriously around here, find some new friends.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers can reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821, by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail at dana.parsons@latimes.com.