Socialism

El Che

Posted by Cranford
El Che

Ernesto Che Guevara was born on June 14, 1928. (My birthday in June 14, 1955.) His early life is documented in the book and movie: The Motorcycle Diaries, about his travels from one end of South America to the other on a motorcycle. This trip was formative in his education as a revolutionary. He became a medical doctor first. In 1955, Fidel Castro’s brother Raul introduced them, and he joined the revolution in Cuba. On June 2, 1959, he married Aleida March. After he witnessed what Dulles’ CIA did to dismantle the popularly elected socialist governments of Guatemala and Honduras, he persuaded Harvard educated Fidel Castro that he would need to maintain a benign dictatorship to resist the dirty tricks and subversion of the American government with their interference in other nations’ elections.Perhaps our chickens are coming home to roost.

In 1965, then he joined the revolution in Kinshasa, Congo. In 1966, he joined the revolution in Bolivia. He was captured by the CIA on October 8, 1967, and summarily executed the next day. So much for human rights and due process and The Geneva Convention.

Che was a passionate man. He was in the fight for love of the people, not for personal gain or some dogmatic or idealized view of proving a point. I am sick to death of the communist, socialist and anarchist groups in the US who are full of history nerds and armchair philosophers who don’t give a damn about anyone but themselves. Che gave his life in service to nations. Because of what he did, thousands, perhaps millions of people were given a shot at life who otherwise would not have done.

“If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine.”

“Let me say, at the risk of seeming ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.” – both by El Che

There was nothing ridiculous about Che’s love for the common people and his passionate struggle to liberate them.

Painting is 24″ x 18″ acrylic on stretched canvas.

Price: $150 plus postage

Email me your name, address and phone number, so we can arrange payment and shipment.

Soulèvement du Prolétariat

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On Tuesday morning, I had a vivid dream that I remembered when I woke up. In my dream I was in a town on a slope much like Manayunk. Someone told me to go to the Catholic Church. I walked a couple of blocks to an old, Romanesque church. When I entered, it was more like a warehouse, no pews, no altar, no windows. There were tables and shelves full of books on the left side of the building. The right side was empty. There were several customers in old, worn clothes, browsing and rooting through the piles and a few shelves of books. An older, portly priest was in charge. Every book I picked up had only drawings in it. I finally chose a hardcover, cloth bound book with this drawing of a worker’s face on the front. It had no words in it. Only action filled, angular drawings filled the tall pages.  The priest saw that I was interested. He told me I could take it for as long as I wanted it; just return it when I was done.

Soulèvement du Prolétariat

So, yesterday, I painted the cover from memory on canvas. In my dream I could see the grain of the fabric. It was off-white and had defects and was smudged. To replicate this, I varnished part of a drop cloth canvas, painted the parts that were brown, titled it in French with my name as the author, then varnished it again. It is of minor importance what language the title is, since there are no words in the book. It is titled Soulèvement du Prolétariat: un roman graphique or Proletariat Uprising: a graphic novel in English.

I pasted it on the wall with clay based paste. It remains water soluble forever. This way I can remove it with warm water without damaging it or the wall. (In case it sells) It is part of my Perkasie Fun-A-Day 2019 project.

Now I just have to draw or paint the story for the pages and get it published.

The painting is acrylic on 15″ x 25.5″ canvas.

Price: $100 reduced to $25 plus postage.

Fill out the form below so we can arrange payment and delivery. I take PayPal, so all credit or debit cards are accepted.

Hope #18 Liberal Education

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Hope #18 Liberal Education

The 18th image of hope in the Fun-A-Day series represents a liberal education. Liberal does not represent a political position. It is the classical meaning of liberating, as in “liberal arts”. As a society, we have trashed these and turned universities into trade schools and turned students into cogs and “human capital”, i.e., wage slaves, in the capitalist system. Corporations fund research in universities to no benefit of students. Students still end up in debt for life, with no recourse, even through bankruptcy. Today, students graduate from Ivy League schools without being able to construct or even properly read a complex English sentence. They pay their money. They get their job tickets. Trump graduated from University of Pennsylvania.

A liberal education doesn’t so much teach someone what to think or give them facts, but teaches them how to think; what questions to ask; how to research to find facts and truth.

Yet there are talented and intelligent people who are not given opportunities because they could not afford to go to college. Appropriate higher education should be available and free to everyone who qualifies for it, if we truly believe in equality, and want to advance as a people, and want to solve humanity’s problems. Degrees should not be job tickets, nor is education limited to institutions. Lincoln never graduated college. He read the law. Pres. Carter was home schooled. He is a nuclear physicist.

The bookshelf is not full. That indicates that those who read, study and learn, will have their own books to write, to add to the “great conversation”, as Mortimer Adler called it. This is our hope for our children and our grandchildren. It has been stifled by the tuition financing system and the wicked bankers and their fascist partners in Congress, in both falsely so-called major parties. They need to go if hope is to survive.

Painting is acrylic on 6″ x 6″ x 1.75″ stretched canvas.

Price: $75 plus postage.

SOLD!

Hope #10 Garden

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Hope #10 Garden

It was sometime in the second half of the 1980s. I was Mennonite Chaplain for Philadelphia Prisons. Duncan Mbogo Wangigi, the head of Regions Beyond Christian Mission was visiting our church. He had some free time. I was assigned to “entertain” him. I had the task of picking up an ex-offender from Phila. House of Corrections to take him to Liberty House, the aftercare house I helped set up in Schwenksville, PA. Duncan headed up the largest African based, Christian mission agency. He was in the US to continue his theological education. I thought this was a colossal mistake. He had finished his course work, so was doing some fundraising work for his mission agency. We drove from Montgomery County down to Center City to pick up Angel from City Hall. He wanted to get his final “Spanish” haircut before he went to the suburbs, so we went to his barber. Then we went to his mom’s house. She treated us to a fine feast. I digress.

Duncan was in shock. He had been touring all over the US and had never seen such sights. He had been in the worst parts of Africa, yet he had never been in such fear as he was with me in that car in Philadelphia. He asked if I had taken him to a different country. I told him that he knew his geography better than that. There were oceans between us and other countries or hours of land travel. He said that even in the poorest parts on Africa, people had a place to grow some vegetables or some grain. Here there was nothing! He said this was this was the worst poverty he had seen. He told me that he was going to tell all the people he would speak to after that, that they were neglecting their own Jerusalem, while helping the regions beyond.

So Hope #10 is to have a garden, to have some measure of food independence.

Painting is acrylic on 8″ x 8″ stretched canvas.

Price: $30 reduced to $10 plus postage

Fill out the form below so we can arrange payment and delivery. I take PayPal, so all credit or debit cards are accepted.

CUDDLE!

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CUDDLE!

I have been searching for ways to use my art to positively respond to the current horror that we face in American governmental breakdown. Each day, there is a new attack; a new round of newspeak. One day it is a congresswoman proudly proclaiming that her vote giving permission to internet service providers to sell all of our browsing histories to whomever wants to buy them “protects your privacy.” The next day, Sean Spicer is giving a grimacing Park Service employee a huge, game-show, donation check for $78,000 (supposedly Trump’s 3 months’ net salary), two days after Trump’s budget cut the Park Service budget by over $1.5 billion. Fact checkers have determined that 69.1% of Trump’s statements are false. One White House reporter said in frustration, “It is hard to know what to think when you can’t tell what Trump means when he uses words.”

Yesterday, I started to paint this portrait of my cat, with a Che Guevara beret. Skittles helps keep me sane. He climbs up onto my left side and cuddles. If things get too intense, he lies on my keyboard. We have matching heart murmurs. He will get in my face and command me to “CUDDLE!” It struck me that this is what America and much of the world needs right now. I can see it now, massive cuddle-ins in front of defense contractors and fracking stations; cuddlers blocking access to United Airlines offices; cuddlers circling the Pentagon; cuddlers on the mall in DC asking for an end to military expansion and for universal healthcare.

“Make Love, not Human Services Cuts!”

HUG O’ WAR

I will not play at tug o’ war.
I’d rather play at hug o’ war,
Where everyone hugs
Instead of tugs,
Where everyone giggles
And everyone giggles
And rolls on the rug,
Where everyone kisses,
And everyone kisses,
And everyone grins,
And everyone cuddles.
And everyone wins.
– Shel Silverstein

Painting is 16″ x 20″ acrylic on stretched canvas.

Price: $300 plus postage

SOLD

Tony

Posted by Cranford
Tony

Anthony McNeal is a dear friend. I don’t know how long ago we met. He was homeless. I was leading The King’s Jubilee, serving meals in center City Philadelphia. Tony managed to go to Philadelphia Community College to receive several certifications in computer use and maintenance. He is also a skilled, bicycle repairman and a cook. He got a job cooking at Tindley Temple UMC‘s kitchen which provided meals a couple of days a week to homeless people. He moved into an apartment with another man who had been homeless, when he got a Section 8 apartment, to share expenses. Tony started to help us serve on the street, when he was still on the street himself, and continued when he moved into the apartment. He was always a cool head to help maintain order and help keep everyone safe. When the city required food safety training, he took the course with me, so he could take charge when I could not make it.

When my health took a turn for the worse, he would come up to our home in Souderton and do the heavy chores that needed doing. Many times, he helped me cook the soup for the street or took over the task entirely, at our house. Sometimes, he brought his uncle, Steven Johnson, to help, as well. Tony has accompanied me to WXPN’s Exponential Music Festival for a few years. He also came with me to Philly Socialists’ retreat in West Virginia a couple of years ago. He is always happier when he is serving, so he pitched in and cooked the whole Labor Day weekend.

Tony is a joy to know. Everyone of our friends and family who has met him, became his friend, too.

A few years ago, Tony invited me to his birthday party at his dad’s house. When we arrived, they were surprised by the fact that I am white. They asked Tony why he failed to mention this. He said, “I forgot. I don’t think of Cranford as white.”

The painting is acrylic on 14″ x 11″ stretched canvas.

Tony is still not happy with me about how I cut off the top of his head in this painting. It communicates his height. I was standing that close when I took his photo in the hallway at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. I also gave him more white hair than he had yet. He is getting there.

SOLD. I gave it to Tony’s daughter and granddaughter.

Marielle Franco

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Marielle Franco

Marielle Franco (27 July 1979 – 14 March 2018) was shot to death, along with her driver, Anderson Pedro Gomes, on March 14 of this year, in her home district, where she served as a city councillor of the Municipal Chamber of Rio de Janeiro for the Socialism and Liberty Party from January 2017 until her death. She had just delivered a speech against police brutality and extrajudicial killings. She died of 3 shots to the head, one to the neck. The bullets used to kill them were Federal bullets. They tried to concoct a story that they had been stolen from a post office facility where they had been stored, but the Post Office would not cooperate with the Federal Government’s false story.

Marielle has been working tirelessly and cheerfully for years for the rights of the poor, ever since a close friend was killed by a stray bullet in 2000. She rose out of the favelas; and went to college and university on scholarships as a single mother. She had a daughter in 1998. She wrote her master’s thesis on taking back the favelas from the gangs. In 2007, she entered politics by working for State Representative Marcelo Freixo. She identified as bi-sexual. On the City Council, she had fought against gender violence and  tried to create a day of lesbian visibility in August 2017. It failed 19-17. She was planning on marrying her long-term partner, Mônica Tereza Benício, in September 2019.

Marielle was politically savvy and knew she needed well placed friends. She became friends with Glenn Greenwald. He listed what he referred to as the “most important subjects to cover” regarding Franco’s assassination stating:
“Her relentless and brave activism against the most lawless police battalions, her opposition to military intervention, and, most threateningly of all, her growing power as a black, gay woman from the favela seeking not to join Brazil’s power structure, but to subvert it.”

The Federal Police sadly proved the truth of Marielle’s last speech by so immediately assassinating her and her driver. But as Medgar Evers said, “You can kill a man, but you cannot kill an idea.” Sadly, in the era of Trump, we still need to say it: Women are equal.

Painting is acrylic on 12″ x 16″ stretched canvas.

Price: $120 plus postage.

Fill out the form below so we can arrange payment and delivery. I take PayPal, so all credit or debit cards are accepted.

Che

Posted by Cranford
Che

Ernesto Che Guevara was born on June 14, 1928. (My birthday in June 14, 1955.) His early life is documented in the book and movie: “The Motorcycle Diaries”, about his travels from one end of South America to the other on a motorcycle. This trip was formative in his education as a revolutionary. He became a medical doctor first. In 1955, Fidel Castro’s brother Raul introduced them, and he joined the revolution in Cuba. On June 2, 1959, he married Aleida March. After he witnessed what Dulles’ CIA did to dismantle the popularly elected socialist governments of Guatemala and Honduras, he persuaded Harvard educated Fidel Castro that he would need to maintain a benign dictatorship to resist the dirty tricks and subversion of the American government with their interference in other nations’ elections.Perhaps our chickens are coming home to roost.

In 1965, then he joined the revolution in Kinshasa, Congo. In 1966, he joined the revolution in Bolivia. He was captured by the CIA on October 8, 1967, and summarily executed the next day. So much for human rights and due process and The Geneva Convention.

Che was a passionate man. He was in the fight for love of the people, not for personal gain or some dogmatic or idealized view of proving a point. I am sick to death of the communist, socialist and anarchist groups in the US who are full of history nerds and armchair philosophers who don’t give a damn about anyone but themselves. Che gave his life in service to nations. Because of what he did, thousands, perhaps millions of people were given a shot at life who otherwise would not have done.

“If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine.”

“Let me say, at the risk of seeming ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.” – both by El Che

There was nothing ridiculous about Che’s love for the common people and his passionate struggle to liberate them.

Painting is 12″x12″ acrylic on stretched canvas.

Price: $60 plus postage

Fill out the form below so we can arrange payment and delivery. I take PayPal, so all credit cards are accepted.

John Lennon

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John Lennon

John Winston Ono Lennon (9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980) was a co-founder of The Beatles and was half of one of the most successful songwriting duos of all time with Paul McCartney. Imagine is nothing if not a communist anthem.

For those of us who grew up in the 60s, there are several events that are etched in our minds. Everyone knows where they were when they saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. Everyone knows where they were when they heard the news that John had been shot and killed.

We still have his music and we have lots of work to do.

After the Soviet Union broke up, Abkhazia produced postage stamps with Groucho Marx and John Lennon on them and sold frameable collector sheets with the caption. “The New Marx & Lennon” on the sleeve. I own one. What is funny about this is that both Groucho Marx and John Lennon were Marxists. So I painted a set of portraits of all four of them.

The painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.

Price: $100 plus postage.

Fill out the form below so we can arrange payment and delivery. I take PayPal, so all credit and debit cards are accepted.

Vladimir I. Lenin

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Vladimir I. Lenin

V. I. Lenin (April 22, 1870 – January 21, 1924) was the revolutionary founder of the Marxist Soviet Union in Russia. The Russian Revolution was an ambitious undertaking and the Soviet Union was an amazing experiment. In the US, the cliché is that communism failed, since the USSR fell.That’s funny, since they don’t seem to draw that conclusion about capitalism looking at 17 trillion dollars debt, millions homeless, countless starving, children in poverty, senior citizens with college debt, endless wars, etc.

No. What was accomplished by Lenin and company was amazing! They took a pre-industrial, feudal economy, and dragged it into the 20th century, turning it into a major, industrial and scientific powerhouse. Russia became a leader in medicine, space, agriculture, education, in a few short decades! And they did this for ALL of their people, not just a wealthy élite. So what did the west do? Threaten them with total annihilation, forcing them to waste resources on weapons and defense.

I chose a less familiar photo of Lenin to portray him. We recognize him more readily without the hat, seeing his bald head. I liked the wool worker’s cap better. I thought it better conveyed his heart and the heart of socialism.

Set of 4: Marx & Marx, Lenin & Lennon

After the Soviet Union broke up, Abkhazia produced postage stamps with Groucho Marx and John Lennon on them and sold frameable collector sheets with the caption. “The New Marx & Lennon” on the sleeve. I own one. What is funny about this is that both Groucho Marx and John Lennon were Marxists. So I painted a set of portraits of all four of them.

The painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.

Price: $100 plus postage.

Fill out the form below so we can arrange payment and delivery. I take PayPal, so all credit and debit cards are accepted.

Groucho Marx

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Groucho Marx

Groucho Marx was the professional name for Julius Henry Marx (October 2, 1890 – August 19, 1977). He was a writer, comedian, singer, stage, movie and television star. He made 13 films with his brothers Chico and Harpo and a few with Zeppo as well. He was a master of the paraprosdokian.

Late in life, Groucho became friends with Elton John and Alice Cooper.  He appeared in a production of Jesus Christ: Superstar of Elton John’s. When it came to the crucifixion, he asked if it ended well. He said this would not make his Jewish friends happy.

“Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.”

Set of 4: Marx & Marx, Lenin & Lennon

After the Soviet Union broke up, Abkhazia produced postage stamps with Groucho Marx and John Lennon on them and sold frameable collector sheets with the caption. “The New Marx & Lennon” on the sleeve. I own one. What is funny about this is that both Groucho Marx and John Lennon were Marxists. So I painted a set of portraits of all four of them.

The painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.

Price: $100 plus postage

Fill out the form below so we can arrange payment and delivery. I take PayPal, so all credit and debit cards are accepted.

Karl Marx

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Karl Marx

When one “Bings” Karl Marx, the first thing that comes up is: “Scientist  – Karl Marx was a German-born scientist, philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist.” One thing is for certain, a lot of misinformation has been circulated about him and what he taught, in capitalist countries. The first word in the description is the most important, however, and, in the end, science always wins, because it is reality. Science does not play favorites, does not discriminate on who your relatives were or how rich your parents were. Thermonuclear war will kill you just as dead whether you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth or in a mud hut. Global warming will flood you, starve you, burn you, impoverish, kill you, no matter how many billions of dollars you amass. Science is science. Facts are facts. Alt-nothing! It’s time to share! It’s simple justice! It’s human survival. It’s better for all of us. It’s more secure and happier for all of us.

“There must be something rotten in the very core of a social system which increases its wealth without diminishing its misery.” – Karl Marx

Set of Four: Marx & Marx, Lenin & Lennon

After the Soviet Union broke up, Abkhazia produced postage stamps with Groucho Marx and John Lennon on them and sold frameable collector sheets with the caption. “The New Marx & Lennon.” I own one. What is funny about this is that both Groucho Marx and John Lennon were Marxists. So I painted a set of portraits of all four of them.

The painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.

Price: $100 plus postage

Fill out the form below so we can arrange payment and delivery. I take PayPal, so all credit and debit cards are accepted.

Ana Pauker

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Ana Pauker

Ana Pauker (born Hannah Rabinsohn; December 13, 1893 – June 3, 1960) was called “the most powerful woman in the world” by Time magazine in 1948. She was Romania’s Foreign Minister and the de facto head of the Romanian Communist Party. She was a breast cancer survivor. Her husband, Marcel, was killed for accused of being a Trotskyite in a party purge. They had lived in exile for being communists. She was imprisoned, then exchanged to the Soviet Union, where she trained and became part of the Comintern. When the Red Army entered Romania at the end of World War II, she was there and ready to take leadership as part of the Muscovite faction. She was second in command on the four person Romanian Communist Party Secretariat, but was regarded as the true leader. She was appointed as Foreign Minister, the first woman anywhere in the world to hold such a high level post.

What I find noteworthy about her tenure in these positions is that unlike so many women in positions of power, she did not feel the need to “out piss” the men like so many of the women since her (i.e., Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meier, Indira Gandhi, Hillary Clinton). She maintained friendly relations with Stalin and insisted that she was a Stalinist, yet she maintained that Socialist Doctrine allowed for more democracy, so did not force all of the peasant farmers into collectivization. She allowed more time for the five-year plans, and allowed amnesty for Spanish Civil War and French Resistance veterans. She worked toward healing and reconciliation as a path forward for more Romanians, rather than Stalin’s and later Ceaucescu’s hyper-masculinity. Her way was working. Stalin respected her and let her have her way in Romania.

When Krushchev succeeded Stalin in 1953, purges began throughout the Soviet Union and its satellites. Ana Pauker got scapegoated for the harsh policies that the secretariat had enforced  which she had actually opposed. She lost her party membership, but her life was spared and she was given a translation job. She protested her innocence and sued unsuccessfully for her membership back.  She was an easy target, since she was a woman and of Jewish ancestry. This was a fatal mistake for Romanian communism. The man they installed, Ceaușescu, to take over leadership in Romania was a megalomaniac and a misogynist, who ruined the country for generations. He outlawed abortions and all forms of birth control. He seized the forests as his own, personal hunting grounds to slaughter bears and other game at his whim.

Ana had another cancer in 1959 which culminated in her death on June 3, 1960.

Marcel and Ana Pauker had three children: Tanio (1921–1922); Vlad (1926-2016); Tatiana (1928–2011). Ana had a fourth child, Masha (born 1932 ), fathered by the Czech Communist Eugen Fried. Masha now lives in France. She adopted a fifth child, Alexandru, in the late 1940s.

The painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.

Price: $100 plus postage

Fill out the form below so we can arrange payment and delivery. I take PayPal, so all credit and debit cards are accepted.

Mavis Staples and Pops

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Mavis Staples is another voice of the civil rights movement. She, along with Arcade Fire, was the first to record a song of resistance to the so-called president Trump, releasing it one day before his inauguration.

It is a song in the prophetic tradition, speaking from the viewpoint of God, as a warning. It can also be understood as the inscription on the wall of the Minnesota state house says: “Vox Populi Vox Dei.” “The Voice of the People is the Voice of God.”

Mavis Staples and Pops

Mavis Staples is no stranger to powerfully speaking truth to the people. She was with her dad, Roebuck Staples, who everyone called “Pops” when he wrote “Freedom Highway” for Martin Luther King, Jr., to start the Freedom March. I painted Mavis on the river stage at the XPoNential Music Festival in July 2016, in Camden, NJ, with the Philadelphia skyline in the background. The festival happened the weekend after the GOP National Convention. Another performer had made the mistake of watching it. Being the sensitive soul that he was, it was more than he could take. He had a full-blown meltdown on stage, and gave a half hour expletive filled rant, instead of performing his set. Well, Mavis took the stage Sunday afternoon and said something along the line of: “Times are looking bad. It’s been a rough week, but I’m here to make you feel good! I’m not promising you it’s going to last, but while I’m up here, you’re going to feel good!” And she said, “Now we’re going to sing a song that we used to sing with Pops and Dr. King in dark times to get to better times.” She started singing, “If You’re Ready (Come Go With Me)”, with some added lyrics that sounded like a socialist platform. I was listening on the radio, because I was grounded, due to complications from my heart-valve replacement surgery. I was in tears of joy. Later in the set, she recalled Pops writing of Freedom Highway, then performed it. I should say, she led it. She was really doing her job as a minstrel and prophet and poet in dark times; enthusiastically bringing hope against all odds, and pointing the way upward. She said she started singing with her sisters in 1966 and wasn’t done yet. at age 77. She’s still going strong, speaking out, and lifting spirits.

Pops passed away in 2000, at age 86. I painted him in this painting (in gray tones), because he was ‘larger than life’ in that concert, in the songs, and in the heart of Mavis.

Painting is 20″ x 16″ acrylic on stretched canvas.

Price: $200 plus postage

Fill out the form below so we can arrange payment and delivery. I take PayPal, so all credit or debit cards are accepted.

Pete Seeger

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Pete Seeger

The first time we saw Pete Seeger, we were so close that to him that we were literally within spitting distance. He was giving a free concert at Penn’s Landing under the old fiberglass pavilion. I believe it was 1981. Bethann and I went there with our friends Frank and Colleen. We arrived just in time for the concert to start. The place was full. Everyone was seated on blankets spread out on the concrete floor of the pavilion leaving a ten foot space in front of the stage. Frank sees the space and says, “Look, they left room for us right up front!” and proceeds to the front, lays down the blanket and sets us up. We were front and center. Once Pete got going, we were, indeed, blessed with his saliva. It was a great experience, nonetheless. When tugboats came up the river they blew their horns to salute Mr. Seeger, as they knew he was giving a concert there that day. He was famous for his love of rivers and boats. He promoted environmentalism and spearheaded the clean-up and restoration of the Hudson River.

I was to hear Pete Seeger perform live on three more occasions in the 1980s, all of them demonstrations that I was taking part in, in Washington, DC. He was famous for his union organizing songs and work with the Weavers. There is too much to be said about such a full and long life for one little blog post. He lived over 94 years (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014). He published a magazine of sheet music of folk music and protest songs. He was a communist and blacklisted for it, during the McCarthy era. There is a petition to name the new Tappan Zee Bridge in New York after him. Read more about him here.

Painting is 18″ x 14″ acrylic on stretched canvas.

Price: $200 plus postage

Fill out the form below so we can arrange payment and delivery. I take PayPal, so all credit or debit cards are accepted.

Odetta

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Odetta

Odetta Holmes was born December 31, 1930, in Birmingham, Alabama. She is one of those rare personages who went through life known by only her first name: Odetta. Martin Luther King, Jr. called her “the queen of American folk music!” She sang folk, blues and spirituals. Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Janis Joplin and Mavis Staples all claimed her as a major formation influence for their music. She started performing publicly at age 13. Her last performance was October 25, 2008. She was invited to perform at Barack Obama’s inauguration, but, sadly, she passed away of heart disease on December 2, 2008.

I painted her as part of my “Personal Heroes” series, because she never just sang for her supper. She sang for a higher purpose. She was always seeking to break new ground, to make progress. She has been called the “voice of the civil rights movement.” I’m sure that is hyperbole. Surely that title needs to be shared with the Staples, the Weavers, Paul Robeson and many others. But she was not just pushing for civil rights; she promoted human rights and economic justice. She considered herself to be “just one foot soldier in the army.” Nonetheless, President Clinton awarded her the National Endowment for the Arts’ National Medal of Honor. She performed all over the world, and received many honors. This did not change her message. This is an iconic pose for her. She has a determined look on her face and she is pointing upwards. Her whole life was dedicated to using the gifts she was given: her beautiful voice, sharp mind and determined spirit, to get us all to move onward and upward!

We had the great honor and joy to be able to hear her perform live at the Philadelphia Folk Festival in 2001. (We had received complimentary tickets.) I was thrilled!

Painting is 12″ x 24″ acrylic on stretched canvas.

Price: $200 plus postage

Fill out the form below so we can arrange payment and delivery. I take PayPal, so all credit or debit cards are accepted.

Marx

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Marx

When one “Bings” Karl Marx, the first thing that comes up is: “Scientist  – Karl Marx was a German-born scientist, philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist.” One thing is for certain, a lot of misinformation has been circulated about him and what he taught, in capitalist countries. The first word in the description is the most important, however, and, in the end, science always wins, because it is reality. Science does not play favorites, does not discriminate on who your relatives were or how rich your parents were. Thermonuclear war will kill you just as dead whether you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth or in a mud hut. Global warming will flood you, starve you, burn you, impoverish, kill you, no matter how many billions of dollars you amass. Science is science. Facts are facts. Alt-nothing! It’s time to share! It’s simple justice! It’s human survival. It’s better for all of us. It’s more secure and happier for all of us.

Yes. Marx is a hero of mine. But, if he had not written what he had, someone else would have. It was inevitable. It is science. Like Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” He was a Marxist, also. That’s why the government killed him.

There is a new Socialist movement growing. Capitalism has failed fantastically. The masses, especially the disenfranchised, educated young people are rising up to claim their place and their fair share of the fruit of their forebears investment in infrastructure and technology for the common good.

The painting is acrylic on 16″ x 20″ stretched canvas.

Price: $100 plus postage

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Fidel & Ché

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fidel and Che

This painting is the latest in my “Heroes” series and my first with two people together. It is based on the famous photograph taken of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara as they were preparing for their triumphal march into Havana in 1959 to take control of the central government after the corrupt Batista regime, along with their US carpet-baggers had fled. Castro managed to not only hold the country together, but transform it into the most stable, egalitarian, healthy country in the western hemisphere for over 50 years, despite over 600 American CIA assassination attempts, a draconian trade embargo, a failed, US led invasion. He eliminated childhood hunger, homelessness and rampant gambling. He instituted universal, free healthcare and free education through university. Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate and longer life expectancy than the US despite spending 1/5 as much on medicine. They send more doctors around the world to help developing nations and in crisis situations than the US does, though they are relatively tiny.

Fidel Castro said, “Capitalism is using its money. We socialists are throwing it away!” What he meant by that is that they weren’t using it to make more money. They were spending it on the people. All the profits from the factories and industries went to the people. There has been scarcity in Cuba, but no one has gone hungry. No one has gone uneducated. They have the highest literacy rate in the hemisphere at 99%. No one has gone without top-notch medical care. It is a medical tourism destination! The scarcity is because of the lack of trade because of the bullying of the US. In the US, when business is bad, the ones who work the hardest are the first to suffer! Not so in Cuba! Furthermore, Fidel wanted to have a free and open democracy. Honduras had tried that. They elected a socialist. Our CIA, under Dulles, went and overthrew him, and reinstalled fascism. So Che persuaded Fidel to maintain a benign dictatorship.

Fidel Castro was born on August 13, 1926 and died on November 25, 2016, proving once and for all that the best revenge is a long life.

Ernesto Che Guevara was born on June 14, 1928. (My birthday is June 14, 1955.) His early life is documented in the book and movie: “The Motorcycle Diaries”, about his travels from one end of South America to the other on a motorcycle. This trip was formative in his education as a revolutionary. He became a medical doctor first. In 1955, Fidel’s brother Raul introduced them, and he joined the revolution in Cuba. On June 2, 1959, he married Aleida March. He stayed in Cuba until 1965; then he joined the revolution in Kinshasa, Congo. In 1966, he joined the revolution in Bolivia. He was captured by the CIA on October 8, 1967, and summarily executed the next day. So much for human rights and due process and Geneva Convention.

These two are unlikely heroes of mine, since I am a pacifist. As Winston Churchill said, “Consistency is the bugbear of small minds!” The result of what they did cannot be questioned. They improved the lives of millions of people and literally made hundreds of thousands more lives happen. Vision, combined with action, blended with stubborn love for common people. Heroes indeed!

“If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine.”

“Let me say, at the risk of seeming ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.” – both by El Che

Painting is acrylic on 24″ x 18″ stretched canvas.

Price: $150 plus postage

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Bob Marley

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Bob Marley

On February 9, 2014, I posted an article featuring Bob Marley on the website for The King’s Jubilee entitled One Love. That site is down now, since TKJ went out of existence a couple of years ago, after my health failed and the church abandoned me. It was written when I was still a believer of sorts. It still makes sense, if one just substitutes Love for God. After all, “God love is” according to the Bible. Bob Marley was one of my heroes, not because of his music, although I love that. It is because of his life of peace and simple generosity.

“The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.”

“The people who are trying to make this world worse are not taking the day off. Why should I?” – Bob Marley

Painting is acrylic on 16″ x 20″ stretched canvas.

Price: $150 plus postage

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MLK

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MLK

Martin Luther King, Jr. was not just a civil rights leader working to elevate the estate of people of color in the US. He was a prophetic voice for human rights and dignity and economic equality. His image has been sanitized and his socialist rhetoric is ignored to co-opt his legacy to make him acceptable as a national hero. His birthday has been turned into a national day of servitude where students are compelled to pick up litter in parks or paint restrooms in poorly funded public schools. We must keep the young people busy lest they actually read his words or watch the three hours of extant newsreel footage of him, which would reveal the horrors he and his comrades endured just to be allowed to vote, or to stay at the same motels as their oppressors.

The federal government tolerated King as long as his focus remained on “colored folks issues.” He shifted his focus, however, once it became clear to him that poverty and the disparity between rich and poor were inextricably connected to racial hatred and discrimination. The CIA had him assassinated as he was in Memphis to support a union action, on April 4, 1968.

And one day we must ask the question, “Why are there forty million poor people in America?” And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalist economy. – MLK

So today capitalism has outlived its usefulness. It has brought about a system that takes necessities from the masses to give luxury to the classes. – MLK

Painting is acrylic on 16″ x 20″ stretched canvas.

Price: $200 plus postage

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Dorothy Day

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Dorothy Day

Dorothy Day lived from November 8, 1897 to November 29, 1980. She lived with Lionel Moise, by whom she became pregnant. He persuaded her to get an abortion. She married Berkeley Tobey and was divorced a year later. She did give birth to a daughter, Tamar Teresa, by her common law husband, Forster Batterham, a biologist and anarchist, in 1926. They parted ways in 1929, after her conversion to Catholicism. She was a journalist and an activist for socialist causes and women’s suffrage. She was jailed on several occasions and engaged in a hunger strike after being arrested for demonstrating in front of the White House in 1917. She converted to Catholicism in 1927. This did not put a damper on her zeal to help the poor or to secure rights for the disenfranchised.

Dorothy established a Christian hospitality commune and started publishing the Catholic Worker in New York City. This started the Catholic Worker movement, which now has over 125 hospitality houses for the homeless and poor in the US and overseas. She advocated that every Christian household should maintain an extra room to provide hospitality to the poor. She is famous for saying: “When I feed the poor they call me a saint. when I ask why they are poor they call me a communist!” She also told people to not call her a saint. She understood, as I learned early on, that when people call you a ‘saint’ or ‘radical’, it is just a way of excusing themselves from taking similar actions to serve the poor.

Pope Francis included her in a short list of exemplary Americans, together with Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thomas Merton, in his address before the United States Congress.

“Don’t call me a saint. I don’t want to be dismissed so easily.”

“Men are beginning to realize that they are not individuals but persons in society, that man alone is weak and adrift, that he must seek strength in common action.”

“Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system.”

Painting is acrylic on 20″ x 16″ stretched canvas.

Price: $200 plus postage

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Emma Goldman

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Emma Goldman

She was born in Kovno, Russian Empire, now Kaunas, Lithuania, on June 27, 1869, and died in Toronto, Canada, on May 14, 1970, having been exiled from the US. It was over thirty years ago when I read Emma Goldman’s memoir. She connected me to such a cast of great actors and thinkers in the world: Lenin, Margaret Sanger, Simone Weil, Mahatma Gandhi, John Reed, Sasha Berkman, Peggy Guggenheim, Jackson Pollock, Peter Kropotkin, and others. She was pivotal in my maturing to be a more compassionate person, and eventually a Socialist.

You can read her Wikipedia entry to get just a smidgen of the activities she was involved in and the lives she touched. She had been abused and misused by men all her life, starting with her father, yet she loved a few men and was loyal to a fault in her lifetime.

I set out to attempt to paint Emma smiling. I could not find a single extant photograph of her smiling, yet her most famous quote is when she said to V.I. Lenin: “If I can’t dance I don’t want to be part of your revolution!” This was when she arrived in Russia shortly after the Bolshevik revolution and wanted to celebrate, but Lenin told her, “Dancing is bourgeois!” I have been sitting across the room (about 11′ feet away) at eye level with Emma. She stares piercingly. She is both solid as a rock and on the verge of a flood of tears. This effect is quite accidental or subconscious on my part but it is quite haunting; and appropriate considering the abuse she had endured.

Painting is acrylic on 11″ x 14″ stretched canvas.

Price: $120 plus postage

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