Welcome to
Editorial Paintings
In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, and the Enron and WorldCom scandals, I began the Patriot Games series. Editorial Paintings went on-line in September 2003. The series, An Organized Crime, was begun in 2011.
The folly of our political leaders continues to be
“the invention of endangered ‘national security,’
the invention of ‘vital interest,’ the invention of a
‘commitment’ which rapidly assume[s] a life of
its own, casting a spell over the inventor.”
The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
by Barbara W. Tuchman
Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1984
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The Patriot Games
"Come all you young rebels and list while I sing
For the love of one's land is a terrible thing
It banishes fear with the speed of a flame
And it make us all part of the patriot game"
Patriot Game
Dominic Behan, 1929-1989
playwright and songwriter
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Center of Evil
2024. Acrylic on canvas. 30 x 48"
President Joe Biden was supposed to be the foreign policy president. America was back. Biden was promoted as a senior statesman, having been a U.S. Senator and Vice President under President Barack Obama. Biden would be the steady hand guiding American policy after all the chaos of Donald Trump. In the end, though, it all turned out to be one Biden failure after another - more chaos, more war, and finally ending his presidency as a collaborator in genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, earning him the moniker “Genocide Joe.”
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Remnants of A People
2002. Acrylic on canvas, 36x48"
Is the struggle of the Palestinians the same as it was for the Native Americans? Is not the Israeli government taking land from the Palestinians and allowing Israeli citizens to build homes and settlements on Palestinian lands? Are not Palestinians treated as second-class citizens? Is not the water rationed, the electricity rationed? Have they not been relocated to camps and their homes taken over by Israelis? Have they not been dehumanized, much in the same way as the Native American nations? Like Native Americans, Palestinians have fought their powerful aggressor and have attempted peace. Will the Palestinian flag become the remnants of a people?
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To See Other as Others Saw You
2002. Acrylic on canvas, 36 x 48"
How far will the government of Israel go to achieve their goal of “security.” Former government officials have referred to Palestinians as lice. Israeli citizens have referred to Arabs as dirty and filthy. Has the state of Israel dehumanized Palestinians? Palestinian homes have been bulldozed, prisoners have had systematic numbers written on their arms, water and electricity is rationed and controlled by the Israeli government. Israelis have run Palestinians out of Palestinian homes. The government of Israel maintains camps of Palestinians. Palestinians live under occupation. Star of David symbols have been spray-painted on the homes of Palestinians. Has the state of Israel become what it most despises? Do they see others as others saw them as they were hustled into camps and their homes and land taken from them? Will their national flag be enveloped by darkness? Will the symbol of the Jews darkest hour spin into and overtake their own national symbol?
Artist’s Note 2002:
The swastica and the Star of David are two very powerful symbols. Both symbols represent a belief and a culture. Each symbol was resurrected after a period of humiliation: Nazi Germany used the swastica after the humiliating defeat of World War I, and Israel used the Star of David after the humiliation of the holocaust in World War II. Like all history, these humiliating events were linked to one another like a chain.
Furthermore, both symbols represent, to their leaders and people, a sense of pride in a pure culture. And both symbols have been applied to those nations flags. Therefore, these two symbols are tightly intertwined with their own modern history.
However, the black bars on the Star of David of this painting are not in the complete form of a Nazi swastica, but rather represent the early stages of the development of the symbol that the Jews, and all people of the world, find reprehensible.
Hence, how far will a nation go to achieve its own view of security. Will that nation resort to the methods, practices, and attitudes of the culture they despise most?
Artist Note 2024:
Now we know.
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Bravo Battalion
2002. Acrylic on canvas, 36 x 48"
In early 2002, Israeli army reservists, combat veterans, refused to continue to serve on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip because occupation abused and humiliated Palestinians. A petition signed by reservists stated: “We will no longer fight beyond the Green Line for the purpose of occupying, deporting, destroying, blockading, killing, starving, and humiliating an entire people.”* These soldiers are not only brave, but courageous for knowing when to do the right thing. Is that not what we expect of a civilized army? Are they not telling us that they do not refuse weapons, only that they choose, out of principle, to unload and rest their arms as a symbol of civilized and humane peace?
*Israeli Reservists Refuse Territories Duty; Combat Veterans Renounce ‘Humiliating’ Palestinians, Washingtonpost.com, January 29, 2002 by Lee Hockstader
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Sunday Talk'n Heads
2010-2014. Acrylic on canvas, four panels, 30 x 40"
Meet the Press was the first Sunday morning talk show and began in 1947 on NBC. It was a 30 minute news conference where a guest was interviewed by a panel of questioners. Face the Nation on CBS followed in 1954.
This Week began in 1981 with David Brinkley who had left NBC and joined ABC.
Fox News Sunday began in 1996, created by right-wing Republican operative Roger Ailes and funded by right-wing trash media mogul Rupert Murdoch. FNS is designed to showcase Republican propaganda and demonize Democrats and Democratic administrations in state and federal government. The theme of the show is Republicans are right, Democrats are wrong, corporations are good, unions are bad, right-wing white guys are good, liberals are bad, and minorities are an annoyance, unless they agree with right-wing white guys.
The longer these Sunday morning shows are on television, the more America keeps deteriorating. The standard of living continues to decline for average Americans. The illegal foreign wars continue. The corrupt political system keeps on corrupting, while corporate domination explodes across the society.
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Bureaucrat Totenkopf
2010. Acrylic on canvas, 36 x 36”
When Donald Rumsfeld was fired as Secretary of Defense under George W. Bush, Robert Gates was brought in as an old hand, an accepted bureaucrat from former administrations, ‘the man who [would] help overhaul President Bush’s Iraq policies.”1 He would breeze through confirmation hearings as “polite and personable” and “enjoy influential protectors on both sides of the aisle.”2 However, what was not discussed was Robert Gates’ actual history as a bureaucrat.
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Iraqi Dead Under US Occupation
2009. Acrylic on canvas, 30 x 48”
"We have a better way… Kill them. We are going to wipe them out."
President George W. Bush1
In October 2006, doctors from Johns Hopkins School of Health along with Iraqi doctors from al-Mustanceriya University in Baghdad published a study in The Lancet, a British medical journal, which estimated the number of excess deaths from the occupation of Iraq at about 655,000.2
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Final Tour
2008. Acrylic on canvas, 36 x 36”
How many more tours will there be for the American military in Iraq? Tour after tour takes its toll. Each tour increases the chance of not getting out alive, or in one piece with all arms legs, eyes, hands, and feet – a physically functioning human being. Even then, how destroyed is the mind? The brain subconsciously takes pictures with the eyes, retaining those images for a later time, creating a different world inside the mind. Perhaps it’s a world without myths, without propaganda; without hero worship; a world of reality from within the abyss.
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War Without End: Dix Revisited
2007. Acrylic on canvas, 60 x 72”
“Corpses are impersonal.”
Otto Dix, from his daybook on the Somme, 19161
“What of their oath to the colors, to me as Warlord?” asked Wilhelm.
“Oath to the colors? Warlord?”
replied General Groener with disgust. “These are just words today.”
November 9, 1918, German Quartermaster-General, Wilhelm Groener and General Hindenburg meet with Kaiser Wilhelm to convince the Kaiser that the war was over. The next day, Wilhem boarded a train to cross the frontier to neutral Holland.2
The war was over, though not for the thousands who were permanently dismembered and disfigured in the 20th Century’s First World War. Just as it was then, today’s brutality of an insane war, orchestrated by cowards who had never served in combat, has permanently dismembered and disfigured thousands of soldiers and civilians all in the name of patriotism, loyalties to oaths, and lies.
In 1920, German painter and World War I veteran Otto Dix painted the Skat Players - 3 war cripples playing cards. The Skat players are “a mass of spare parts thrown together, left-over pieces of bodies.”3 The painting was an example of the grotesque - "[subverting] the expectations of both machine and man, merge horror with humor, and challenge the boundaries of propriety in order to attack the nationalism that created the result."4 The players "resemble derisive dedications to man the beast, whose malicious social games provide further confirmation of the theory of homo homini lupus.” (Man is a wolf to man.)5 The war is portrayed “as buffoonery, as a sarcastic farce.”6
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Commander-N-Sleep
2007. Acrylic on canvas, 30 x 48"
On August 6, 2001, President George W. Bush received a Presidential Daily Briefing, also referred to as a PDB. It was an intelligence briefing from the Central Intelligence Agency. The title of the August 6 PDB was, “Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US.”
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Today On NBC
2007. Acrylic on canvas, 30 x 40”
The fake journalism of NBC News begins with the Today Show, when one of the morning personalities recites scripted questions to Tim Russert, so he in turn can cover Bush Administration talking points and attempt to discredit opposition to Bush Administration policies.
These little staged performances also give Russert the opportunity to pontificate on topics that he has already been given access to, hoping to maintain his image of some authoritative political analyst. His Washington Speakers Bureau website page calls it, "his unparalleled insights on the latest Washington headlines." This gimmick was on display throughout the lead up to the war and the Valerie Plame/Bush Leak scandal (even though Russert was more than likely already privy to what the Bush Administration was up to via Mary Matalin – for Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and Robert Novak). Russert likes to portray himself as the innocent party with "unparalleled insights" just following a story. More than likely, he was deeply involved in both the pre-war spin and the leak of the CIA officer's name, all to provide assistance to the Bush Administration.
The Washington Speakers Bureau page goes on to say, "Russert regales audiences with first hand accounts of asking tough questions." He also claims to unravel Washington's "complexities." But the real gem is, "Russert helps audiences cut through the spin and get to the truth." As the public learns more about Russert, the fact is he's all about spin and very little of it is grounded in truth.
In an April 2007 interview with Bill Moyers Journal. Moyers asked Russert about Cheney and the New York Times leak regarding aluminum tubing, and how coincidently, Cheney was on Meet the Press the very day the leak appeared in the Times. Moyers asked Russert if he knew about the leak in advance. Russert nervously claimed he did not. Then Russert claimed that he wished he had access to other government officials who may have had doubts about the story. He said, "What my concern was, is that there were concerns expressed by other government officials. And to this day, I wish my phone had rung, or I had access to them."
He wished his phone had rung? Is it not the job of the journalist to make the phone calls? Why did he not seek out the government officials?
Obviously, Russert only goes with the story of the people who grant him access, make the calls to him, rings his phone. Those are the people who get on his show; the people with the bogus story.
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Republican Oversight
2006. Acrylic on canvas, 30 x 48”
The Republicans are destroying America. They are destroying life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in America. This destruction has been achieved through a pattern of deception and distraction, vague commitments, sleight of hand, and flat out neglect of the nation.
For instance, they hold hearings, but witnesses are not under oath. They pontificate instead of asking questions and demanding answers. When they do ask a question, there is no follow-through on the answers. Then they state, “We’ll look into it,” and never do.
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Republicans’ New Lapel
2006. Acrylic on canvas, 22 x 28"
The Republicans are the party of money. They have so much money yet they can’t get enough of it. In their quest for more money they have hit some roadblocks, known as scandals, which means, they have been trying to get money, money, and more money through illegal means. They just could not seem to get enough money legally.
Perhaps it’s an illness, always starving for that money. Perhaps it’s the only way Republicans can make any friends – having to buy them. Maybe the fact is, that the only way Republicans can get any support is to buy it, because no one seems to like their ideas, candidates, policies, or people.
Honestly, who would want to be friends with George Bush, Condi Rice, Dick Cheney, Ken Mehlman, Karl Rove, Karen Hughes, Rick Santorum, Arlen Specter, John Warner, Mark DeWine, Orrin Hatch, Bill Frist, Pat Roberts or any of the other Republicans, for nothing, for free? More than likely no one.
Let’s face it, these Republicans have the personality of a pile of dirt. Therefore, the Republicans need to sell their “public service” to get all that money to buy friends and supporters. But what happens when the money dries up and their payola runs out? What then?
That’s when they turn to foreigners: Israeli politicians and Israeli organizations, Arab sheiks and Arab bankers, Chinese businessmen, British wealth, Iraqi, Iranian, and Syrian dissidents, corrupt European politicians, arms merchants, Turkish political parties, foreign shipping corporations, on and on the list goes…all in the name of that big gold dollar sign.
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Republican Cuff-Links
2006. Acrylic on canvas, 22 x 28"
The Republicans have provided a new adjective to add to the lexicon of criminal procedure – Republican cuff-links.
When the Republicans do crime, they do it big time. They love money so much, that they have to turn to illegal ways to get more of it. And of course, like many criminals, the first thing out of a Republican's mouth is, “I didn’t do it.” Then the evidence piles up so high, that one Republican Congressman broke a record with his federal prison sentence. Perhaps that was appropriate for a guy who called himself, “Duke” (maybe he suffered from a John Wayne syndrome). The Duke was so confident in his illegal business, that he created a menu of what he would sell, and how much it cost to receive his access.
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Extraordinary Rendition
2005. Acrylic on canvas, 30 x 48"
Dateline: The Hague
In the early hours before dawn this morning, former President of the United States, George W. Bush, arrived in police custody at the International Criminal Court.
The former American President was transferred over to international authorities by the United States at zero hours GMT. The former President will face trial before an international tribunal for aggression, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
The international tribunal issued a statement saying, “The court will allow the victims of aggression to tell their story. Those who commit acts of aggression and crimes against humanity will be brought to justice.”
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What Was Their Role?
2005. Acrylic on canvas, 30 x 48”
“We have been too often disappointed by the optimism
of the American leaders, to have faith any longer
in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds.”
Walter Cronkite, February 27, 19681
The role of newscaster has been part of the American television landscape since the late 1940s. In the early years it was a short broadcast report of headline news on the three major television networks, CBS, ABC, and NBC. Over the decades there have been a collection of well known names: Edward R. Murrow, Eric Sevareid, John Cameron Swayze, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, John Chancellor and the legendary Walter Cronkite.
Cronkite, known as ‘the most trusted man in America’2 rose to the status of news icon, and the measure of what Americans came to know as the network news anchor, for the very reason that he changed the course of history when he questioned the policy and progress of America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. President Lyndon Johnson, in February 1968, “reputedly turned to his press secretary, saying, ‘If I’ve lost Walter, I’ve lost Mr. Average Citizen.’”3
By the early 1980s, the news anchor landscape would change.
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