https://theconversation.com/the-misguided-campaign-to-remove-a-thomas-hart-benton-mural-86431
Here is a prophetic post I published two years ago. Oscar de la Torre, and the minority group that closed the hall in Indiana to classes, are suggesting white people must foreit their cultural supremacy in America, because, all white people are born with an evil tendancy to make non-whites their slaves. Our White Art must be removed from public places because it advertises our supremacy. This resembles Graffiti Gang Warfare where wearing the wrong colors will get you shot and killed. Shooting and Killing amongst minorities is a huge problem, that Oscar is tackling. Artists are not violent people. We do not carry guns. I can’t speak for Writers and Newspapermen – as a whole! The way things are going, I see Art Posses in our future. Are these guys packing a piece?
“Fuck with my art – and you’re dead!”
Why not Armed Art Police, or The Art Mafia, that wages urbun warfare over Beautiful Women. There exist a whole culture around Bling, Pimps, Prostitutes, Drugs. and Territory – that was not too friendly to the Love&Peace Hippy Man. They do dig our Hippie Chics, however. The Lustful Hollywood Cartel of Groped Women fortifies the stereotyple of the Jewish Movie Producer Sex Fiend, and, the Seductive Hollywood Homo that Benton did have a problem with.
There is this thing called Nativism.
I want to revive the Black Mask.
“Tommy Gun Tommy held off the armed brown hoard of radicals hell bent on taking back California from Whitey, beginning with an attack on our museums. The battle at the Getty Villa, was one of the bloodiest battles in American history!
“Burn baby, burn! Destroy Whitey’s Bling, and they are FINIS!”
Native Americans has a very well established system of Slavery. ISIS took sex slaves. This gang was made up of Generals the Bush family put out of power in a ongoing and very ancient sectarian battle – that is Biblical! I believe the Art Attack in Indiana officially installs Sectarianism in America, with the help of the KKK and the evangelical followers of John Darby.
Play both videos at same time with sound down on second.
Jon Presco
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nativism_(politics)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztec_slavery
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_among_Native_Americans_in_the_United_States
On April 15, 2005 Santa Monica High experienced a few fights that were misconstrued as “race riots” and exaggerated in the press. I was made aware that violence occurred on campus after the school had been placed on “lockdown.” I was not on campus when the violence occurred but offered my support to the school and administration on various occasions and even months before tensions escalated on campus.
Sawtelle
“Latino activist Oscar de la Torre declared war on the 74-year-old art work last week and vowed to launch a campaign to “take this mural down”
Calling it “the Santa Monica confederate flag,” De la Torre said the mural is an insult to Native Americans because it shows them “bowing down to the Spaniards who came and oppressed and murdered and committed genocide in the Americas.”
Two days ago I told Marilyn that I am committed to publishing my first book in one month. I told her it would be titled ‘Sawtelle’. Yesterday, Donald Trump said he would not allow Muslims into this country if he were President. Yesterday, was December 7th. and many American people paid respects to those who lost their life when Japan attacked Pear Harbor. This attack has been compared to 911. After this “sneak attack” University High School lost 20% percent of their graduating class due to the United States Government rounding up these students, along with their parents, and putting them in internment camps. Today, Trump defended his statements by referring to FDR’s action.
The mural was painted by a good friend of my kindred, Thomas Hart Benton, the cousin of the muralist, Garth Benton, the late father of my artistic niece, Drew Benton. Stanton MacDonald-Wright and Thomas lived in Paris, and it was from Stanton that Benton got his style. Senator Thomas Hart Benton authored ‘Manifest Destiny’. I, my family, and my autobiography are at the epicenter of a cultural maelstrom. Consider Alley Valkyrie and her demands for Ken Kesey Square. Look at the Kesey murals and the destiny I beheld.
https://stories.californiasunday.com/2014-12-07/pynchon-inherent-vice-los-angeles/
“The mural, painted by Wright, a Santa Monica native, when the historic structure was built in 1938-39, became a symbol of racism at last week’s demonstration to secure funding for PYFC. The demonstration was joined by members of the Indian American Movement’s L.A. Chapter, organizers said.”
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump defended his call to temporarily bar Muslims from entering the United States by comparing it to former President Roosevelt’s 1942 executive order that authorized the internment of 110,000 American citizens of Japanese descent.
“This is a president highly respected by all, he did the same thing,” Trump said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Tuesday. “If you look at what he was doing, it was far worse.”
“We are now at war,” he added. “We have a president that doesn’t want to say that, but we are now at war.”
He shied away from the analogy during an earlier interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” when host Joe Scarborough asked whether the internment camps violated American values.
“I am not proposing that,” Trump said. “This is a whole different thing.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-defends-muslim-plan-by-comparing-himself-to-fdr/
“The springs shown in the mural still exist today, said Lehrer, “a sacred place restored and tended by descendants of Tongva/Gabrieleno Native Americans on the grounds of University High School.”
The Tongva indigenous American People could make a powerful case letting the white man come into their country – was a huge mistake!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongva_people
When I was fifteen my art teacher told me there was nothing he could teach me, and gave me a key to a gate that guarded these springs. He gave me a Artist’s Sanctuary that I could use whenever I attended his class. He took off his wristwatch and handed it to me so I could tell when his class was over. I fought back tears as I headed to these springs with a drawing board and paper. Years later Marilyn told me she used to climb the tall chain-link fence when she was thirteen, and swim in these sacred waters. She is part Meti.
Sawtelle used to be a city. After it was incorporated into the City of Los Angeles, a high school was built that was going to be named Sawtelle. Recently Sawtelle was renamed ‘Japantown’. A boundary line was drawn that stops short of the Sawtelle Veterans Home, where World War Two Veterans lived after being wounded in the War of the Pacific. Most of those Vets have died of old age. How many would object to the Sawtelle being named after Japan, whose conservative imperial war machine committed hideous atrocities. Indeed, if you are looking for a historic role model for ISIS, look to the Japanese military, who installed a systematic rape of young girls taken as sex slaves.
“The Los Angeles City Council recently unanimously approved a community petition to name the area Sawtelle Japantown. It’s also traditionally known as Sawtelle, West Los Angeles and, to some, Little Osaka.”
I point this out, because the American people have forgiven Japan for its war crimes. However, Donald Trump has picked a fight with Japan. How about Germany? Donald wants to round up Mexicans and put them back in Mexico. Trump’s has infuriated our neighbors while his rabid supporters egg him on. History has proven this kind of talk leads to war, and thus, young men going to war. Our soldiers will die. Many will be wounded and scarred for life. How many white followers understand there will be bloodshed as Trump makes America great again? Japan’s warrior class set out to make Japan “great again”.
This quest for greatness usually entails seeing others as less than human, and thus it us permitted to treat people who are not like you as sub-humans, even like vermon and bugs. The greatness of Germany and Japan did not end by the a consensus of its leaders who committed War Crimes. They did not say; “We must change our evil ways!” Japan and Germany was changed by American, British, and Russian soldiers. They had no choice. We beat them into submission.
Today, Japan’s leaders continue to ignore the bulk of Japans war crimes. Is there some kind od dual citizenship? Women have sued the nation of Japan because these superior men put their seed in them after they were beaten, tortured, and humiliated. Juan Cabrillo and his soldiers did the same thing to the Native Americans of the Sawtelle, who showed them a spring where they could draw water. They quenched the thirst of men who came to conquer them.
One reason why Stanton depicted this scene, was his use of Leo Carillo in the murals at the Santa Monica Library. They could have been friends. Stanton put Leo next to the actress Gloria Stuart who played Rose in the movie ‘The Titanic’. Leo is kin to conquistadors the Tongva people befriended. Then, they were betrayed.
Today, a Veterans group is suing the Department of Veteran’s Affairs to get back the Sawtelle Veterans Refuge and use it for warriors who suffer from mental illness due to the battles they have been in.
At the edge of the Sawtelle there was a Tea House Marilyn and I found, and where I brought my drawing pad. We were fifteen and sixteen. I did her portrait by a table near the crackling fire. I was in love for the first time in my life. Together we constituted an anti-war movement. It was 1962.
Jon Presco
Copyright 2015
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-strategy-seeks-to-avoid-isis-prophecy/ar-AAg9gDg?li=BBnb7Kz
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Carrillo
Although he played many different ethnicities in his acting career, Leo Carrillo was Castillian Spanish and traced his ancestry in Spain to the year 1260.[1] His great-great grandfather José Raimundo Carrillo[3] (1749–1809), was a soldier in the Spanish Portolá expedition colonization of Las Californias, arriving in San Diego on July 1, 1769. Franciscan Friar Junípero Serra performed the marriage ceremony for Don Jose Raimundo and Tomasa Ignacia Lugo in 1781.[4][5] His great-grandfather Carlos Antonio Carrillo[3][6] (1783–1852) was Governor of Alta California[7] (1837–38). His great-uncle, José Antonio Carrillo, was a three-time mayor of Los Angeles and twice married to sisters of Governor Pío Pico.[8] His paternal grandfather, Pedro Carrillo, who was educated in Boston,[9] was a writer.
: The Gaspar de Portolá painting in Pynchon’s book is just a small piece in a hallway. But we decided it would serve well as a backdrop to a scene in which the mysteries of Los Angeles unfold. We liked the idea of having Doc look completely out of place in a private club. When we didn’t find an existing location, we re-dressed the lower lobby of the Los Angeles Theatre in downtown L.A. The room had a combination of wood and plaster paneling, and we added the booths, tables, chairs, and drapes.
: Paul really wanted to include the painting described in the book. He liked the idea of magnifying this explorer who led an 18th-century expedition through what is now Los Angeles. We found a mural of Portolá at the Compton post office. It matched the book’s description, down to the vegetable crates. I went to the post office one day and hoisted up a ladder to photograph the thing. I reworked the center portion of the mural and had it reproduced on canvas.
By Hector Gonzalez
Staff Writer
June 30, 2015 — A local activist who attacked a mural at City Hall as a depiction of conquered Native Americans is misinterpreting what artist Stanton MacDonald-Wright meant by the scene, said a Santa Monica Conservancy official.
Pico Youth and Family Center (PYFC) founder and local Latino activist Oscar de la Torre declared war on the 74-year-old art work last week and vowed to launch a campaign to “take this mural down” during a rally protesting a funding cut for PYFC.
Calling it “the Santa Monica confederate flag,” De la Torre said the mural is an insult to Native Americans because it shows them “bowing down to the Spaniards who came and oppressed and murdered and committed genocide in the Americas.”
When placed in that context, the scene showing Native American kneeling as Spaniards stand over them could be easily misread, said Ruthann Lehrer of the Santa Monica Conservancy. Adding to the misinterpretation is the fact that few people know the story behind the scene shown in the mural, she added.
“I think the history of Santa Monica is not widely known,” said Lehrer. “I happen to know about it because the Conservancy puts on a walking tour of downtown every weekend that tells the entire story of Santa Monica’s development.
“As part of the research for that history, the story of the name was found.”
The mural, painted by Wright, a Santa Monica native, when the historic structure was built in 1938-39, became a symbol of racism at last week’s demonstration to secure funding for PYFC. The demonstration was joined by members of the Indian American Movement’s L.A. Chapter, organizers said.
But Lehrer said Wright’s mural is apolitical. The scene showing Native Americans, a Spanish friar and two Conquistadors together at a stream stems from “an oft-repeated legend about the naming of Santa Monica,” she added.
“Father Juan Crespi, one of the diarists of the Portola expedition of 1769 to Alta California, describes arriving at the location of springs near here, shown to them by friendly Native Americans who also brought food and gifts,” said Wright.
“The story goes that Father Crespi remarked that the streams of water reminded him of the tears of Saint Monica as she lamented over her then-wayward son Augustine before his conversion, as that day was Saint Monica’s name-day.
“This story supposedly later inspired the naming of our City as Santa Monica,” said Lehrer.
The springs shown in the mural still exist today, said Lehrer, “a sacred place restored and tended by descendants of Tongva/Gabrieleno Native Americans on the grounds of University High School.”
“So what is depicted in the mural shows Native Americans revealing a natural spring to their visitors, water being a precious resource and the source of life for people and animals.”
Although he was born into privilege — his father owned a resort on Santa Monica Beach — Wright worked as an artist for the federal government’s New Deal for American workers, a program that put thousands of unemployed artists to work.
“It was one of the most democratic programs of its time,” said Lehrer. “It was a program designed to create art for the people.”
As director of the Southern California Works Progress Administration from 1935 to 1942, Wright was commissioned to complete murals that now adorn walls at City Hall and the Santa Monica Public Library.
“He created and inspired public art for the people, and was a charismatic presence in the Los Angeles art scene for several decades,” said Lehrer.
Lehrer said she hopes Wright’s intention and the meaning of his mural will become clearer as more people learn about the legend behind it.
Given that violence and genocide were the basis of the colonization of what is now the United States, it should be no surprise that hate and brutality lie just under the surface of the so-called civil white society. This country’s second original sin – the horrifying institution of slavery – is also built into the foundation of white supremacy on which the US was built.
When the US “expanded” through a strategy of killing Indigenous people in order to steal their lands – with its economic growth largely relying on the uncompensated labor of individuals whose bodies were stolen – it built its foundation on the lofty language of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution thinly wrapped over an ossuary.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/bataan/peopleevents/e_atrocities.html
The Bayview Hotel was used as a “rape center”.[2] According to testimony at the Yamashita war crimes trial, 400 women and girls were rounded up from Manila’s wealthy Ermita district, and submitted to a selection board that picked out the 25 considered most beautiful. These women, many of them 12 to 14 years old, were then taken to the hotel, where Japanese enlisted men and officers took turns raping them.[3]
A group of veterans is suing the Department of Veteran Affairs, saying the 387 acre West LA VA campus has been used improperly and that they want more of it to be dedicated to mentally ill vets. According to the AP, the lawsuit says that the land was deeded to the government in 1888 “in order to provide housing for disabled war veterans.” But at this point, a lot of the buildings are empty and one-third have been leased out for commercial uses–the New York Times says homeless advocates think that’s the VA “bowing to residents of the property’s prosperous Brentwood neighborhood.” Non-vet uses include: a car rental agency, a laundry for the Marriott, a sporting facility for UCLA, and a theater operator. A lawyer for the ACLU, which is working on the suit, told the AP that the VA “never publicized” what it receives for those leases or what the proceeds are used for. If the suit is successful, it’ll mean housing for mentally ill veterans–the lawyer says the campus “could be made suitable for these veterans in less than the five or so months it took to plan and invade Iraq,” which seems a little farfetched considering many of the unused buildings are aging and need seismic work. Being a giant piece of land on the Westside has made the West LA VA campus frequently coveted over the years.
· Homeless Veterans Sue Over Neglected Campus [NYT]
· Suit: VA misusing LA land meant for homeless vets [AP]
As the debate on how best to contain the
Rosamond Press 
Reblogged this on Rosamond Press and commented:
Here is another attack on a mural assoicated with the artist Thomas Hart Benton.