When I was a girl, people at our church distributed a flyer claiming the Proctor & Gamble company was a front for satanists, and they pointed to its logo--an old man surrounded by 13 stars--as proof.
Today, Glenn Beck pulled a similar stunt, describing in detail how the art at Rockefeller-owned buildings proved that the Rockefellers were secret fascists/communists/progressives implementing a behind-the-scenes movement to lead us to "what's happening in our country," which he casually tied to what he called "the president's...indoctrination" of children scheduled for next week even as he pretended he was not trying to make this connection.
Beck is not the first one to draw this dubious straight line from fascism/communism to today's progressive movement. Before we get to the art, let's first address the absurdity of equating fascism and communism; as my friend Cole points out at Debunker Hill, they are conflicting government philosophies:
Anyone having even a basic understand of history or political philosophy might question how someone could simultaneously be a fascist in the mold of Nazi Germany and a communist in the form of the Soviet Union when both countries’ philosophies were diametrically opposed to each other in the 1930s and 1940s. They literally killed each other’s citizens by the millions, and the way the Nazi party interacted with its socialist and communist friends highlights the idiocy of such a juxtaposition.
Beck showed a series of friezes, sculptures, and paintings from Rockefeller-owned buildings and analyzed them as only an art critic with no more than a high school education could. He starts with the friezes of "Industry" and "Agriculture" created by German-American artist Carl Jennewein in 1937 that flank the doors of One Rockefeller Plaza:
According to Beck, it depicts a worker and a farmer (I guess he has to dumb it down for his audience). Beck says one holds a hammer (art historians say it is a shovel) and the other, wheat and a sickle.
Man holding hammer. Farmer holding wheat. What's this? A sickle? Gee the hammer and the sickle. Where has anyone seen that before? [Cuts to a statue in Russia.] The worker and the farmer, just like Moscow on this building? I thought they hated communism. They don't ever want to do that.
Was it an ode to communism or an ode to industry and agriculture, which were quite important in the US at that time? Beck has already made up his mind.
Beck moves to a 1936 bas relief carving by Italian American sculptor Attilio Piccirilli called Youth Leading Industry.
Here is a summary of how Beck describes it (he was babbling, making it hard to transcribe):
It drives me nuts that no one knows what this is. This was actually made by an Italian artist...The sun represents the bright tomorrow, right here underneath the boy. Here is the sun; show me the boy. This is the youth...leading the way. Notice he's ahead of the horses. He's leading the way into the bright future of tomorrow...Now this man standing in the chariot, at the wheel. The "wheel" is always representative of industry in any of these progressive paintings or pictures of artwork. So you've got the wheel.
He's standing on a chariot, you've got the industry, and the "engines" of industry. But who's in the back here? This man's strong hand is holding onto the reins tightly here, holding back the reins of industry, being led into the future of the boy. Who is this? Who is this? This is the man led by our children--
Gee, who's having indoctrination next week? Oh yeah, that's right, the president. Completely unrelated.
This represents, at the time that this was made, Mussolini. This was Mussolini. You have the artwork of Mussolini there.
He inaccurately claimed Piccirilli's "son died fighting Mussolini" in World War II. It was actually his nephew. Piccirilli and his family were famous for their sculpture. In fact, based on someone else's design, they carved Lincoln for the Lincoln Monument. Rockefeller felt another of Piccirilli's glass panels had too many blatant fascist elements and ordered it removed from the building, after which it was lost permanently. Clearly, Rockefeller was not a strong supporter of fascism.
But does Youth Leading Industry depict Mussolini? Some some scholars say yes, but most are silent on the matter. Piccirilli went to school in Italy and in the early day's of Mussolini's reign, Mussolini was held in fairly high regard by Italy's intellectuals and politicos. Mussolini also earned praise in the United States in the early 1930s; and yes, Rockefeller associated with Mussolini. However, to identify Mussolini with progressive causes is absurd.
Mussolini's fascism was anticommunist and antisocialist. Mussolini described socialism "as a doctrine that was already dead." Mussolini's fascism fostered nationalist sentiments, opposed democracy, protected the class system, promoted militarization of a nation, and opposed free press and trade unions. The "Third Way" fascists thought of themselves as combating liberal institutions.
Does this sound progressive? Further, it illustrates that you cannot simultaneously be communist and fascist.
Next, Beck shows a carving representative of the Bible verse Isaiah 2:4:
Here is the text of that evil verse:
And He will judge between the nations, And will render decisions for many peoples; And they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, And never again will they learn war.
Beck says Lee Lawrie's carving is like this statue he says he "keep[s] on my desk to remind myself that very beautiful things can come from really ugly places." He calls it a prototype and shows that it was "MADE IN USSR."
Then he shows a sculpture in New York City of a man fashioning swords into plowshares that "was a gift from the former Soviet Union. It sits behind this building. The United Nations. Which happens to sit on land donated by...Rockefeller." So, apparently, in Beck's mind, if you were to build a brothel on land once owned by Abraham Lincoln, one could then link Abraham Lincoln to support for prostitution.
It should be noted that Lawrie carved his Rockefeller panel in 1933, and the statue Beck refers to was not gifted to the United Nations (not Rockefeller) until 1959, to reinforce the justification for the United Nations, which is to put an end to war.
The German-born Lawrie also designed the image of FDR for the dime. He had a long obsession with plowshares and sowers, which he said came from an encounter with someone planting a field when he was a boy. Lawrie did multiple works with plowshares, sickles, and sowers in the United States.
I am surprised Beck did not bring up Lawrie's sculpture of Atlas outside Rockefeller Plaza. It was considered quite controversial during the 1940s, because some alleged that Mussolini was the model for Atlas.
I have reserved the best and most misleading for last. On screen, Beck brings up a Diego Rivera mural that was once in "30 Rock," which he notes is "GE headquarters" and "home of NBC":
I'll show you something in the lobby of 30 Rock. This administration is now beginning to use art as propaganda [which has to do with what, exactly?]...but I want you to understand who these progressives are...that what's happening in our country has been a long time coming...it's in plain sight.
He notes the mural was commissioned by Rockefeller but neglects to mention that it was Nelson Rockefeller. Beck describes the evils of this painting:
In this crowd of Americans, you see the police beating people. Angry mobs I guess. Here's the evil army of capitalism. Then there's the wonderful people over here of Moscow...Oh down here, looks like Karl Marx. Then you have disease. This is all the things that are going on in the world. Right above syphilis, is, oh, Rockefeller...Oh and then, one other thing, who's the savior? Lenin.
Beck notes that "after people objected to the mural," they removed it and it was broken while moving it. That's not quite the whole truth, but Beck does not want you to know that.
Rivera's original drawings did not include communists or Lenin. When Nelson saw the mural, he was furious and ordered Rivera to remove them. Rivera refused. Nelson had the painting covered. Art historians tried to rescue the painting but instead Nelson had it destroyed. Rivera recreated the painting in Mexico, which is the version that Beck shows. Karl Marx and Leon Trotsky and Rockefeller appear in the re-creation, not the original. But Beck does not tell you that either.
Then Beck plunges further off the deep-end, again reflecting his Messiah complex:
That is early 20th century progressives and the progressives of today..it makes sense that we're headed down this road. It makes sense that you feel a little uneasy...and it seems to be hidden, but it's not.
Now that I've pointed out [you and half a dozen other people before you], I guarantee that you will see it and you'll point it out. That's your job. I'm tring to show you the things that seem to be hidden, but they're not. They're out in plain sight.
Then he gets all Jim Jones/David Koresh-like:
Those with eyes shall not see and those without ears will not hear. You're awake. You need to see the things that are hidden in plain sight. Progressives, fascists, communists--now what do they all have in common today? That's just something you'll have to figure out.
I have figured it out, Glenn! The answer is nothing! They have never had anything in common and they have nothing in common now!
But Beck can't let it go at that. He has to tell his audience "one more thing"
Rockefeller Foundation..they gave a big award and an awful lot of credibility to...Van Jones. Our new "green jobs czar."
Wow. So the Rockefeller families, with the help of several famous American artists and sculptors orchestrated this whole thing so that they could usher in an insidious campaign to eventually make Van Jones a "green jobs czar." We all know that protecting the environment and creating environmentally friendly jobs is the mark of the beast.
Crossposted at http://debunkerhill.com