Glenn Beck: Some Rockefeller Was Some Form of Enemy
09/07/2009 by Gabriel VoilesMark Howard of News Corpse (9/3/09) has a look at a September 2 Fox News "sermon" in which Glenn Beck "has used his divine vision to reveal the evidence of Satan's secret seeds" in the form of "paintings and sculptures and other works by history’s subversives--the artists!"
As Beck "associates the evil artists with their patron, Rockefeller," Howard notes that, "unfortunately, he doesn't specify which one. In fact, he jumps around to several of them without making any distinction":
Beck begins his unveiling with a denouncement of a relief at the entrance to Rockefeller Center. The work shows two men on either side of the doors. Beck tells us that one is holding a hammer, and the other a sickle. Ergo communism! It's right there in plain sight. Except that the first man is actually holding a shovel, according to the historians curating the Center's artwork. The figures were meant to represent the strength of America's industry and agriculture, which I'm sure Beck views as treasonous.
Then Beck focuses on a bas relief carving by Italian-American sculptor Attilio Piccirilli called Youth Leading Industry. Beck's interpretation of this work centers on his theory that the artist, and thus the work, were avowedly fascist. Beck asserts that a strong male figure in the piece is Mussolini. Whether or not that's true, and there is some debate, it is illustrative of Beck's dementia that he can jump from warnings about progressives being communists to progressives being fascists without taking a breath.
"In the real world," meanwhile, Howard explains the historical fact that "Mussolini was a bitter foe of Stalin and vice versa." See the recent issue of FAIR's magazine Extra!: "Glenn Beck Is No Howard Beale: He's Mad Like a Fox, and Wants to Take Us In" (6/09) by Steve Rendall.
Tags: art, Attilio Piccirilli, communism, fascism, Fox, Glenn Beck, Mark Howard, Mussolini, News Corpse, Rockefeller, Rockefeller Center, Stalin
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September 7th, 2009 at 11:10 pm
i don't know whether attilio piccirilli did or didn't sculpt mussolini at 30 rock. i do know that he was one of the six piccirilli brothers who, with their father, carved the statue of abraham lincoln in the lincoln memorial, perhaps the single most famous, symbolic and awe-inspiring statue ever created in the united states. the piccirillis worked under the supervision of daniel chester french, the sculptor who designed that lincoln statue, and who assisted them in carving it in their studio in the south bronx.
September 9th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
In all the commentary I've read on this, I've noticed few people have pointed out the most damning flaw in Beck's logic:
Nelson Rockefeller actually DESTROYED one artwork he had commissioned for the Rockefeller Center precisely BECAUSE it had overt Communist symbolism which the artist refused to remove.
I am referring, of course, to Diego Rivera's mural, titled MAN AT THE CROSSROADS, which was originally commissioned for the ground floor in Rockefeller Center. Rivera included portraits of Leon Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin in the work; Rockefeller asked that those two portraits be changed expressly BECAUSE they appeared to cast Communism in a favorable light. Rivera refused, and then when the work was done Rockefeller simply had it draped. Then, a year later, he sent in work crews to smash up the mural and haul away the debris in weelbarrows, utterly destroying the work. Rockefeller commissioned a different artist to paint a mural featuring Abraham Lincoln instead.
I find it PROFOUNDLY hard to accept Beck's logic in light of that incident.