New Deal Beach Art (2/5): "Beach Scene" by Wilford Huntington

Above: "Beach Scene," a watercolor painting by Wilford Huntington, created while he was in the New Deal's Section of Fine Arts, 1940. During the New Deal, there were many projects to protect and improve beaches. For example, in the November 9, 1935 edition of the Orlando Sentinel, it was reported that WPA workers were repairing and fortifying an area of Daytona Beach that had been eroded away by a storm in 1932. The project included building a bulkhead, moving sand, and planting grasses and shrubs ("New Bulkhead Protects Beach: WPA Improves Strip At Daytona," p. 9). Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

New Deal Beach Art (1/5): A beach scene by Saul Kovner

Above: A lithograph of a beach scene, created in 1941 by WPA artist Saul Kovner (1904-1981). According to the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Kovner was born in Russia and "After his training at the National Academy of Design [in New York City], Kovner maintained a studio near Central Park, creating paintings and drawings of the city and its people. He later moved to California and exhibited widely on the West Coast." Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

New Deal Hard Times Art (10/10): "Boy Artist at Transient Shelter"

Above: "Boy Artist at Transient Shelter," a lithograph by Elizabeth Olds (1896-1991), created while she was in the New Deal's Public Works of Art Project, 1934. How many children today sit in homeless shelters and dream of a better life? And how many realize, despite all the happy-talk to the contrary, that it's unlikely, because of the greed and selfishness of the American caste system? Image courtesy of the General Services Administration and the Nebraska State Historical Society.

As the super-rich keep hoarding wealth, evading taxes, and refusing to give American workers a significant raise, child homelessness remains a major problem in the United States. For example, in 2016 the U.S. Department of Housing and Human Services (DHHS) reported: "Homelessness is a reality for many families with young children in our country. In fact, infancy is the period of life when a person is at highest risk of living in a homeless shelter in the United States... Experiences of homelessness in early childhood are associated with poor early development and educational well-being" ("Early Childhood Homelessness in the United States: 50-State Profile," January 2016, available here).

Childhood homelessness occurs just about everywhere in America. In Kentucky, the DHHS report shows that 10.6% of children in Kentucky under the age of 6 experience homelessness. Meanwhile, "New York City remains in the midst of the worst crisis of homelessness since the Great Depression, with more than 62,000 men, women, and children sleeping in shelters each night. A chronic shortage of affordable housing and the potent combination of rising rents and stagnant wages have fueled a daunting and unabated 79 percent increase in the demand for shelter in the last decade... The City has made far too little progress for the 45,000 children staying in shelters each year. The number of children in shelters remains at record levels" ("State of the Homeless 2017," Coalition for the Homeless, available here).

The problem of child homelessness is so bad that it's developed its own lingo. For example, homeless high school students are sometimes referred to as "couch surfers or couch hoppers," because, lacking a permanent residency of their own, they stay at various shelters and friends' homes ("Number of homeless children and adults in America has increased," The Philadelphia Tribune, June 28, 2016).

How will our Republican federal government address child homelessness? Answer: They will give massive tax cuts to the super-rich. Not more affordable housing, not an increase in the earned income credit, not a public works program for the unemployed, but massive tax cuts... for the super-rich "job creators" who have failed so miserably at creating good-paying jobs. Republicans are working hard, for example, to repeal the estate tax (a tax paid only by the rich) so that even more dynastic wealth can be passed down from generation to generation. This will solidify America's developing caste system - those born into great wealth will live in great luxury and those born into poverty will remain in poverty, struggling all their lives with low wages and high debt (see, e.g., "Poor at 20, Poor for Life: A new study indicates that from the 1980s to the 2000s, it became less likely that a worker could move up the income ladder," The Atlantic, July 14, 2016).

In the Bible, Christ says we should avoid hoarding wealth and, instead, help the poor (see, e.g., Matthew 19: 20-24). But in America today, with the strong support of many evangelicals (who voted for Trump, a man who says, "I'm a very greedy person") we help the super-rich get richer and scold the poor - calling them "takers," "parasites," and "lazy good-for-nothings." And then, the political right (the group that facilitates most of this wealth-hoarding and name-calling) has the nerve to declare America "A Christian Nation!!"

Isn't that amazing? I mean... isn't that just jaw-dropping, eye-crossing, pull-your-hair-out amazing? Wow!

New Deal Hard Times Art (9/10): "Forgotten Man"

Above: "Forgotten Man," an oil painting by Gustav Berk, created while he was in a New Deal art program, probably either the Public Works of Art Project or the WPA's Federal Art Project, ca. 1934-1935. Not much is known about Berk, but according to the Nebraska State Historical Society, he was born in Germany and lived from about 1871-1937. He had a wife named Margaret and two children, so it's possible he has descendants living today - descendants who might not even be aware that he painted "Forgotten Man," an artwork based on one of Franklin Roosevelt's speeches. Image courtesy of the General Services Administration and the Nebraska State Historical Society.

On April 7, 1932, in his Radio Address From Albany, New York: "The 'Forgotten Man' Speech", Franklin Roosevelt said: "In my calm judgment, the Nation faces today a more grave emergency than in 1917. It is said that Napoleon lost the battle of Waterloo because he forgot his infantry - he staked too much upon the more spectacular but less substantial cavalry. The present administration in Washington provides a close parallel. It has either forgotten or it does not want to remember the infantry of our economic army. These unhappy times call for the building of plans that rest upon the forgotten, the unorganized but the indispensable units of economic power for plans like those of 1917 that build from the bottom up and not from the top down, that put their faith once more in the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid."

Today, plutocracy has once again taken over the country. As everyday Americans face stagnant wages, crushing personal debt, rising rates of depression and anxiety, the political right is working hard to give massive tax cuts to the rich and also to cut the social safety net. We are forgotten again.

New Deal Hard Times Art (8/10): "Poverty"

Above: "Poverty," an aquatint by Dorothy Rutka (1907-1985), created while she was in the WPA's art program, ca. 1935-1942. Image courtesy of the General Services Administration and the Baltimore Museum of Art.

A few days ago, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report highlighting America's looming retirement catastrophe ("Government report sounds alarm on retirement crisis," CNBC, October 19, 2017). This wide-scale, old-age poverty crisis will be due to a number of reasons (some are explained in the article, some are not), including: Stagnant wages; the exportation of good-paying jobs; decreased union participation; rising healthcare costs; the growing and pathetic "gig economy"; rising levels of personal debt; recent & cold-hearted limitations on bankruptcy relief; financial fraud; the replacement of fixed pension plans with inadequate 401k's (if anything at all); the refusal of right-wing politicians to expand Social Security; and the greed & selfishness of the super-wealthy.

If millions of voters keep electing Republican, Tea Party, and "centrist" (i.e., Republican-Light) politicians, and millions of others keep sitting on the sidelines in apathy, little or nothing will be done to address old-age poverty. We can expect even higher rates of suicide and other deaths of despair, while younger generations are trained by right-wing millionaires and billionaires--via think tank "researchers," political advertisements, and mainstream media talking heads--to blame impoverished senior citizens for their plight. "Personal responsibility!" they'll scream at the elderly. "Rugged individualism!" they'll admonish. "Tough sh&t!" they'll laugh, "You should have saved more!" And the fact that they couldn't have saved more because of pathetic wages, outsourced jobs, and crushing debt won't matter a bit to the right-wing boneheads who will be scolding them.

Free market fanaticism, and the refusal to accept the existence of market failure, breeds sociopathy - and that's going to cause a lot of suffering for older Americans in the very near future.

New Deal Hard Times Art (7/10): "Money Magnet" and "1939 A.D."

Above: "Money Magnet," a lithograph by Don Freeman (1908-1978), created while he was in the WPA's Federal Art Project, 1936. Freeman went on to have a very successful art career after the WPA, but in a 1965 oral history interview, he said, "I think you have to give credit to - I do, give credit to the WPA, through that very difficult time. My wife, she wasn't on the project, it helped us to carry on so that we could paint. We were just painting all the time. So it helped us through a very difficult period." Image courtesy of the General Services Administration and the Baltimore Museum of Art.

This year, it's been reported that "Fifty-seven percent of Americans don't have enough cash to cover a $500 unexpected expense"; and "Data suggests that the typical working-class family wouldn't make it in most big U.S. cities without taking on debt"; and "Two-thirds of Americans would struggle to cover a $1000 emergency expense"; and "Americans are dying with an average of $62,000 of debt."

Meanwhile, the richest Americans are enjoying record wealth; and their political puppets (Republicans, Libertarians, and Tea Partiers) are working hard to give them even more tax cuts, while slashing social safety net programs that help the non-rich.

Is it any wonder that suicides and other deaths of despair are becoming more and more frequent? After decades of trickle-down economics, the American Dream is dead.

We are constantly bombarded with messages / propaganda like, "America number one!" and "America is the greatest country in the world." Further (and worse), if you don't agree it's considered unpatriotic. But to accept that America is the greatest country in the world, you have to accept, or be oblivious to, an awful lot of mental, physical, and financial suffering. You have to tune out misery, and immerse yourself in vanity.

In Franklin Roosevelt's 1936 speech accepting his renomination for president, he stated:

"An old English judge once said: 'Necessitous men are not free men.' Liberty requires opportunity to make a living—a living decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives man not only enough to live by, but something to live for.

For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor - other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness.

Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could appeal only to the organized power of Government. The collapse of 1929 showed up the despotism for what it was. The election of 1932 was the people's mandate to end it. Under that mandate it is being ended.

The royalists of the economic order have conceded that political freedom was the business of the Government, but they have maintained that economic slavery was nobody's business. They granted that the Government could protect the citizen in his right to vote, but they denied that the Government could do anything to protect the citizen in his right to work and his right to live.

Today we stand committed to the proposition that freedom is no half-and-half affair. If the average citizen is guaranteed equal opportunity in the polling place, he must have equal opportunity in the market place.

These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power. In vain they seek to hide behind the Flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the Flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike."

Above: "1939 A.D.," a lithograph by Elizabeth Olds (1896-1991), created in 1939, probably during her time in the WPA. Notice the "Right To Work" sign in the crowd of marchers. Back then, "right to work" meant something along the lines of employment assurance. Today, of course, the slogan has been hi-jacked by anti-union forces, as a tool to trick Americans into working for lower wages. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

For a time, roughly 1933 to 1980, economic inequality, tyranny, and slavery was reduced. After that, however, America abandoned the New Deal and embraced trickle-down economics instead. And so now, we live in a time period where, on the one hand, student loan debt is approaching $1.5 trillion, wages are stagnant, infrastructure is crumbling, millions are incarcerated... while, on the other hand, a mere 400 people control $2.7 trillion in wealth. To add to the absurdity of the situation, tens of millions of middle and lower-income Americans keep voting for right-wing politicians who want to (a) cut or eliminate taxes on the wealthy and (b) do nothing at all about the debt that average Americans are being bludgeoned with.

Slavery still exists in America. It's been fine-tuned and adjusted, very ingeniously, so that the enslaved can't see their shackles or oppressors.

New Deal Hard Times Art (6/10): "Eviction"

Above: "Eviction," a crayon aquatint by Dorothy Rutka (1907-1985), created while she was in the WPA's Federal Art Project, 1937. Rutka graduated from the Cleveland School of Art in 1929, and worked "as a portrait painter, a writer and illustrator before joining the graphic arts project with the WPA in 1936." In 1985, she and her husband were murdered during a burglary of their home in Shaker Heights, Ohio. Image courtesy of the General Services Administration and the Kelvin Smith Library, Case Western Reserve University.

A new report on the 400 richest people in America shows that, once again, they're enjoying record wealth - $2.7 trillion, up from $2.4 trillion. And yesterday, the stock market hit a record high too, 23,328.

Sadly, the prosperity of the few isn't doing much for everyday Americans. For example, wages are still stagnant and evictions are running rampant. With respect to the latter, Harvard Professor Matthew Desmond recently said, "If you look at the numbers, city by city, they're just shocking. There are 40 evictions a day that happen in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and 60 marshal evictions a day in New York City. The last time we rolled out the American Housing Survey, we asked renters: 'do you think you'll be evicted soon?' and 2.8 million renting homes said 'yes' to that question... we're evicting people not in the tens and hundreds of thousands, but rather millions."

Just another painful lesson in the failure of trickle-down economics. But it doesn't matter. Tens of millions of Americans will continue to vote for right-wing politicians who, in turn, will continue to push for more tax cuts for the rich. And so the nightmarish loop of economic failure and soaring income & wealth inequality continues.