Check out this charming bit of theocratic statist-right propaganda. (CHT LRC.) Notice especially the cast-out sinners at lower right: Darwinists, pregnant (and presumably abortion-minded) women, the whole panoply of abomination. (And of course professional killers are prominently represented among the saved.)
"Austro" as in Rothbard and Wittgenstein, "Athenian" as in Aristotle and smashing-the-plutocracy.
About Roderick T. Long
The Empirical Me
I’m Roderick T. Long, Professor of Philosophy at Auburn University. I’m an Aristotelean/Wittgensteinian in philosophy and a left-libertarian market anarchist in social theory. (More about me here.) This blog, Austro-Athenian Empire, is a continuation of my earlier blog, archived here.
If you do a zoom on the black soldier on the right, you can see that his nametag reads “King.” That is truly f**ing disgusting.
Forgive my ignorance, but which famous soldier called “King” is that a reference to?
“The black modern U. S. soldier is significant because originally I had painted Martin Luther King, but had to remove him because of copyright laws regarding the use of his image. As a tribute to Martin Luther King I placed this soldier in a prominent place in the painting and on his body armor it has the name, “KING” written as the name of the soldier. It feels appropriate in that in the military all men are treated the same regardless of color. Martin Luther King is the figure head of the Civil Rights Movement. As a side note, as I considered who to include with the patriots I at one point contemplated the objections some may have to including figures that may have had some skeletons in their closet. It might cause some to ask the question, “Are they worthy to stand next to God?” I came to the conclusion that no man is perfect and all would fall short based on that criteria, therefore I chose to include patriots based on their contribution to the strengthening of America and our Constitution.”
From his site.
The image of a historical person is copyrighted? You can’t refer to someone in a composition without their permission? That’s a form of censorship which could cut deep enough culturally to close down public conversation completely. It means that anyone with enough pull or cash to intimidate critics with lawsuits can ruin any Aristophanes or Thomas Nast with an imagination and a critical opinion.
Waiting for Objectivism to provide its excuse for this.
So…is Darth Sidious(far right, bottom half) going to show up after the rapture?
When I look at it on my iPhone, it looks like Lorne from Angel wearing a very unflattering cloak.
And who is the stereotypically Jewish-looking guy counting money at the extreme lower right?
I missed the fact he was Jewish. We need some kind of caption to tell us who all the people are.
Here.
That’s Robert Downey Jr. Iron man II will do extremely well.
I feel sorry for Christa McAuliffe who must parade around in that space suit for the rest of eternity. Word to the wise: If you think you might die, wear comfortable clothes.
I was wondering what was up with the guy talking on the cell phone at lower right. I mean, if it was someone driving and talking on a cell phone, or one of those asshats with a blue tooth, then yeah, of course they’re eternally damned.
Then I checked out the caption linked by Louis B.
* * *
Politician: He’s on his cell phone, not paying attention. He has his patriotic tie and American flag lapel pin, but he’s more concerned about his own political ambitions than what is in the best interest of the country. I’m afraid there is too much of this in Washington today. There needs to be a change [emphasis mine]. It will only happen if the American people rise up and demand it.
* * *
Honestly, why does anybody even try to create parody when it happens by accident so easily.
It looks like the figure to the left of the “King” soldier is Jack Kennedy. There are all sorts of reasons why I would expect a fundamentalist to assume JFK would be excluded from Heaven — he was a Catholic, an extreme adulterer, a Democrat, somewhat liberal, and so on and so forth.
Maybe he gets in because he was a Cold Warrior? puzzling. Ronnie Ray-Gun appears, and that psychopath Teddy Roosevelt, but no Nixon, no LBJ, no Bush family members…
Also, once again we have a contemporary representation of Jeebus that is WASP-y in appearance. Jeebus would be Arabic-looking, but we can’t have THAT I suppose…
Who is the bearded guy between Darth Sidious and the scientist (I presume) holding the “Origin of species”?
The picture on his site has mouse-over text for most of the people. The one holding Darwin’s book is a “Professor”, presumably representing arrogant leftist academia.
The really hilarious thing is that on his site he says his painting is not meant to be an endorsement of the Republican Party; of course if that’s really true, it only means the Republicans are not so wonky as to believe the Constitution embodied the message of Jesus.
You would think for such a lovely piece of propaganda that the artist would realize that there is no such rank as “staff corporal” or “corporal first class”.
Anyway, merry (observed) winter solstice! [I realize the solstice has taken place already, so save your breath.]
A new interpretation for the mouseover captions here. Check the U.S. Marine and the Farmer just for starters.
That was hilarious – thanks.
What is that symbol Jebus is wearing on his chest? I it looks like Yggdrasil, the Old Norse “Tree of Life.”
Maybe it’s the White Tree from Lord of the Rings, or the World Tree from World of Warcraft?
It did make me think of Aragorn’s White Tree crest.
See this, too.
That’s the creepiest shit I’ve seen this week.
It’s only creepy in the context of awareness that a large percentage of Americans think about politics precisely this way, and that a similarly large percentage of the larger world’s population stores their political opinions (and not only their politicil opinions) in some equivalent symbolic mindscape. Oh, and then there’s the fact that this narrative socially translates into a pattern of social relations which will hurt you in precise proportion to the degree that you see with your own eyes instead of through that narrative.
At the same time, how wonder many people here have spent more time examining this painting than any other in the past week, or month? McNaughton isn’t uninteresting:
http://www.mcnaughtonart.com/artwork/view_zoom/?artpiece_id=319
He’s also vain enough to seriously make one question the depth of his Christianity. See his welcome page:
http://www.mcnaughtonart.com/
Why is the Roman shield laying next to the Spartan? Why is the Viking wearing a horned helmet..?
He’s a “Minnesota Viking?”
Aster, this summer you referred to me in a post and wrote Vache Folle? (sp?) at the time I thought this was some high culture reference that I just didn’t get. Now I assume it is in reference to some libertarian blogger. If my response in that thread seemed uncivil I assure you that wasn’t my intent, I am not really that well acquainted with the libertarian bloggerverse (I have never viewed myself as part of a movement, I just like certain ideas) as such I probably looked pretty dim.
Dennis-
To be honest, I don’t recall the incident. “Vache Folle” is the pen name of a left-libertarian blogger who also goes by the name Dennis St. George, so I most likely confused the two of you. If there was uncivility I apologise; I’ve no hostile feelings for St. George, for that matter.
This is one of the creepiest things I’ve seen in a while.
Notice that the “college student” is carrying that “the Founding Fathers were uber-Christian” book that Glenn Beck likes so much. Not that I am some founding father fetishist, but if you are going to use historical figures you should at least use them as they really were. It’s like when college kids wear Che t-shirts or some libertarians wax over how great John C Calhoun was.
Well at least he’s not reading Charles Darwin. Much better to read some short lived political best seller.
Oh wow. Mass murdering malcontents standing next to the J-man. I would say it is unbelievable, but it really isn’t.
I think Davy Crockett and Thomas Paine should take the continental and the marine as backup so they can go arrest Hamilton, Lincoln, Roosevelt and Grant for treason. Hoist them by their own statist petard.
[...] December 24th of ‘09, Roderick T Long over at Austro-Atheninan Empire informed his readers of what he called a “charming bit of theocratic statist-right [...]