@ creativerealms:
No, it's not here merely because of Glenn Beck although that's one reason why it should be:
Beck's contributions to Ballard's work consists of a 'fact-finding' tour to Bangkok, with Ballard, where Beck allegedly learned about the evils of sex-trafficking first-hand. Perhaps as a result, Beck has just signed on with a Ballard 'OUR' project to rescue primarily Christians from slavery that exists in parts of the Middle East. Beyond that, however, his contribution to the topic of abolitionism has been in the form of an attempt to smear the left for their daring to question the complete and untarnished integrity of those among the US Founding Fathers who owned slaves.
From his ass to our eyes:
The progressive left would have you believe the Founders were all rich, white, uncaring, racist slave owners but the truth is something entirely different. What did the Founding Fathers think about slavery? Were they all slave owners who refused to free their slaves? This definitive four-part series on the Founders and slavery sets the record straight.
After the preamble, Beck starts setting the record straight' with a frank lie:
Just as some Americans refuse to believe that America’s Founders built this nation on Christian-Judeo principles, there are those who can’t accept they also did their best to set up the eventual abolition of slavery.
It's McNaughton’s penchant for right-wing agitprop, linked with a variation of cronyism, that makes this item worthy of inclusion here. And those aren't the only issues, especially with this painting:
The modern slave trade is a global, multi-ethnic problem that exists in developed countries, such as the UK, even as it exists in developing countries; in the West as well as the East, and so on.
NGOs and multi-national, government-funded organisations have worked tirelessly to bring greater public awareness to the plight of 21st Century slaves. They also build inroads (including with the help of abolitionists native to areas where the slave-trade has a strong foothold; who risk their lives to help free slaves) by which slaves can escape captivity.
I think it would be unrealistic and unfair to expect that the artist could depict a large portion of abolitionist activity in a single painting. It makes sense for McNaughton to choose a single primary subject in this case, the Ballards and their anti-trafficking activities and even to use rail tracks both because Ballard's organisation is called Operation Underground Railroad (OUR) and as a nod to the “Underground Railroad” that helped people escape chattel slavery about 170 years ago.
But then McNaughton confuckulates absolutely everything.
He chooses to have as his centerpiece three white people (one of whom doesn't represent anyone specific, AFAIK, but is rather more of an 'everyman') all carrying black children to safety along a set of tracks while the souls of abolitionists, black and white, who did risk their lives in service to the US Underground Railroad look on from the side approvingly... alongside other humanitarians like Tony-Fucking-Robbins and Glenn Beck.
Never mind that the Ballards fight 21st Century sex trafficking, which probably should be more clearly depicted as their aim in a picture allegedly dedicated to their efforts.
The artist either doesn't see his method of depicting any of this stuff as ahistorical and misleading, or he doesn't care.
The content of some of his other paintings leaves me with the impression that with this man, formerly known as the Tea Party's Painter, it's the latter: He does not care.
McNaughton is not at all above feeding the egos of his cronies by including, for example, Glenn Beck in a painting allegedly celebrating Ballard's accomplishments.
He's not above gross historical revisionism to make his ham-fisted points.
McNaughton's art is so obvious in its politics that Brigham Young University, of all places, had one of his installations pulled after a professor at that bastion of liberal thought described the painting as propaganda.
Let's take a look at just how 'subtle' this guy is. Here's one of his works - One Nation Under Socialism...
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...and is he fundie? Well, here's the painting pulled by BYU:
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So yes, in my opinion obviously, since I submitted it that painting belongs here.
