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The Guardian
a day ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
The nefarious message behind the DHS ‘manifest destiny' painting: ‘four pillars of propaganda'
In Morgan Weistling's oil painting A Prayer for a New Life, a young, white pioneer couple sit inside a covered wagon, sharing a quiet moment with their swaddled newborn as prairie stretches out behind them. The work could be interpreted as a western take on the birth of Jesus; Mary and Joseph on the Oregon trail. One might imagine it decorating the oak-walled office of an oil executive in a Yellowstone spin-off show – though it is probably too schmaltzy even for that. Last week, Weistling's painting took on a darker meaning when the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)'s official X account posted, to the artist's consternation, an image of the painting with the caption: 'Remember your Homeland's Heritage.' To some, the post seemed like authoritarian propaganda, similar to what was put out by Joseph Goebbels about Aryan motherhood in 1930s Nazi Germany. 'In case you had any doubts about the white supremacist thing,' one X user responded to the post. Others nakedly applauded its perceived subtext, a celebration of the right's vision for America, in which families of strong men and maternal women usher in a pronatalist baby boom. 'Our people. Our place,' responded Andrew Torba, CEO of Gab, a social network popular among alt-right, neo-Nazi and white nationalist users. Under Trump's second administration, the DHS has orchestrated sweeping immigration raids across the US, and Ice is reportedly detaining a record number of migrants. A scroll through the department's X account shows videos of families torn apart by immigration officers, and then this post, which seems to say: we're fine with migration and movement – so long as the families doing it are white. Experts say the benign look on the couple's faces and the presence of an innocent newborn distract from the real problem: what's not in the painting's frame. 'The main stories that are told through art of the American west tend to focus on white settlers, which omits the suppression of other populations,' said Emily C Burns, director of the Charles M Russell study for the center of art of the American west and an associate professor of art history at the University of Oklahoma. 'It's challenging when a single image of something that is incredibly complicated is placed in the foreground. What stories are lost in that?' Those stories include the US government's violent expulsion and genocide of Indigenous people to clear land for settlers, and the Black cowboys, many of them formerly enslaved or one generation removed from slavery, who went west on horseback and helped develop the country's nascent ranching industry. Also omitted are the Chinese immigrants who built the west's railroads and worked its goldmines and factories, and who, due to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, could not legally gain US citizenship. Adam Klein, associate professor at Pace University, studies how extremist movements infiltrate American media and politics. 'The [Weistling] painting isn't violent at all,' he said. 'On the surface, it's a beautiful image. But when you look at where it's coming from, with [DHS using] language like 'homeland' and 'heritage', that's really evocative of anti-immigrant sentiment.' Klein said the post brought to mind similar themes used by VDare, a far-right, anti-immigration website that launched in 1999 and suspended operations last year. VDare was named after Virginia Dare, the first child born to European settlers in the 'new world'. Since the 1800s, white supremacists have glorified her memory, though all we know of her is her birthdate and the fact that she disappeared as part of the 'lost colony' of Roanoke. Dare's image and disappearance are ripe for racist projections, including the conspiracy theory of a 'white genocide' perpetrated by non-white immigrants. In 2018, the VDare founder Peter Brimelow told the Washington Post that he chose the name 'to focus attention on the very specific cultural origins of America, at a time when mass nontraditional immigration is threatening to swamp it'. Klein also noted that the DHS's post seemed like 'an attempt to stir the pot and be divisive'. Under the leadership of Kristi Noem, the DHS has taken up Donald Trump's orders for mass deportation with militant aplomb and an all-out publicity blitz. Noem looked glamorous as she livestreamed pre-dawn Ice raids in New York and toured the southern border on horseback. Meanwhile, the department shares mugshots of migrants and reminders from Uncle Sam to 'REPORT ALL FOREIGN INVADERS.' Last month, it posted AI-rendered art hyping Alligator Alcatraz, thumbing its nose at critics horrified by the detention center's reported conditions. On a less aggressive artistic note, it also shared the late artist Thomas Kinkade's Morning Pledge, a pastoral painting showing two boys walking to their small-town schoolhouse underneath a fluttering American flag. 'Protect the Homeland,' the DHS captioned this post. Both Kinkade's perfectly manicured Americana and Weistling's 'manifest destiny' daydream belie the chaos DHS has sown through its often violent immigration crackdown. But they do align with the retrograde America Trump 2.0 desires, and is ordering US universities, museums and national parks to teach. Weistling, who did not respond to a request for comment, wrote on his website that DHS used his 2020 painting without permission. He described the work as two parents with their baby, 'depicted here praying to God for his fragile life on their perilous journey'. His style often canonizes traditional domestic roles: girls and young women cook and clean, while men ride on horseback and build things. When asked about its social media strategy, including the use of Weistling's work, a DHS spokesperson wrote via email: 'If the media needs a history lesson on the brave men and women who blazed the trails, forded the rivers, and forged this Republic from the sweat of their brow, we are happy to send them a history textbook. This administration is unapologetically proud of American history and American heritage. Get used to it.' Renee Hobbs, a professor of communication studies at the University of Rhode Island and founder of the Media Education Lab, says that she teaches her students 'the four pillars of propaganda': activating strong emotions; simplifying information and ideas; appealing to people's deepest hopes, fears and dreams; and attacking opponents. The DHS's post hits all of these pillars. 'This could be an image from a children's book,' Hobbs said. 'It's a vision of America that was sold to generations. I'm a boomer, and I read these kinds of stories as a child. Now I have a critical perspective on manifest destiny, but this taps into my memory, which can bypass critical thinking.' Those feelings, good or bad, are the whole point: 'DHS is looking for engagement, and the use of emotional imagery gets people to react, whether they love it or hate it,' Hobbs said. 'So from a PR strategy, these posts are actually working quite well.'
The Guardian
a day ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
The nefarious message behind the DHS ‘manifest destiny' painting: ‘four pillars of propaganda'
In Morgan Weistling's oil painting A Prayer for a New Life, a young, white pioneer couple sit inside a covered wagon, sharing a quiet moment with their swaddled newborn as prairie stretches out behind them. The work could be interpreted as a western take on the birth of Jesus; Mary and Joseph on the Oregon trail. One might imagine it decorating the oak-walled office of an oil executive in a Yellowstone spin-off show – though it is likely too schmaltzy even for that. Last week, Weistling's painting took on a darker meaning when the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)'s official X account posted, to the artist's consternation, an image of the painting with the caption: 'Remember your Homeland's Heritage.' To some, the post seemed like authoritarian propaganda, similar to what was put out by Joseph Goebbels about Aryan motherhood in 1930s Nazi Germany. 'In case you had any doubts about the white supremacist thing,' one X user responded to the post. Others nakedly applauded its perceived subtext, a celebration of the right's vision for America, in which families of strong men and maternal women usher in a pronatalist baby boom. 'Our people. Our place,' responded Andrew Torba, CEO of Gab, a social network popular among alt-right, neo-Nazi and white nationalist users. Under Trump's second administration, the DHS has orchestrated sweeping immigration raids across the US, and Ice is reportedly detaining a record number of migrants. A scroll through the department's X account shows videos of families torn apart by immigration officers, and then this post, which seems to say: we're fine with migration and movement – so long as the families doing it are white. Experts say the saccharine smiles on the couple's faces and the presence of an innocent newborn distract from the real problem: what's not in the painting's frame. 'The main stories that are told through art of the American west tend to focus on white settlers, which omits the suppression of other populations,' said Emily C Burns, director of the Charles M Russell study for the center of art of the American west and an associate professor of art history at the University of Oklahoma. 'It's challenging when a single image of something that is incredibly complicated is placed in the foreground. What stories are lost in that?' Those stories include the US government's violent expulsion and genocide of Indigenous people to clear land for settlers, and the Black cowboys, many of them formerly enslaved or one generation removed from slavery, who went west on horseback and helped develop the country's nascent ranching industry. Also omitted are the Chinese immigrants who built the west's railroads and worked its gold mines and factories, and who, due to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, could not legally gain US citizenship. Adam Klein, associate professor at Pace University, studies how extremist movements infiltrate American media and politics. 'The [Weistling] painting isn't violent at all,' he said. 'On the surface, it's a beautiful image. But when you look at where it's coming from, with [DHS using] language like 'homeland' and 'heritage', that's really evocative of anti-immigrant sentiment.' Klein said the post brought to mind similar themes used by VDare, a far-right, anti-immigration website that launched in 1999 and suspended operations last year. VDare was named after Virginia Dare, the first child born to European settlers in the 'new world'. Since the 1800s, white supremacists have glorified her memory, though all we know of her is her birthdate and the fact that she disappeared as part of the 'lost colony' of Roanoke. Dare's image and disappearance are ripe for racist projections, including the conspiracy theory of a 'white genocide' perpetrated by non-white immigrants. In 2018, VDare founder Peter Brimelow told the Washington Post that he chose the name 'to focus attention on the very specific cultural origins of America, at a time when mass nontraditional immigration is threatening to swamp it'. Klein also noted that DHS's post seemed like 'an attempt to stir the pot and be divisive'. Under the leadership of Kristi Noem, DHS has taken up Donald Trump's orders for mass deportation with militant aplomb and an all-out publicity blitz. Noem looked glamorous as she livestreamed pre-dawn Ice raids in New York and toured the southern border on horseback. Meanwhile, the department shares mugshots of migrants and reminders from Uncle Sam to 'REPORT ALL FOREIGN INVADERS.' Last month, it posted AI-rendered art hyping Alligator Alcatraz, thumbing its nose at critics horrified by the detention center's reported conditions. On a less aggressive artistic note, it also shared the late artist Thomas Kinkade's 'Morning Pledge', a pastoral painting showing two boys walking to their small-town schoolhouse underneath a fluttering American flag. 'Protect the Homeland,' DHS captioned this post. Both Kinkade's perfectly manicured Americana and Weistling's 'manifest destiny' daydream belie the chaos DHS has sown through its often violent immigration crackdown. But they do align with the retrograde America Trump 2.0 desires, and is ordering US universities, museums and national parks to teach. Weistling, who did not respond to a request for comment, wrote on his website that DHS used his 2020 painting without permission. He described the work as two parents with their baby, 'depicted here praying to God for his fragile life on their perilous journey'. His style often canonizes traditional domestic roles: girls and young women cook and clean, while men ride on horseback and build things. When asked about its social media strategy, including the use of Weistling's work, a DHS spokesperson wrote via email: 'If the media needs a history lesson on the brave men and women who blazed the trails, forded the rivers, and forged this Republic from the sweat of their brow, we are happy to send them a history textbook. This administration is unapologetically proud of American history and American heritage. Get used to it.' Renee Hobbs, a professor of communication studies at the University of Rhode Island and founder of the Media Education Lab, says that she teaches her students 'the four pillars of propaganda': activating strong emotions; simplifying information and ideas; appealing to people's deepest hopes, fears and dreams; and attacking opponents. DHS's post hits all of these pillars. 'This could be an image from a children's book,' Hobbs said. 'It's a vision of America that was sold to generations. I'm a boomer, and I read these kinds of stories as a child. Now I have a critical perspective on manifest destiny, but this taps into my memory, which can bypass critical thinking.' Those feelings, good or bad, are the whole point: 'DHS is looking for engagement, and the use of emotional imagery gets people to react, whether they love it or hate it,' Hobbs said. 'So from a PR strategy, these posts are actually working quite well.'
The Guardian
6 days ago
- Sport
- The Guardian
Felix Baumgartner: the man who skydived from space
The Austrian extreme sports pioneer Felix Baumgartner, known for his record-breaking 2012 skydive from the edge of space, has died in a paragliding accident in central Italy, police have said. Baumgartner, 56, lost control of his motorised paraglider while flying over Porto Sant'Elpidio in Marche on Thursday. He fell to the ground near the swimming pool of a hotel. The cause of the accident remains unclear
The Guardian
6 days ago
- Sport
- The Guardian
Felix Baumgartner: the man who skydived from space
The Austrian extreme sports pioneer Felix Baumgartner, known for his record-breaking 2012 skydive from the edge of space, has died in a paragliding accident in central Italy, police report. Baumgartner, 56, lost control of his motorised paraglider while flying over Porto Sant'Elpidio in Marche on Thursday. He fell to the ground near the swimming pool of a hotel. The cause of the accident remains unclear
RNZ News
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- RNZ News
Tributes to Fat Freddy's Drop founder, DJ Chris Faiumu
Chris Faiumu died suddenly on Wednesday. Photo: Bruce Mackay/The Post A New Zealand hip-hop great says he will be forever proud of Fat Freddy's Drop founder Chris Faiumu for taking Wellington and South Pacific music to the world. Chris Faiumu, also known as DJ Mu or Fitchie, died suddenly on Wednesday . Music industry voices say he was a pioneer of the New Zealand music scene and a force behind Fat Freddy's Drop, one of the most successful bands to come out of Aotearoa. Bill Urale, also known as King Kapisi, said his death was a huge loss for the music community. Urale - originally from Wellington's south coast, where Faiumu lived - said they first met in the 1990s, when he was about 18, recording demos at radio station Radioactive. He was surprised to see another young Samoan DJ and engineer at the station. "We were just going up there and we were, like, 'Whoa, the engineer's Samoan', and I said, 'Sole, what's your name?' "He was, like, 'Faiumu', so I was, like, OK cool'. It was just nice to meet another Samoan brother, who was out there just doing their thing." Urale said that connection lasted throughout both their music careers, as he watched Fat Freddy's Drop take off. "Just thinking that my brother Chris was the backbone of the whole group, it was always a phenomenal thing for me. "I was, like man, super proud of my brother, and still super proud of what him and the Fat Freddy's boys have been able to achieve across the world, representing Aotearoa South-Pacific music worldwide." Fat Freddy's Drop came onto Wellington's music scene with hypnotising live improvised performances, before breaking out big with their 2005 album Based On a True Story . 'Wandering Eye' was a huge single and the band toured regularly overseas, gaining followings in Australasia, Europe and North America, and selling out to large concerts and festivals. Urale said Faiumu was one of New Zealand's best DJs, engineers and producers. "A lot of DJs DJ, but they don't make their own music and they don't produce their own music, so when you think about the body of work that Mu has been able to make, it's phenomenal and also, from Wellington, it's gone worldwide." Music journalist Nick Bollinger said DJ Mu devoted his life to music, starting out as an avid record collector. In Wellington, he DJ'd in bars like the Matterhorn and Bodega, then started creating his own rhythms on an MPC sampler. He created the baselines and beats that the rest of Fat Freddy's Drop would build on, Bollinger said. "He was usually back a bit and at the side, hunched over his equipment. It was hard to know what he was doing there some of the time - he was busy, but it was mysterious. "He wasn't the singer, he wasn't the guitarist, he wasn't the saxophone without him, there would have been no Fat Freddy's. "He was the roots of the thing - the foundations." Despite their success, Fat Freddy's Drop never signed to a major label. Bollinger said Faiumu never compromised on the independent spirit that helped make the band unique. RNZ music programmer and longtime friend Zen Yates-Fill knew Faiumu in the 1990s, when the two worked together in a record store, and he would attend some of the band's mesmerising gigs. He said Faiumu was a connoisseur of music, encouraging friends and listeners to discover new sounds. "He was a navigator for music, leading us into waters that we didn't really know from this country." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
