Revolution Begins at Home

“Revolution Begins at Home,” Jerome Stueart, (11 x 15), watercolor, mixed media on paper. October 18, 2025.

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Today, many (2 million?) of us are going to be protesting for #NoKings and maybe you’ve attended one of these protests across the country. They are exciting and powerful and you can see hundreds and maybe thousands in your city standing up for change. These protests are powerful things. I’ve seen the ones in New York City and Chicago (on TV) and they give me hope.

But maybe you’ve been part of something else, something smaller. Have you been to a house meeting where you meet your neighbors and strategize over soup how to be effective in strategic campaigns or actions that can help stop some of the negative consequences of Trump policies. Maybe your group is part of the Indivisible or No Kings movement. hey may not look like a movement–if you were looking for thousands of bodies to affirm your stance–but I can argue that they are the places–these living rooms–that will begin change in the country. Movements are born AND SUSTAINED in living rooms and dining rooms of your neighbor’s house.

These small house meetings are where you can find others who feel the way you do, where people can come together and think of ways to change the system. This isn’t about organizing the vote, it’s about voting to organize. All these small home meetings are where revolution happens–and I hope you find a good meeting near you, or start one in your home. This is what Democracy, what Revolution, looks like right now. These meetings of concerned citizens who want to create change.

And the big protests are an outlet for those people too–where we can all come together, peacefully, for change. Here’s where you hatch ideas that 20 people can carry out, and that can spread to other groups meeting in other homes. Our group talked about Cash for Change, the idea of using only cash to pay for things so that corporations don’t keep getting their share of your dollar every time you swipe a card. The store doesn’t get that money. The banks and larger credit institutions receive that percentage off of every sale. Cash for change–if a large number of people did it–would hurt the revenue they are collecting. And that’s kinda what these groups are for. How do concerned citizens get the attention of billionaires? How can we, small but mighty, make a difference against powerful people? We have power–but we have to cooperate to do it. These small groups can help foster new ideas. They still need the mass protests though–and large numbers of people. And until those numbers HURT the established order of things, until there is a general strike, people standing around for 2 hours may not make a huge difference to the oligarchs. But when people begin to stand around for days and shut things down–that may get their attention.

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I hope your #NoKings stays peaceful. But the more powerful we become, the more there will be resistance against us too. Please be safe. 2 million people protesting will keep growing and growing, no matter what happens today. Maybe you will have some frogs or TRexes in your group too!

Keep meeting. Keep planning. Keep that spark alive. Change will happen–we will bring more people together because we have so much common ground between us, and so much to do before us. We need everyone!

Topple the Oligarchy!

As events ramp up, as rights continue to be stripped away, and good people are hurt, kidnapped, enslaved, fired, bullied, silenced, and killed, and when it seems evident that fascism is taking hold in our country, we have few choices but to topple these despots before they build their gilded ballrooms and settle in like Long-Covid in our White House.

I call this painting, “Topple,” and I list some ideas for toppling at a local level:

  • call your representatives–bug the hell out of them.
  • vote them out when you are able to
  • speak out at town meetings, on the radio, on TV, on Youtube, FB, Instagram, anywhere you can
  • create art, music, little libraries, banners, flags, protest signs, dance, anything that allows you to either a) address what is happening in some creative way, or b) circumvent the hopelessness and despair that can creep in by creating something beautiful, fun, outrageous, daring, dynamic, peaceful to keep the Light going
  • refuse to work for corrupt governments. If everyone in Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s office refused to come to work, he would be alone; if Trump’s staff quit or refused to come to work for one week, he would falter (and at Mar-a-Lago). While I know that much of his cabinet are loyal to him, partly through fear, I wonder if Hyatt Hotels could shelter the staff as well as they shelter fleeing Texas Democrats.
  • strike–though this sounds like the previous point, a general strike is all of us just shutting down the whole country. Doing it now when they don’t have AI back-ups for your jobs, is better. Perhaps a few days of this would change things.
  • Run for Office. Challenge the Republicans in your district–run on ALL of the things that Trump and Republicans are taking away from every citizen. Make the Midterms about seeing what the LEGISLATIVE branch can do without the President.

I’m sure there are other things we can do to disrupt the system, take down the billionaires, and force change in this country. The rich have always, historically, underestimated the people and the people have surprised them every time.

Together, when we are fighting for the same things, we are unstoppable. We just have to realize that we are essentially on the same side and always have been. Realize and discern who are your allies (most likely anyone who makes less than a million a year is your ally by default! Run with that.)

TOPPLE. TOPPLE the Oligarchy.

*This illustration depicts a mass uprising to metaphorically disrupt billionaires, tyrants, and despots by metaphorically unseating them from their giant chairs of power through all the ways I iterate on the illustration and in the post itself and does not suggest or depict or condone violence. This ain’t Jan 6, y’all.

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The Gulf of Empathy

“The Gulf of Empathy,” (11 x 15) watercolor, mixed media on paper.*

Protect others. Speak Out. Use your art and voice when you can.

Thank you, Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, for taking that opportunity to simply ask for mercy. Your words reverberated around the world and spoke to every heart, and especially strengthened mine and others’ hearts in queer communities and queer ally communities.

We pray every heart will hear the call to mercy.

For more about this painting and how and why it was made, read this essay

*due to requests and responses to this image, prints are available through Squarespace/ FinerWorks

*if you want t-shirts, mugs, buttons, please go to the Redbubble Site

Thank you for supporting a struggling queer artist! Many of you bought me a coffee at my ko-fi.com/bearnabas. Thank you!

Does it have to be Election Fraud Fantasies or Blaming Each Other?

Illustration, “Fantasy on the Art of the Deal of the Steal,” (11 x 15) watercolor, pen and ink on paper.

Apparently the internet is exploding with election fraud conspiracy theories from the Left. “‘By 8am ET, the number of posts per hour had surged to 31,991,” PeakMetrics wrote in an analysis shared with WIRED.” (WiRED, Nov 6, 2024)

Who’d have thought, huh?

I guess folks would rather blame a convicted felon, serial liar, racist misogynist, and his billionaire sidekick, owner of a vast media empire freely used to spread misinformation, citing their association with Russian hackers — than, you know, turn and blame each other for this election loss.

I can understand that sentiment. People are in pain. We want to find reasons. We want to still believe in the unity we witnessed during the campaign–that it is NOT an illusion. We don’t want to believe it might not be as effective or as widespread as we thought. So there must be another illusion out there…. we think.

Too bad that questioning election results has been a rallying cry of the far-right for so long that we made an oath of office accepting the election returns no matter what. Too bad for voters that election results denial is associated with a lack of trust in democracy, associated with believing in ancient aliens, or lone gunmen, or other conspiracy theories that have no evidence, and just not acceptable to right-minded people. Too bad that even the hint of the question may give the far-right more ammo in their distrust of government.

And nobody wants to do that. So we must tread carefully when understanding where we are.

But blaming each other for Trump’s win, or stigmatizing marginalized groups of voters, or criticizing Harris or Biden or Democrats in general is not the answer either. I’ve been seeing too much of that lately and it’s ripping the Left to pieces; it’s destroying the coalition of joy and those wanting to create a better society from within. Yes, society must change to be better for everyone. We have to build that, but we need each other intact, not bloody on the election floor.

We already built a strong coalition. I saw that. You saw that. We have to maintain that coalition. I saw the future I’d hoped for being created across America these last few months. I still believe it’s there. It was YOU. You were building that. It still exists.

Keep being kind to each other in these uncertain times. We need each other. We can’t let ourselves be divided even more.

I only hope that one day neither party ever figures out how to hack those machines (like they hack banks and credit card companies so easily) because, in our pride, in our sanctimonious belief that we are impervious to being fooled and our machines are hack-proof, and that we aren’t the kinds of people who believe in conspiracies, we won’t be able to allow any Dorothy to pull that curtain back.

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(this is a revision to a previous post)

The (Yard) Signs They Are a Changin’

“The Signs They Are a Changin’,” 11 x 15, watercolor, pen and ink, acrylic marker.

I’ve been excited by the Harris-Walz campaign. Something that’s been surprising me throughout, since KH became the nominee, is the number of new folks who are now voting for the Democratic Ticket. I’ve been hoping that we would find a way over our political and ideological divides. It involves forgiveness and understanding and not holding people’s past votes as a barrier to reaching out to them now. We can’t say, “Well, you voted for him twice, so you just stay over there.” We can’t afford to. Anyone who is willing to take a hard look at themselves and change their minds IS an ally. This is how you make allies. Allies aren’t perfect. But they get you to your goal. And ultimately, we all win.

Sometimes I’ve seen allies treated badly by folks— because of past failings, past tweets, every past action that suddenly MUST have a formal apology on social media that will be, of course, mocked and rejected by the self-selected arbiters of justice… and this negative reaction to a positive turn usually hardens the person against changing sides at all. They re-root in the ideology they originally found distasteful, something not aligned with their truth now, but they go back to it because they are accepted there. They are welcomed back. They feel it’s the only place they can “belong.” Sometimes, we on the Left, will criticize them, and say, well, you didn’t want change anyway then.

No, they wanted change–they wanted TO change, but they weren’t allowed to change for the sake of Change. That is a huge loss for any “Change” ticket or issue. There is no purity test for Change.

We have to create that “belonging” for people. We need to welcome anyone who wants to help fight for others, regardless of their past. People change; minds grow and change; and we have to work with those changes.

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To Take Their Breath Away

To Take Their Breath Away (Spiritus Eorum Auferte), 36 x 48 acrylic.

It is difficult to know how to address the current situation, how to speak out against the police violence and purposeful escalation of violent action against peaceful protesters, angry protesters, and protesters in the street speaking out against police brutality. They are often met with police brutality.

I’ve watched too many videos where police drag a protester into the middle or catch one on the side and physically assault them while they are “arresting” them. All the other officers crowd around the officer beating someone to make sure no one else interferes. They all cover each other.

It’s protected assault.

Officers have “qualified immunity” from work related violence that they do as part of their job. If they can say they needed to do it, then they can do it. They never have to be held criminally liable. Oh they MAY get fired, but then transferred to a new precinct, a new city, ready to start the abuse over again.

The Blue Code, the Blue Shield, Blue wall of silence, or other names, is an unwritten code of conduct that police officers buy into—protecting each other’s abusive or illegal activity. Even if they go in with the best of intentions, they will end up following the code and not turning in other officers, not speaking out, for fear of what might happen to them.

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Columbus, Ohio, the Night After George Floyd was murdered, 2020.

Columbus, OH, the Night After George Floyd was Murdered, 2020,” acrylic on canvas, 36 x 48.

This was written a few nights after the event happened in 2020. It’s pretty raw, looking back at it 3 years later, but I’m going to leave it raw. Anything else wouldn’t be honest. (5/17/2023)

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#BlackLivesMatterAt the end of my statement there are Columbus area black artists to follow, and a long list of video links to the Columbus Police using violence on Peaceful Protesters. #WeBearWitness

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Still frame from video footage taken by Bryan Battle, Jr. of the incident. You can find the footage here.
Nine seconds before. Same footage by Bryan Battle Jr. available here.

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Normally I do joyful paintings about queer heroes and monsters, about large hairy men in love, or portraits of friends and family, but last Friday, protests for racial justice began in Columbus, Ohio during a worldwide pandemic. The combination of these two things prevented me from participating in the protest, as I’m immuno-compromised and over 50, overweight, etc. And so, like for the last two and a half months, I was sheltering in place but watching the videos of my friends and fellow Columbus-residents as their peaceful protests were met with violent, overreactive police retribution. They were sprayed, gassed, shot at, beaten, arrested during a peaceful protest meant to highlight the problem with police brutality. Well, nothing highlights police brutality like more police brutality.

For one protester who made a video, there was a moment all the violence started: when a police officer socked a protester. When the protesters objected to being assaulted by shouting, they were all sprayed with pepper spray. (Bryan Battle Jr video is also linked below)

Video after video surface from the #columbusprotest showing the Columbus Police using excessive force and assaulting citizens of Columbus (whose taxes pay for police and whose right it is to protest injustice–and whose taxes pay out the settlements in law suits made against the police.)

Infuriated by the videos and my inability to be there to support the movement, I did what I could. I took a screenshot of the video and created this painting.  

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Defining What Netflix Will Be, or Eight Reasons to Give Sense8 a full 3rd Season

19477719_10155330533657095_1420082545618168163_oAs most people know, on June 1st, Netflix decided not to renew Sense8.  Fans of the Wachowski Sisters + J Michael Straczynski show, a show that weaves a global narrative to tell a very human story of eight people sharing their minds, knowledge, and empathy, were devastated that the story would not have a third season.  Many knew that it only had one more season of story, but Netflix decided not to renew.  Then the fanbase rallied and wrote and tweeted and called out! and helped show-writers garner a 2 hour special for Sense8!  Amazing!

I am so happy that we get 2 hours to wrap up Sense8, and don’t take this blogpost here as less than gratitude for that 2 hours.  But I’d like to make a bigger case for you–a case you haven’t heard–about giving Sense8 a whole season based on what might be good for Netflix, not just for fans.

While there has been speculation as to why the show was not renewed, that’s speculation.  Netflix spends a lot of money trying to find hit series, and sometimes a good series doesn’t find the right market.  When the cancellation happened, there was plenty of anger towards Netflix, and, in the moment, I even threatened to dump Netflix.  But I love Stranger Things, and I watch Star Trek, Daredevil, Luke Cage, etc.  It would be hard for me to dump Netflix for good.  I know, they’re counting on that–they’ve made us LOVE this service. Okay.

Instead of eight negative reasons to renew Sense8, I want to give 8 positive reasons to renew Sense8 for a whole last season.  I want to give them something they can go to the marketing table with and say—“Let’s do one more season.” (Please especially consider #7)

Ultimately, right decisions aren’t made because of negative consequences but because the positive consequences are stronger.  We aren’t charitable because of Fear of Hell or Fear of Bad Publicity.  We are charitable because we want to help.

Why Netflix Would Want to Complete a Third Season of Sense8

1. NETFLIX IS COMMITTED TO COMPLETION: Sense8 has exactly ONE more season.  It’s a three season arc.  You renew that last season, you are a hero, and the story is complete, and people bingewatch the three seasons for years afterwards on Netflix.  They will come to Netflix for those three seasons.  You’re not having to commit to an unknown number of seasons, or risking anything AFTER this season.  You already committed two seasons and they were amazing, and fans loved them, and they are almost home-free.  You create NEW fans by following through on your series.  But MORE people will become afraid to watch or commit to a new series if the series could be cancelled before it’s finished.  The more unfinished series, the more Netflix becomes untrustworthy for a new viewer.  The positive spin: you complete series, and they can be assured that when they watch a series on Netflix, especially with the millions of fans this series has created, that it will have closure–that series runners will know ahead of time that their series must establish closure.  This one is close to being finished.

2.  NETFLIX EDUCATES ITS VIEWERSHIP ABOUT VIEWERSHIP.  You teach Netflix viewers about Viewership using Sense8.  Part of the shock of this announcement was that viewers thought that their fan base was enough.  We don’t get to watch the Viewership numbers like you do, so we can’t tell when to rally, or how we’re doing, or if we’re about to fall.  It’s a bit unfair to a very large group of fans to say that their numbers are not enough.  What kinds of viewership help make your decisions?  Do you need a certain number every week?  And how do you calculate when you drop 10 episodes over a weekend?  How many times should we view it?  How many tweets do you need?  How many blogposts analyzing the show?  If you give us those numbers, WE CAN HELP SAVE THE SHOWS WE LOVE.  I guarantee that the fanbase for Sense8 is the most dedicated fan base you’ve ever had (more on that below).  But telling us to love a show and then, when it’s not good enough, taking it from us without telling us how to celebrate and support it correctly can be very bad in the long run–it leaves a bad taste in fans’ mouths.  Netflix needs to teach its viewers what matters to save a show–how can we love a show enough to keep it if we don’t know what you need?  If not, fans won’t try a show till a second season is guaranteed…or may just not try it unless you do what you did with The Crown, and guarantee 6 seasons to tell that arc.

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My Mother, My New Club, and the Swastika on my Shoes

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I first saw this picture through Natalie Laurel on Facebook.  She advocates turning the swastikas we are seeing into other things. 

It was 1978.  I was in fourth grade. I wanted to belong to something so badly. I was invited into my first club at school. Now, understand, our family had been Navy for 20 years, so in my young life, we moved around a lot–every year, sometimes. I had already lived 6 places on two coasts, and I was 9. So being invited into a club was a huge thing! It meant I was accepted–even as an outsider–even in a new small town in Missouri. A beautiful town.

I don’t know if it was a joke played on me, or not, this club–this acceptance. If it was real, then it gives me chills now. “Yes, you can be in our club,” an older boy said, someone who was in seventh grade, maybe. He was so tall. And I was so hungry for acceptance. He knelt down and he drew something on the front of my shoes. The new symbol for our club, he said.  When I went home that day, I said, “Mommy, I’m in a club! I’m in a club!” And I must have been beaming with that acceptance.

My mother took one look at my shoes–the only pair of shoes I had for school because we didn’t have a lot of money. And it was in ink, this thing. The boy had drawn a swastika on each of my shoes. I thought it was a cool club symbol because I was young, but my mother saw it for what it was.  She was shocked.  She knelt down to look at it.  She could not erase it–she must have known it would show up anyway. So she carefully made it a box, a four squared box. I was upset that she had done that–at first. I don’t remember if I cried, or tried to stop her–She was ruining the club symbol! She was marking on my shoes! — I’m sure I put up a little fight. “No honey. Not this symbol,” was what she said to me. “I don’t want you in that club.” I don’t know if she explained to me what that symbol meant–I think she must have tried.  But I can’t remember.  I did it for my mom more than for my fourth grade understanding of hate symbols.  It meant so much to my mom, that I didn’t pursue that club.  I don’t even remember if the club was really a club, or some cruel joke they were playing on me. I never saw any club meetings, any groups with swastikas on their arms or shoes. Never.

My shoes had a foursquare box on them for the rest of fourth grade. I made up a new club for people with glasses, and I forgot about the old club. We had three guys in the glasses club.

It’s our job to not let little children (or anyone) have to see that symbol everywhere.  Even if they don’t understand why.  This symbol is getting a revival.  If you see it, be vandals and change it.  Don’t let that symbol stay.  It’ll burn into the walls.  It’ll burn into our minds.  Turn the swastikas into boxes, Windows Logos, or brightly-colored boxes. Turn them into pinwheels, gift boxes, chessboards.

Turn them into windows that look out onto a better America.

*thank you, Mom.

 

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(this post was inspired by Natalie Laurel’s Facebook photo of the Windows logo shared by many. I know the original might be photoshopped, but buy a can a paint anyway, eh? )