To wire services around the world. 3 pagesAn artist fights back against entrenched hypocrisy of America.

In a lawsuit filed in Providence, Rhode Island, (U.S.A.) Superior Court #01-5093, (Sept 23, 01), plaintiff, a disabled, 65 year old fine artist living in substandard conditions in a complex for the elderly, fights a defamation attack upon him and his paintings where Channing Gray, critic for the Dallas based pretending-to-be-local Providence Journal newspaper, referred to his paintings in a small gallery showing as “Schlock rip offs of Italian masters” and “duds”. The paintings are far from that. This, in a city devoid of individual art of any kind beyond typical corporate no-talent un-art that is blanketing that city, the nation, if not the world. Rossi’s works are a refreshing visual of pure talent, technique and diversity hardly unmatched by any living artist on the planet today, and this empty writer/critic has the gall to use his inadequate psyche against such blessed work . . . probably because the artist is an outspoken activist against the deplorable condition of art in that city and in America, and against the wealth pollution that is choking his country and its fossilized culture. In the corporate controlled City of Providence, if one is not a graduate of the “prestigious” Rhode Island School of Design, or Brown University, then it might be assumed one should not be given equal access to commissions or funding in the arts. Rossi isn’t either, however the work of Rossi is far beyond that of any graduate of either institution, and for the good of human progress, since the court records show him to be a “treasured National Resource”, he should have been taken on board as an important entity of the country, rather than their attempt to annihilate him thru omission or slander as was done by the Providence Journal newspaper. Now, through this lawsuit, (opposition attorneys Blish & Cavanagh, 30 Exchange St. Providence), the real value of the artist and the shame of the condition of arts in America is suffusing from the mire of corporate subjugation of America’s creative output. Hopefully, to cause quiet but determined revolution among the silent majority of cultured Americans . . . that they have been denied the best America had to offer (not unusual in America), rather than the redundant crap that inundates America’s cultural landscape, their products and their quality of living. Now, too, the artist, like the rape victim who gets raped, reports it to the police to get raped again in having to recant in detail, and to get raped again in having to recant to a court, etc. . . . the artist is again here being victimized in having to be interrogated about a past that has nothing to do with his case against the newspaper. For instance, does he have a criminal record in any of the 50 states, he has to turn over to the newspaper’s lawyers anything he has ever written, be they letters, notes, diaries, drawings, etchings, documents, filings, tapes, discs, computer printouts, etc. Raped, victimized, again. But not by lawyers, but by a battery of paralegals, so the Providence Journal lawyers can say, “We didn’t do that!” All this, rather than to admit that the newspaper and an overzealous reporter wiped the street gutter with the reputation and art of an honest man. Then, to hide behind the 1st Amendment, as if they had a God-given right to do just that, As if they were put on this earth to use their words against anybody they please without retribution, and, of course, with the court’s blessing. This, upon an aged, disabled man living in poverty with a cat named “Picasso” and a 15 year old computer having only 300 free megs on its harddrive. The MEMORANDUM of the original lawsuit can be seen at:

http://members.efortress.com/artistmaximus/index2.html

The Rhode Island College newspaper (The Anchor), on Sept 11, 01, ran an article by students of Rossi, lambasting the Journal’s article, Channing Gray, and the conditions in the arts permeating The City of Providence and America. The article drew national attention because at the time the Journal was under a union dispute and reporters were “leaving in droves” (Providence Monthly Magazine) because of bad working conditions while governed by an out-of-state ownership (Belo, Corp., Dallas, Tx) whose sole purpose was to reduce the neighborhoodness of the newspaper in the small city and make it of national concern – thereby destroying any local opinion such as the great work of Rossi d’Providence. The suit, in one aspect of the Memorandum, goes on to describe in a mathematical way how the newspaper’s supplement “LIVE”, in which the defaming article was printed, is actually an advertising supplement that featured also articles, and therefore had not the permission to use the artists name in that manner without his permission. This could be the greatest innovation as a precedent in libel cases since NY TIMES vs SULLIVAN in1960, which set the elitist press trend in libel cases in America for the next 40 years. It is hoped this Rossi suit will be a major test of that standard, and probably resulting in the ousting of the Dallas, Texas owned Providence Journal from the City of Providence. (Few businesses in Providence are locally owned). The city has been sold out by corrupt officials with the backing of the Providence Journal newspaper. We can only pray they get ousted, for the sake of that city and its New England uniqueness, of which this Dallas conglomerate couldn’t care less.

Unique in this case is that the artist is his own attorney, because he cannot afford an attorney. Albeit, Providence is a small town and no lawyer wants to make waves against the all powerful newspaper. Be that as it may, the crux of this lawsuit is that Rossi (plaintiff) and Derrick (the gallery owner) were two honest people trying to earn an honest wage selling art in a gallery in America – and they, and the work they did, were publicly trashed by a newspaper that singled them out as a threat to their (the newspaper’s) security as an elitist monopoly adjacent to an elist anti-cultural entrenchment in the small city of Providence, where that newspaper has serious employment and editorial problems; the mayor of the city is under federal indictment for corruption, 15 people associated with the mayor’s office and city hall are under federal indictment or in prison, the Governor is a duphus facing possible federal indictment, the police are out of control and are themselves under federal indictment for killing their own officers because they were black, while the downtown area is morbidly unsafe and surrounded by an horseshoe of abject poverty and homelessness while the corruption gets fat . . . and these two artists are publicly trashed for attempting to sell art to the p