By this time, the approach of summer meant one thing: time to get going on the posters for the Fall World Bank/IMF Mobilization! A more militant local outfit, the Anti-Capitalist Convergence, was taking a large part in this year’s mobe as many in the movement were becoming dissatisfied with the more “moderate” position of the large NGOs such as Global Exchange, and DC’s own Mobilization For Global Justice (originally formed to organize the A16 WB/IMF actions in 2000).

As was customary, my posters for the IMF/WB Mobe sought to be simple, easily-read portrayals of the issues our movement was addressing; in addition, this year I also added a series of images depicting our movement’s vision for a peaceful and just society, to shut up all those conservative wags out there predictably whining “we all know what you’re against, but what are you for?”

Complete set, Adobe pdf file, 3m

Continue reading "Fall 2002 IMF/World Bank Series" »

Needless to say, the media environment was one of rah-rah flag-kissing zaniness. So, it was with little surprise that I opened the Washington Post’s World News section to find a steaming heap of blather that had to be some of the worst “safari journalism” I’d yet encountered, at least in the Post. With the predictable headline starting with “Lifting The Veil…” in what had to be the most cynical ever attempt to rope Liberals into supporting the brutality, the article attempted to indicate that one of the major “war aims” of the US was to restore “women’s rights” in Afghanistan, citing as “success” the fact that the beauty parlors had re-emerged from underground, and that the local video-rental shops had re-opened. Never mind that the Taliban were still forcibly keeping girls from going to school, or forcibly keeping them shrouded in burquas, at least the women of Afghanistan could go out and have their nails done, or rent the entire first season of Sex And The City on high-def DVD.

This piece attempts a more accurate portrayal of the state of “liberation” of Afghan women.

Medium-res jpg image, 581k

Continue reading "Afghan Women’s Liberation" »

Tragic though the event may have been, I got tired quickly of all the TV talkers howling about the thousands who died at the Pentagon and World Trade Center without once considering the USA was responsible for at least a hundred times as many over the course of Hiroshima/Nagasaki, ten years of Vietnam, the 1991 bombing of Baghdad, and the decade of sanctions against Iraq following Iraq War I.

Also — stop me if I’m wrong — but didn’t Bin Laden’s targeting of the World Trade Center classify as targeting on a “military asset” under the Pentagon’s own current rules? Was he really doing anything different from the US in Iraq Wars I and II, or the US/NATO action against Belgrade?

High-res jpg image, 1mb

Continue reading "America’s Towers O’Terror" »

Gotta hurry on back to my hotel room,
where I got me a date with a pretty little girl from Greece;
she told me she would be there with me
when I paint my masterpiece!
–Dylan.

I try to think more about the guy we met at Dupont Circle who was overjoyed to have finally discovered where these posters came from, or the students from the George Washington Action Coalition out for a late-night bicycle ride on P Street who stopped off and jazzed us up with a quick blast of solidarity (“Yo, wheatpasters!”) to take my mind off the “neighbor” on Connecticut Avenue who stalked us — tearing down posters — for two blocks, and the DC cop who became frustrated with his own piss-poor knowledge of the law and inability to cite us for anything and proceeded to stalk us and tear down posters all the way down P Street from Dupont Circle almost to Georgetown, committing no less than half a dozen separate basic Constitutional violations in the process against our crew.

So, the next time you bump into some pacifist liberal who wants to “negotiate” with the police, direct them to this video.

Continue reading "Out With the Crew for an Evening’s Postering, Fall 2001" »