Time for another parody of an iconic American image, this time the famous photograph of the Marines raising the flag over Iwo Jima island during WWII. Once again, it’s not like it’s been done before, but like all the great Renaissance painters doing their own versions of the Annunciation and Crucifixion, I decided it was time for me to do my own version of Iwo Jima.

This piece advertised the planned “Peoples’ Strike” focused on the residents of Washington, DC who, the organizers of the “strike” assumed, had reached the point where things had gotten bad enough to spark a mass general strike to coincide with the IMF/World Bank meetings. Sadly, somehow, despite the loss of the city’s only public hospital, the closure of homeless shelters and the sale of schools and the property under them to condo developers, many residents of DC chose not to join the “strike” as apparently things still hadn’t gotten bad enough — either that or, as I suspect, they were awaiting permission from the local Democratic Party to organize and rise up on their own behalf.

Medium-res jpg image, 710k

Continue reading "Strike for Statehood!" »

Part of the ’02 IMF/World Bank festivities was a planned widespread, networked civil disobedience around the city of Washington, DC, which organizers hoped would include major highways and subway lines in and out of the city. In order to dramatize the organizers’ intent, this poster depicted the entire city of DC squeezed and choked at the various intersections of highways and rapid-transit lines — or, resembling some kind of weird alien bodily organ, depending on how much Star Trek you’ve watched.

Medium-res jpg image, 839k

Continue reading "Fall 2002 IMF/WB “Map”" »

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" »