Turn Your Back on Bush
Another personal favorite, this was commissioned by The Progressive magazine for a Counterinaugural event they were sponsoring as part of the weekend of protests coinciding with the Second Chimp Coronation.
Truthfully, though, I have to confess to not having been in DC during the Chimp’s Second Coronation as my wife and I decided we weren’t into hanging around here in the miserable depths of January, freezing our asses off in some fenced-off “free speech zone”, and chose instead to spend the week in relatively balmy New Orleans, watching our comrades shivering in bone-cold Washington on TV. Let’s face it, it was a helluva lot more fun hanging out in little jazz dives drinking beer until closing time, then stumbling down to Cafè duMonde for black coffee and beignets at 3am. Happily, though, we managed to find ourselves in a big, healthy, counterinaugural protest anyway — the Jazz Funeral For Democracy, held on a sunny, dry, 70-degree day, featuring a couple of real live New Orleans marching jazz bands in a traditional funeral parade that started at Congo Square and marched through downtown to a rally at Jackson Square, followed by a “second line” that marched through the French Quarter, finishing off at a gig at this cool little joint with a mean-assed blues band and the all-important cheap beer. God damn, they really do know how to throw a protest down there in the Big Easy.
Four More Years, no.2
So, here we are: four more years of George W. Chimp. Of course, predictably, all the Democrats and Liberals were howling about how they lost because of all those terrible people who voted for Ralph Nader. Never mind that the Democrats chose to nominate the most bland, uninspiring ticket ever; never mind that the Democratic nominee supported pretty much everything Bush did (except, of course when he opposed it). Never mind that John Kerry just sat there like a goddamn’ lump while the Bush campaign slapped him around, kicked him in the nuts and accused him of falsifying his war record — not that it didn’t serve Kerry right for bragging about his goddamn’ war record, and assuming for just a moment that a willingness to follow orders to kill and die unquestioningly somehow qualifies one to hold public office. Naahh, it was those mean old Nader supporters that cost ’em the election; the Democrats remain convinced of that. Of course, the Democrats also remain convinced that things would’ve been different under a Kerry Administration, so there you are.
This series of posters promoted the Counterinaugural activities scheduled to coincide with the Second Coronation of George W. Chimp; they illustrate what we were in for four more years of Bush. To be honest, despite these being some of the best pieces I’ve done, I felt rather awkward doing them, as I worried they’d convey the impression that I believed things would’ve been substantially different had Kerry been “elected” when in fact, given Kerry’s record, they wouldn’t have — except, perhaps, for the delicious irony of hearing protesting crowds in the streets chanting “Hey, Hey, JFK! How many kids did you kill today?”
War and Occupation, medium-res jpg, 774k
Guantanamo, medium-res jpg, 645k
Greed, Injustice, Deceit, medium-res jpg, 710k
Election Fraud, medium-res jpg, 774k
New York City 2004 GOP Convention Protest Poster
Here’s another one of those gags that pretty much drew itself. On hearing the news that New York City would have the dubious honor of hosting the 2004 Republican Convention, this image slammed into my head like a runaway train and refused to go away:
This was my part towards inspiring locals and visitors alike to hit the streets and give the GOP a good old-fashioned New York City welcome, and to let the Bush Mob know that the people of NYC weren’t going to allow themselves to be cast as “extras” in a fascist corporate infomercial (which is basically what the Republicratic and Demopublican Conventions had become by this time).
Continue reading "New York City 2004 GOP Convention Protest Poster" »
This piece originally appeared in an exhibition of cartoons at the Provisions Gallery and Bookstore in Washington DC. During the Q&A in my obligatory “artist talks about his work” appearance at the opening, one concerned art lover asked, regarding this cartoon, whether or not this was really the kind of conservation message I wanted to send, to which I replied “Conservation message? What conservation message?”
This was no gasoline conservation message; this was a comment on the attitude of the millions of American men who were trying to show off how macho they were, “playing soldier” by driving Hummers around their hometowns while, in the meantime, thousands of real soldiers were dying in theirs in Iraq in an attempt to subjugate a nation and steal its resources. By this time, gasoline was nudging the three-dollar-a-gallon mark, and I was getting more than a little bit sick and tired of listening to fat, selfish Americans pissing and moaning about the price of gasoline, as if cheap gas was something they were somehow magically entitled to. I actually found myself rooting for gasoline to hit four or five dollars a gallon — something approaching the prices people have paid for years in Europe — just so I could see all those selfish, arrogant SUV drivers get a bit of well-deserved comeuppance.
Recent Comments