From Reuters, November 13, 2003:

“As political parties and businesses take advantage of a power vacuum in a country with as yet no elected government, constitution or parliament, Baghdad has become a city of graffiti.

Walls around the city of five million have been smothered with competing slogans since three decades of stifling state control and dictatorship ended in April with the ousting of Iraq’s president Saddam Hussein.”

From Al-Ahram Weekly via the Utne Reader:

“[Graffiti] has quickly become an important mode for Iraqis to freely express opinions of every nature. Nermeen Al-Mufti, reporting from Baghdad, writes that during the last two months the walls near her house have ‘been witness to the sentiments and longing of the Iraqi people.’ Before the fall of Baghdad to U.S. forces, the walls were entirely blank except for the face of Saddam Hussein. Now buildings throughout the city are covered with political and personal commentary from hugely differing perspectives.

Much of the writing is political in nature. After American troops entered Iraq many of the pictures of Saddam were defaced. A poster near Al Mufti’s house that had previously read ‘yes, yes to Saddam,’ was changed to ‘no, no to Saddam.’ Later someone added the word ‘criminal’ in front of Saddam’s name. However, anger and resentment is not, by any means, limited to the former leader of Iraq. One wall reads, ‘Americans, sooner or later we will kick you out.’ And at times the two opinions clash, ‘Thank you Mr. Bush,’ was later crossed out by someone else.

Ali Omer, a young writer in Baghdad, commented, ‘I discovered the draw-back of democracy, it dirties the walls!’ Metaphorically, the ‘dirty’ masses of opinions covering the walls reflects the greatly commingled ethnic and religious groups in the country. Shatha Hassan, a teacher in the Institute of Fine Arts, says that the walls reflect the massive instability of the country. Thus, some of the writing directed towards the future possibilities of an Iraqi government. Walls read, ‘Yes to a secular government,’ or, ‘There is no democratic Iraq without resolution of the Kurdish issue.’ On this note, there is also the positive outlook, ‘Arab and Kurds together will rebuild Iraq.’ Sadly, the walls are also representative of a war-torn country where positive steps forward are taken very slowly. One university student writing on the wall said, ‘We still don’t know if we’ll be taking our exams or not. Nobody reads the papers, so maybe our demands will be seen on the walls.’”

For a few more translations see Newsday.

A publisher of graphic design books in Barcelona will soon produce a book compiling a selection posters against the war in Iraq designed by artists around the world. When soliciting submissions, the editor announced that profits from the book would be donated to Amnesty International.

I informed the editor that it was a little strange for a book of anti-war posters to support an organization that never actually opposed the war. He was shocked to hear this.

He quoted from Amnesty’s Web site:

“In February 2003, before the start of the war, Amnesty International handed to the UN a petition signed by more than 60,000 people in nearly 200 countries and territories calling on the Security Council to assess the human rights and humanitarian impact on the civilian population of any military action against Iraq.”

This is true, but this is not the same as opposing the war. In fact, this actually implies that the invasion is just fine as long as the humanitarian and human rights impact is within some acceptable limit. This is consistent with International Humanitarian Law. Under IHL, a certain amount of “collateral damage” is assumed. You can kill plenty of civilians, as long as you are not specifically targeting them and have taken some measures to minimize harm.

Amnesty does wonderful work on behalf of prisoners around the world, but they are not an anti-war organization. They are not actually opposed to war, but war crimes. Contradictions abound: Amnesty opposes the use of land-mines as “inhumane,” but takes no position on nuclear weapons. Amnesty also recently launched a campaign to control the trafficking of small arms, though they say nothing about the general trade of large weapons.

The editor wrote, “I went through a list of charity organizations and Amnesty is one that gets one of the highest marks for how much money they use from donations for actual causes rather than promotion etc. Also, they were only one of many charities who responded to my query.”

I pointed out that Amnesty’s is not structured like other organizations. Amnesty’s London office does all the research and generates materials for advocacy, but does no fundraising or marketing at all. It is Amnesty’s autonomous national offices that do the fundraising and marketing. The national offices send a portion of their funds back to the international headquarters in London. Thus, if you looked at the international headquarters of Amnesty it would appear that they spent all of their money on program work and none on fundraising. This is true, but misleading.

I also noted that Amnesty is a well-funded organization. The budget of the its international headquarters was £23,728,000 in fiscal year 2002. That headquarters employs 410 staff. In contrast, many of the small organizations and coalitions that came together specifically to oppose the war are struggling to stay afloat and to keep the pressure on. These groups could use the money a lot more than Amnesty.

The editor considered my arguments and later circulated a poll to let the contributing artists decide who should receive the proceeds. He wrote:

“My original plan for the book was to donate a portion of the profits from the book to a non governmental organization (NGO) which could use the money to help promote peace, non-violence, and help people affected by war. There are many such organizations around the world and it has been very hard to choose one to be the recipient of this donation. I am hoping that you, the artists, can help me choose one of these NGOs and make this a truly democratic project.

The following is a list of NGOs which are internationally recognized and are currently making efforts to help the people in Iraq, either by organizing people against the occupation, or helping people on the ground.

• Amnesty International
• International Answer
• International Committee of the Red Cross
• Not in Our Name
• Oxfam
• Peace Action
• Stop the War Coalition
• United for Peace & Justice
• Win Without War
• War Resisters League

Of the organizations listed, Amnesty International is the only one that has neither opposed to the occupation nor delivered supplies and relief to the people of Iraq. Instead Amnesty asks the occupying forces themselves to ensure that provisions and medical supplies are delivered. Take a look at Amnesty’s own briefing paper on Iraq. Amnesty calls for oil revenue to benefit the people of Iraq, but does not name specific U.S. contracts and companies profiting instead. Amnesty calls for “justice and security,” but not for the transfer of power to the people of Iraq. Amnesty calls for investigations into cases of abuse by US and UK soldiers in Iraq, but would never call for Bush or his administration to be held accountable for the lies that put them there.

No matter. When the votes were tallied, Amnesty International won by landslide.

Wouldn’t it be great if we never had any need for a military? Failing that, how about a military forever sworn off of war? Japan’s military has done this for the last 50 years. This will soon change, however, as they enter the war in Iraq.

Article 9 of the constitution of Japan states:

“The Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes.”

This is interpreted as permitting a standing army known as the Self-Defense Forces (SDF), but has prohibited those forces from being deployed outside of Japan or possessing nuclear weapons.

Still, with nearly 240,000 military personnel and an annual budget of nearly $50 billion in 2002, Japan’s military outstrips Britain’s in total spending and manpower. [source]

In the past Article 9 prevented the SDF from participating in military conflict and limited Japanese involvement to mostly financial support.

However, just as the United States wrote that constitution, Japan is slowly amending it under U.S. pressure.

“With each global ‘crisis,’ the Japanese government has taken the opportunity to enact new legislation to circumvent Article 9 and its clear renunciation of war.

One of the larger circumventions was the Peace Keeping Operations Law of 1992 which was passed during the Gulf War. This law allowed Japan to take part, if in a limited way, in United Nations-led peacekeeping operations. Other laws that have eroded the force of the Peace Provision are the 1999 law on Japan-U.S. security cooperation in dealing with emergencies around Japan, and the 2001 anti-terrorism special measures law.

The terrorist acts of September 2001 and the subsequent pressure from the United States has provided the latest opportunity for the Japanese government to pass legislation increasing the country’s legal right to conduct war.” [source]

Following the lead of the United States, the meaning of “self-defense” has now been expanded to include “pre-emptive” attack. In February 2003, Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba warned that Japanese military would launch a pre-emptive military action against North Korea if it had firm evidence Pyongyang was planning a missile attack. It would be “a self-defense measure.”

In July 2003, the Diet approved a plan to send 1,000 troops to Iraq. The vote turned into an outright brawl on the floor between MP’s for and against the vote. (See the pic.)

This is not the first time Japan has cleaned up after a U.S. war. Japan gave $13 billion during the first Gulf War in 1991, but did not send troops. More recently, Japan deployed an SDF demining team to Afghanistan.

Yesterday’s New York Times reports that deployment for Iraq is scheduled for early next year.

That July article notes that the Japanese troops will help “resettling refugees, rebuilding and providing fresh water supplies that.” The Times, also states that the Japanese will “engage in unwarlike activities,” though ominously matches the article with photos of Japanese soldiers in camouflage make-up, members of an “antitank unit” during exercises in Japan.

The Times article also notes:

“Not one Japanese soldier has been killed, or has killed, in combat since the end of World War II.

That remarkable fact is being repeated here often these days, precisely because, as Japan prepares to send ground forces to Iraq, things could change in the near future. The death of a soldier, a sad though common reality for most nations, would be a pivotal point in Japan’s postwar history.”

The “harmlessness” of military service, a deception implied by U.S. recruiting material, is actually thus far depicted honestly in SDF materials. Here are some links to some images of SDF posters. While U.S. recruiting posters sell adventure spiced with danger and travel, the pitch here displays neither — instead mixing the adventure with uniforms, aviation, and naval technology.

The posters also seem to sell the SDF as something like a sports club, a way to impress your country, kids, and co-eds, and, recently, a distinguished career option for women. And then there’s that bizarre sci-fi poster. But then I can’t read Japanese so could be totally misinterpreting the signs.

As the Japanese military is a “Self-Defense Force,” their logo brands them as keepers of peace. The SDF are “Peace People Japan.”

The posters have been removed from the SDF site so the links above point to the Web Archive.

However, this small collection of cuddly cartoon characters is still online.

In the same sitting, I stumbled into two articles on the use of cellphones to coordinate street protest in real time. One in La Paz, the other in London, the former well organized, the latter ad-hoc. One from the country, the other from the city.

From Anarchogeek:

“The use of cell phones is interesting in how it relates to transforming the rural/urban power divide within the developing world. This isn’t something entirely new, rural community radio stations have played very large roll in communication and social transformation. In Bolivia, the revolution of 1952 lead by the miners unions, was coordinated by a network of rural community radio stations. With high illiteracy, little infrastructure, very poor communities these communities have relied on radio as the primary form of mass media.

In the last decade there has been an upsurge in the political power of indigenous movements in the Andes who have their power base in rural mostly disconnected communities. A lot of that upsurge is due to the many years of organizing by indigenous leaders, social movements, and NGO’s. That said, cell phones have acted as a major amplifier of their work. Increasing the ability for people to coordinate their actions and build robust social networks.

Unfortunately, I’ve not seen much written about the use of cell phones and other communications technology in the general strike and ‘Gas War’ in Bolivia last month. From my working with the rather small group of indymedia people in Bolivia I’ve heard some of how cell phones transformed the conflict. It helped people lay a more than week-long siege to La Paz. It also helped coordinate the marches of people from other parts of the country to the capital. When women went on hunger strike in churches the communications network made it a coordinated act, not simply the act of a few brave women in one location.

I think what happened in Bolivia is quite different than the much talked about ‘smart mobs’ as there were relatively few people will cell phones. The groups were not flexible, but rather quite well organized with cell phones used to coordinate between the leadership of existing organizations and networks. The use of cell phones facilitated the biggest indigenous siege of La Paz in almost 300 years.

Other important factors was Pios Doce and other community radio stations which played a vital mass media roll during the crisis. The Pios Doce transmitter in Oruro was bombed, by people who clearly didn’t expect the police to investigate anything. What the government didn’t figure out how to do was shut off the cell phones of known organizers, or towers which serve indigenous communities. My guess is the reason they didn’t shut them down was in part because cell phones were a vital communications tool for the police and army. Even the US Army in Iraq makes extensive use of consumer walkie talkies and unencrypted Instant Messenger. In India texting has been shut off at critical points to stem the spread of rumors and coordinated race riots during communalist uprisings in the last year. I expect as social movements turn to using cell phones and related technology as a tactical tool during protests and uprisings the governments will eventually learn how to turn off the ability to communicate at will.”

This last point is also noted in the BBC article about protestors chasing Bush in London:

“Some newspapers and websites were reporting mobile phone signals could be blocked for fear they could remote-control a bomb. But Scotland Yard has denied reports that police were considering shutting mobile phone masts during protests.”

In contrast to the Bolivia protest which shut down the capitol, the UK protests are intended to be a media hack and an adjunct to the big, organized, legally-sanctioned anti-war march on Thursday.

“The Chasing Bush campaign is asking people to ‘disrupt the PR’ of the visit by spoiling stage-managed photos.

They are being encouraged to send location reports and images by mobile to be posted on the Chasing Bush site....

Technologies like text messaging and weblogs have been successfully used in the past to co-ordinate routes and meet-up points for mass protests.

But the gadgets are now being used more proactively to make protests more visible and disrupt any potential stage-managing of the President’s visit.

‘We are trying to spoil the PR, so we are not doing anything directly, but encouraging people to protest by turning their backs in press photos so they can’t be used.’

The campaign organisers have also asked people to go into protest ‘exclusion zones’ to send SMS updates and on-location reports about his appearances, and events at protests.”

See this previous post for more notes on electornic advocacy.

A U.S. reservist in Iraq emails a photo to a friend back home. Friend posts it on his blog. The image is widely circulated by email, and ultimately finds mention in The New York Times a month later.

The war drags on. Tours of duty are extended. U.S. soldiers continue to kill and be killed. Dissent among the military and military families smoulders.

And the scholarship funding? Job skills? Veteran’s benefits? One weekend a month?

See these articles about the myths and messages in military graphics and advertising sold by recruiters to high school and college students across the United States of America.

On April 11, 2003 the U.S. military released their list of most-wanted senior Iraqi government in the form of a deck of playing cards.

The cards were designed by staff of the Defense Intelligence Agency and the 3401st and 3418th Military Intelligence Detachments. One of the designers, Sergeant Scott Boehmler, 27, an Army reservist from Hazleton, Pennsylvania reports, “We understood what guys like to do on their downtime. This is an effective way of getting these images in the soldiers’ minds.”

Images can be downloaded from the Department of Defense Web site in HTML or PDF.

Production of the cards was widely covered in the U.S. mainstream media and treated as a significant event in the war. Subsequent reports of the arrest of Iraqi officials frequently refer to the list, even noting when an arrested official is not on the list. The reports are occasionally illustrated with an image of said official’s playing card.

The decks have also become enormously popular with the public. Web sites have sold hundreds of thousands of decks. As of May, one company reported $1.5 million in sales. It’s one thing to sell a war to the public. It’s whole other matter for them to buy it themselves in droves. I’ve even seen street vendors in NYC selling the decks alongside the knockoff sun glasses and watches and received a couple of unsolicited email messages offering the decks for sale.

U.S. military personnel are the world’s largest consumers of playing cards, according to Cincinnati-based United States Playing Card Company, the world’s largest playing card manufacturer. According to Time (May 12, 2003) the extreme popularity of the most-wanted cards prompted the distributor to reissue cards created for the military in earlier wars. During World War II “spotter decks” were produced for troops to distinguish between Allied and enemy aircraft. During the Vietnam War “decks containing only the ace of spades were passed out to U.S. troops, who would display a card on their helmets to scare away the Viet Cong — supposedly superstitious about the card, which fortune tellers considered a harbinger of suffering and death.”

The cards have inspired a genre of spinoffs.

GreatUSAflags.com has followed up with U.S. Military Heroes playing cards “honoring America’s servicemen and women involved in Operation Iraqi Freedom.” The deck also features images of aircraft, ships, submarines, aircraft carriers, vehicles and missiles deployed in battle.

On April 25, global justice group, the “Trade Regulation Organization,” released their U.S. Regime Change cards [image, PDF 6MB]. The group, “estimating that the U.S. governing regime is no longer consistent with world peace or prosperity, hopes that the playing cards will show the way to regime change and, eventually, large-scale war crimes proceedings.”

On May 1, Greenpeace International released a deck of “most wanted” cards depicting the nuclear powers of the world. [PDF, 96K] “This deck is designed to help delegates to the Non-proliferation Treaty meeting recognise owners of weapons of mass destruction. Packed with nuclear weapons of mass destruction facts. Fun for the whole family.” Says Tom Clements, senior campaigner with Greenpeace, “It ties the anti-war message together with the disarmament message.”

On May 7, the conservative Web site NewsMax announced the Deck of Weasels [image] which features images of anti-war celebrities and politicians includes Michael Moore, Tim Robbins, Jacques Chirac, Barbara Streisand, Teddy Kennedy, Kofi Annan, Vicente Fox, Jean Chretien, Senator Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd. Each card features a quote by the celeb opposing the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Each of the photographs has been altered so each figure wears the beret of Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard.

On May 15, the Ruckus Society released America’s War Profiteers, a deck of cards identifying 53 individuals and institutions in the oil, military, government, media, and policy sectors. “The groups’ aim is to expose, ‘The links among corporations, institutions, and government officials that profit from endless war.’” The site also features a good set of links to articles and campaign pages.

On May 23, Nitestar Productions released “The Deck of Republican Chickenhawks,” depicting the 54 Republican officials, congressmen, politicians and pundits who avoided serving their country through connections, deferments, or other excuses.” Needless to say, many of the officials vigorously supported the U.S. war on Iraq. The deck was inspired by a list maintained by the New Hampshire Gazette of Republican politicians and pundits who have never served in armed combat.

Still other decks reported in the May 18 Washington Post:

“Republicans in the Texas legislature had cards made depicting the state’s ‘most-wanted Democrats’ — the lawmakers who fled to Oklahoma to scuttle a vote on a bitterly contested Republican redistricting plan....

Inspired by the Pentagon’s cards, Frances Gomez, 23, decided to print up card sets featuring her top 55 Cuban villains. But just before the printing order was sent out, Gomez tweaked her plan in hopes of really sticking it to Fidel Castro. She decided to make the cards look like dominoes, the real king of the board games in Little Havana and just about anywhere else that Cubans gather.

So, instead of being the ace of spades — the card reserved for Saddam Hussein in the Pentagon’s deck — Fidel is the Double Nine, the domino tile that no player wants to hold at the end of a game. Gomez needed help from Cuban American groups in Miami to compile her list. She was born in the United States and says, like many Cuban Americans her age, that she knew little about the details behind the deep animosity felt toward Castro and his allies by older generations that fled the island nation.

‘It’s important to learn who these people are,’ Gomez said.”

In addition to the playing cards are recent political trading cards.

In 1991, trading card publisher Topps (coordinating with the Pentagon and Navy Department) published 3 sets of Desert Storm Trading Cards. In 2001, they published a series of Operation Enduring Freedom Trading Cards.

An article in the Guardian notes:

“90 glossy cards featuring US political and military leaders, the patriotic response to the September 11 attacks, and military hardware.... The series also features a photograph of flowers laid outside the US embassy in Pakistan in the aftermath of the September 11 atrocities. No corresponding card shows the subsequent angry demonstrations against the US bombing campaign.... Topps would not directly respond to charges that the cards promoted an unquestioning view of the war to children.”

Kingsley Barham, publisher of marijuana trading cards that cover hemp history, politics, types, and uses, developed a set of trading cards about the September 11 attacks, Heroes of the World Trade Center. Despite approval from families of victims whose portraits are on the cards, the cards were met with outrage by politicians and the media. The New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg urged lawyers to find ways to prevent the sale of the cards.

Satire decks of the U.S. “war on terrorism” include American Crusade 2001+, Unofficial Iraqi Freedom Action Cards, and the images of Playing the Hitler Card, a small collection of cards with images of dictators and links to pages were they have recently been compared to Hitler.

In September, 2002 Slate published the Flash animation Corporate Scandal Trading Cards, “the fastest guide to America’s top 10 business crackups” with names and photos of CEO’s along with some statistics and a brief description of the crimes and frauds of WorldCom, Enron, Global Crossing, Adelphia, Tyco, ImClone, Halliburton, Harken, Qwest, and Andersen Consulting.

In April 2000, Texans for Public Justice produced a set of Bush League trading cards. The 20 cards feature statistics and a profile of a Bush “Pioneer” who has raised at least $100,000 for Bush’s presidential election. The profiles are drawn from TPJ’s investigation into the 212 announced Bush “Pioneers.”

On the heels of their 1989 comic book “Brought to Light: Thirty Years of Drug Smuggling, Arms Deals, & Covert Action,” in 1990 Eclipse published the original Friendly Dictator Trading Cards. The hallucinogenic artwork of Bill Sienkiewicz illustrates “three dozen of America’s most embarrassing ‘friends’, a cunning crew of tyrants and corrupt puppet-presidents who have been rewarded handsomely for their loyalty to U.S. interests.” Other political trading card sets published by Eclipse include “Drug Wars,” “The Iran Contra Scandal,” and “Rotten to the Core - New York Political Scandal,” and “Coup D’etat,” which presents theories pertaining to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Douglas Rushkoff’s 1994 book Media Virus quotes journalist and Eclipse editor Catherine Yronwode:

“Our trading cards are designed so they read like Hypercard stacks. Each cross-references to other cards... They all connect, and you can rearrange them in chains of interconnectivity. Or chronologically. You can find out who someone’s boss was, how different people moved around, that this guy was in Vietnam at the same time as this guy, and then that they were both in Nicaragua at the same time, too.”

Eclipse’s “Crime and Punishment” and “True Crime” cards, which present information about serial killers and gangsters, prompted the Board of Supervisors of Nassau County to pass Local Law 11-1992 which made it illegal to disseminate “indecent crime material to minors.” From the Friendly Dictators site:

“In 1997... a U.S. federal appeals court struck down a Nassau County, New York law banning the sale of trading cards depicting ‘any heinous crime". The court found for Eclipse who had challenged the law on First Amendment grounds - cf: Eclipse Enterprises, Inc. v. Gulotta (U.S. Federal Court of Appeal, 2nd Circuit, December 1997). The expense of this court case seems to have bankrupted them - at any rate, for whatever reason, Eclipse appears to have folded. There are no web entries for the company, no listing in any of the Publishing Indexes I’ve been able to find, and all its products are out of print, as far as the big web booksellers are concerned.”

Details of the case and proceedings can be found here.

This entry has been updated and incorporated into An Introduction to Activism on the Internet.

I’ve been searching for a list of excellent examples of Internet activism. I couldn’t find one, so I made my own.

I’ve structured much of this list around categories outlined by Sasha Costanza-Chock in “Mapping the Repertoire of Electronic Contention,” in Representing Resistance: Media, Civil Disobedience and the Global Justice Movement, eds. Andrew Opel and Donnalyn Pompper. Greenwood, in press. Unless otherwise indicated, the quoted text below has been taken from him.

Though I’ve added some of my own commentary, this is not intended to be a full analysis of the campaigns and organizations mentioned. I disagree with the politics of many of the examples listed, but think there is something to be learned from each of the them.

Continue reading "Techniques of Electronic Advocacy" »

The June issue of Metropolis magazine has a short review of this blog in its Screen Space column:

Social Design Notes

Activist and graphic designer John Emerson’s Web log follows the role of design in social activism, collecting little-known news items from around the world. Recently Emerson has devoted much of his coverage to the war in Iraq. He critiques the way newspapers and magazines use graphics to enforce pro-war rhetoric and celebrates protestors who alter existing ads and signs to get their message out.

I’m flattered that Metropolis reviewed my blog, but the review is somewhat skewed by its timing. If you stopped by during the invasion of Iraq that was probably much of what I was blogging.

Crawl through the archives, though. There’s some good stuff there. I do write a lot about the role of design in social justice movements, but I also blog other examples of design in the public interest including (but not limited to) environmentally friendly materials, civic wayfinding, public friendly consumer labeling, sustainable energy sources and design for energy efficiency, universal design and accessibility, mapping, design and public transit, e-government, and design by working people for working people. In addition to news items, I do post some commentary, criticism, original research, and longer features (when I get the time.) I do hope to do more of the latter and less of the link propagation.

I’m not sure what “little-known” means. I do not post items because they are obscure, though I sometimes do not post things that are all over everyone else’s blogs. “Little-known” to who?

In my item on anti-war protests in the City, I was not just celebrating protestors altering ads, but commenting on how protestors were using the City itself not just as a site of protest but as a medium. Not just altering ads, but posting stickers and signs of their own, marching by the thousands, rearranging street furniture, blocking traffic with their bodies, changing the face of the City and using the City itself to disrupt business as usual. I’m actually increasingly skeptical of Adbusters style activism, of altering logos and ads unless it’s within the context of a broader grassroots social movement.

Anyway, all this is to say that in year two of this blog (which starts today) I will try to post more in-depth, to organize my archives better, and to further clarify this whole “design in the public interest” thing.

Thanks for stopping by.

King George III Joseph Stalin

The Shah of Iran Saddam Hussein

Unable to anticipate a clear surrender by the Iraqi government, on April 4 the Bush administration announced it’s vision of a “rolling victory,” “a strategy to declare victory in Iraq even if Saddam Hussein or key lieutenants remain at large and fighting continues in parts of the country.” Days later, the media run images of a statue of Hussein being toppled by U.S. marines and jubilant Iraqi’s.

...

A week later, protestors in San Francisco stage their own toppling of their own. A popular protest mimicking the Marines mimicking a popular protest, the protestors pull down a makeshift statue of President Bush in the style of Saddam Hussein’s.

...

And a week after that, protestors in South Korea topple a cardboard cutout of a statue of Kim Il-Sung.

...

Update: On July 3, 2004 the Los Angeles Times confirmed that it was Army psy-ops that toppled the statue of Saddam Hussein, not the Iraqi civilians shown on television.

Over a year ago I attended a lecture on design at the Cooper Union. The speaker projected a series of slides illustrating his minimalist design philosophy. One of the images was of the B-2 bomber. I was shocked and disturbed that a design philosophy would fail to take into account social, political, and economic contexts. Particularly of an object which, when used as intended, delivers massive death and destruction.

It prompted me to dig deeper into design and the public interest. And to start this Web log.

On evening of April 16, I arranged a panel discussion at Cooper titled “Design in the Public Interest / Design Against the War.” I invited three panelists to speak about their work as designers involved in the anti-war movement.

First up was Lee Gough, a printmaker, anti-war activist, and graphic artist based in Brooklyn, NY. She showed a series of prints from a portfolio-in-progress on the Iraq invasion and the war at home, called “The War Went Well.” Some of the images have been used in posters on the Web site Who Dies for Bush Lies“ and for Military Families Speak Out, an organization of people who are opposed to war in Iraq and who have relatives or loved ones in the military.

One image “Fight the War at Home” was inspired by a subway ride home from lower manhattan on September 11. Even as the towers had just been destroyed, there were still, as there had been for many years, homeless persons on the subway appealing to cityfolk to remember them, and to give. The image is a graphic reminder that some have been under domestic attack in our country for a long time, and that funds for the war on poverty pale in comparison to our “defense” budget. Another image, “Visualize Your Family Members Waging War” depicts a despondent soldier with a crutch being embraced by a woman. Lee’s expressive linocut style brings a gravity to the subject matter.

Lee commented on the challenges of choosing one’s message, for instance, noting the different context of “Bring the Troops Home” for troops that have been drafted vs. those who enlisted voluntarily.

One member of the audience raised the question of why U.S. flags and “being American” were the province of the pro-war movement, when large numbers of U.S. citizens were opposed to the war. I noted that I’d seen many anti-war demonstrators holding up flags and patriotism at rallies. On the Web, Who Dies for Bush Lies? effectively tackles effect of the war on U.S. soldiers and U.S. civilians, in addition to Iraqi soldiers and civilians. The danger was raised, though, of the rhetorical trap: the argument over who is “more American” can go back and forth forever, and quickly turning attention away from the crisis at hand.

Nancy Doniger has worked as an illustrator for almost 20 years, producing art work for newspapers, magazines, books, posters and T-shirts for both for-profit clients and not-for-profit groups. She is currently a member of Brooklyn Parents for Peace, for whom she created the “Say No to War Against Iraq” poster.

She also helped organize a community/family oriented workshop that gave kids and parents an opportunity to make anti-war art for protest marches. Adults and kids made signs and worked with a puppeteer to create a large paper mache dove, and lots of little doves held aloft on cardboard tubes.

Nancy showed some earlier examples of her work, including a forceful image against the FTAA, a stark two-color poster for a conference on the conflict in Israel and Palestine, and a bright, celebratory “Welcome Back to Brooklyn” poster.

She also showed a couple of iterations of the “Say No to War” poster. One implied the damage of war with flames, but the final version ultimately centered on the mass mobilization. She noted that, in contrast to other illustrations, her work on this piece progressed from representation to geometric abstraction to make the poster more inclusive, using large blocks of color instead of specific depictions of race and gender. She is currently working on a “Hate Free Zone” poster.

Nancy noted the effect of the “Say No to War” poster on her block. The block appeared to be a very pro-war, where “the flags are quick to come out.” But over time, the “Say No to War” poster began to appear in windows and doorways. I certainly noticed it up and down the block where my step-sister lives.

Nancy is also involved in upcoming anti-war event “WEARNICA.” Sponsored by Brooklyn Parents for Peace, on May 3, 2003 a group of artists will present original anti-war art executed on the backs of white cotton dress shirts. The shirts will be worn in public spaces around New York and the world. The event was conceived by Works on Shirts Project whose inspiration for the event came after Colin Powell insisted upon covering the tapestry of Picasso’s Guernica during his warmongering speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations on February 5, 2003.

L.A. Kauffman is a staff organizer for United for Peace and Justice and designer of materials to promote the February 15 and March 22 marches in New York City. Her sticker and poster designs United for Peace and Justice can been seen on the streets across the New York City.

Leslie arrived at design through her work as editor of a progressive journal. She was inspired by the bold, clear graphics of Gran Fury and ACT-UP, and the use of those graphics on the street and at demonstrations, stage managing the events to push its imagery into the mainstream media. She claims she can not draw, so uses clip art in her graphics. The image of the blue pennant flag and black group have become a ubiquitous the city streets.

The idea behind a worldwide day of anti-war marches came out of the European Social Forum held in Florence this past November. At the Forum, the date February 15 was chosen as a date for anti-war demonstrations “in every capital.” What transpired was unexpected and unprecedented.

United for Peace and Justice had only just formed in the November of 2002, but it wasn’t January the group started working on the February 15 march. “The World Says No” was the headline of the February 15 flyer design, accompanied by a list of cities taking part in the event. As news of the event travelled across the Internet, marches were planned in more and more cities. Leslie held up various versions of her February 15 design with more and more cities added. Ultimately, marches were held in 793 cities around the world on February 15. Of particular note is virtual absence of communication or coordination between the participating cities.

Leslie spoke of the focused purpose of the posters produced for the event: not to educated, but to mobilize. The flyers lack all superfluous text or argument, just the headline, time and place. The posters and stickers were not trying to change people’s minds, instead to reach out to people who were already against the war but had not yet taken action.

In addition to sticker and flyers, palm cards cut from 1/4 page xerox copies on blue paper were popular and successful. They are both cheaper and more effective — easier to stuff in your pocket, less burdensome on the counter tops of sympathetic shopkeepers.

For the February 15 march, 200,000 stickers were distributed in 5 weeks. For the March 22 march, 200,000 stickers were distributed in 3 weeks. Astonishing numbers, posted around town by a continual flow of volunteers through the office. It’s also a useful bench mark: this is how many it takes to spread the message. A month later, I’m still finding remnants of UPfJ stickers on walls and phone booths. Leslie noted the effect of thousands of little acts of civil disobedience for the spirit of protestors, slowly bolstering a spirit of resistance around in the City and specifically, against the police department ban on marching past the U.N. on February 15.

In total, 1.1 Million pieces of literature distributed. Almost all of the printed materials were bilingual: English on one side, Spanish on the other. However, materials were also produced in Korean, Spanish, French, Creole, and Chinese. Quite a few donations for all these production expenses came online via paypal.

The question was raised about the environmental impact of producing all those printed materials. Her response: it’s also better for the environment if the war is prevented.

Other examples of design projects were raised by members of the audience: a “Do Not Bomb Iraq” sticker to replace the “Do Not Lean On Doors” sticker in NYC subway cars; colorful logos, charts and imagery designed by Stefan Sagmeister for “Move Our Money,” a campaign to reallocate 15% of the U.S. military budget for education; and flyers handed out to tourists at ground zero with a graphic representation of the number of teachers aides that will be cut from City’s budget. The image leaves it to the viewer to make to the connection to the military expense of a war in Iraq.

Many spoke of the importance of New Yorkers being seen as against the war. September 11 was an attack on New York, and the war is being waged in our name. Others spoke of the urgency of independent media, and the challenge of reaching out beyond “preaching to the converted.”

Overall, I was struck by how spontaneous the designers’ actions were. In almost every case, the designers simply stepped forward and got involved: signs made for a rally were eagerly snapped up; hundreds of thousands of stickers eagerly taken and distributed; and, “Say No to War” posters popped up on an otherwise apparently pro-war street. It seems that one doesn’t necessarily have to change everyone’s minds. There are more “converted” than you think. They just don’t have the graphic materials to display yet.

About 50 people came to the event, a decent turnout despite the announcement from the Pentagon the previous day that “the major fighting” in Iraq was over... and the fact that I’d scheduled the event on the first night of Passover. (Such a Jew am I.) The arc of the event could have used a better closing at the end, as well as a better transition between panelists. I also noted the lack of diversity in the audience. I think next time, I should hold it at different time and place. I’m also quite pleased with the invite design. Peel off the event description and you’re left with an anti-war sticker. Many thanks to Photobition for helping hammer this out in time.

One purpose of the event was to connect artists, designers, and activists. I’m disappointed more Cooper students didn’t show, but after the event quite a few people milled around having these intense little conversations until I kicked everyone out to close the room and return the lights. And quite a few people asked me what was next. Perhaps the start of a new Committee to Unsell the War?