Save The World; Stop the Breeding

Reducing the population by voluntary means won't solve the world's environmental issues. Underdeveloped countries, like Mexico and India, have the highest birthrates. Developed countries, like Europe and the U.S. have low birthrates. In fact, the population of the U.S would be declining if it weren't for immigration. It would seem then that the way to reduce the world's population would be for all nations to develop their economies to be more like those of the U.S. and Europe. The problem there is that economies like ours use more natural resources per person.

We need to save the earth by figuring out how to make more - energy, food, water, plasma televisions - with fewer natural resources.

Found in the West Village. Big surprise.

What Do Forced Abortions, Slave Labor, And Asbestos All Have In Common?

What do forced abortions, slave labor, and asbestos all have in common? The comedy genius of Totie Fields, of course.

Found in Washington Square Park.

USSA Hillary

Calling Democrats commies seems like something that would have ended with the Cold War but here it is, this time directed at Hillary Clinton.

As the Senator from New York, Hillary hasn't done anything radically leftist. In fact she hasn't made any sudden moves that could harm her chances at presidency. She even voted for the Iraq War when it seemed politically expedient. In that way, she is very much like the leaders of the former USSR, more interested in accumulating and holding onto power than in fostering a revolution.

If you hate Hillary, you can download this poster, and other anti-Hillary posters at unsavoryagents.com.

Rob found these in Los Angeles.

1040WAR

I got this from a group of super lefties that are out in Union Square every weekend protesting Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.

This flyer protests the enormous defense budget, specifically how much the U.S. spends on Israeli and their military. You can see a full-size copy of the flyer with all it's facts and figures here.

In a city with a larger Jewish population than Jerusalem, these demonstrations always attract an angry response from passers by .

W is not healthy for children and other living things.

More from those who think that everything that President Bush says, thinks and does is evil, stupid and unhygienic. It's America's inability to separate personalities from policy that got W elected in the first place - voters preferred Bush over Gore and Kerry because Bush was the guy that they felt that they could sit down with and have a beer.

9-11 Roundup

Tomorrow is the 6th anniversary of 9-11, an event that people still feel strongly about. Here's some of the messages that have been posted around NYC.
I remember the days of "united we stand." That was before the country was divided over the Iraq war. Even the World Trade Center is still a hole in the ground because no one can agree on what to build there.

By the time I found this on a sidewalk in Long Island City, the poster looked like it had taken more of a stamping than terrorism.
For some, 9-11 marks a new era a fascism in this country brought about by the Bush administration when the threat of terrorism is merely a tool to frighten the populace into submission. You can find more stickers and posters ready for printing at www.strike911.org.
And then there are the conspiracy theorists who I wrote about earlier. The activists at NY 9/11 Truth are trying to create an NYC 9/11 ballot initiative enabling residents of NYC to vote for a new, independent investigation of 9/11. I get the feeling that even if there were an independent investigation revealing the conspiracy behind 9-11 there would still be people claiming that the independent investigation was a cover up and that there is an even deeper conspiracy behind the attacks, involving the Vatican, the Trilateral Commission, the Federal Reserve and Home Depot.

The Bush Regime Engineered 9-11

Who killed our 3000 brothers and sisters on September 11?

Was the Titanic an inside job?

What is the connection between the Vatican, the Roosevelt administration and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake?

Who really shot President McKinley and why did they name a mountain after him?

Nice, right?

Posted in the Bleecker Street area by If You Don't Know, a website whose stated purpose is " to take control of our public space by promoting racial, social and economic consciousness; to take back our public space and combat the infiltration of commercial propaganda with messages that will liberate the minds of the members of our communities and reshape the value system distorted by commercialization and materialism, helping to redirect our priorities toward things which will promote a more prosperous and long lasting form of economic development of our community, such as education and self empowerment."

It's time for Advertising 101. This flyer uses what is called borrowed interest - that is putting something sensational and irrelevant in an ad to rope in a reader. This example uses sex. You can tell that a woman's bust has nothing to do with at-risk young men by putting any other message after the lead in:

Nice, right? You know what else would be nice?

$99 round trip fares to Rome.
The New York Times delivered free for one week.
Anal Holocaust live in Stockton.

The worst part is that this is a PSA, a category which ad creatives love because it gives them a good chance to scoop up awards. If You Don't Know wants to combat ad industry messages with their own but first they have to learn how to create print that is just as compelling.

SPC. Brandon Jacob Rowe

Posters found in the West Village, recording the date of death and age of a U.S. soldier, presumably a casualty of the Iraq War. Uncle Sam could either be repeating his "I want you" message or singling out the viewer as responsible for Rowe's death.

No Smoking

Any Republican politician who takes a stand on an issue will be compared to Hitler. The comparison has been made so many times that it has become meaningless. So what will we do when the nationalist socialist workers find themselves a new leader?

World War III

Found in Long Island City stuck to a lamp post. This sticker warns against World War III using an image from WWII.

Right now, World War III seems unlikely because the defining conflict of our day is the struggle between the western world and the Islamic world and the militants that we are up against have the good sense not to take us on toe-to-toe, tank-to-tank and plane-to-plane. They are developing different tactics that do not include the sort of large battles that we have come so associate with World War, ones like the image used in the sticker. If we decide to engage the enemy we will be faced with a situation more like a string of Iraq Wars.

Greed Feeds This Country

It's true that the quest for cash motivates this country. That's capitalism, what the left-wing calls greed. And I'll go along with the notion that we as a nation have become too obsessed with wealth. Paris Hilton is the most stark example that we'll tolerate, even glamourize, any sort of behavior as long as it's associated with extreme sums of money. But this posting, wheatpasted in SoHo, is too shrill and cliche to be taken seriously, like saying that President Bush is a nazi. Having the words greed and feed form a cross - suggesting that Christianity and avarice are one in the same - is an extra layer of doctrine that's preaching to the Red Army Choir.

Ron Paul 2008

This landed in my wallet this week.

Ron Paul is a congressman from Texas seeking the Republican nomination for president. According to Paul's website, "Paul never votes for legislation unless the proposed measure is expressly authorized by the Constitution.

Paul strictly constitutionalist opinions landed him an appearance in "America - Freedom to Fascism", a documentary produced by Aaron Russo, a Hollywood producer who was also a nominee for the Libertarian Party presidential candidate in 2004.

Googling "America - Freedom to Fascism" led to the the promotional website which has clips from the film and related interviews. There's more interesting information there than I'll go into here but, to relate it back to the dollar bill, Russo believes that the primary goal of American citizens should be to shut down the Federal Reserve which he states is not a federal institution at all, but a private bank run by a cartel of the major banks in the U.S.

Russo feels that one of the many misdeeds of the Fed was to take the country off of the gold standard, an action that is gradually making our money worthless. According to the film, a US dollar today is only worth 4 cents of what it was worth in 1930.

So deface all you want, we'll make more!

Open Source Resistance

When I saw this flyer I was intrigued by its obscurity. A Google search led to Open Source Resistance.net. The stated purpose of the site is "...an attempt to start a grass-roots information militia, so ordinary people can fight to prevent a world where civil rights AND natural resources are both being strip-mined for the convenience of multinational corporations and People Who Know They Are Right."

I was reminded of Insta-Protest whose flyers I wrote about in March. Only the O.S.R. site is way slicker.

If you have a poster, movie, bumper sticker or any other piece of protest art, you can send it to the O.S.R. and, if it passes the one-man selection committee, it will appear on the site. The one man doesn't say who he is.

I looked at the art that made the cut and it is far more sophisticated than the Insta-Protest signs. This is protest by professionals.

Looking further I checked out a movie of an O.S.R. meeting that was raided by the cops. It starts with a militant looking guy addressing a crowd of hipsters, telling them to "wake up and give a shit" about what's going on politically.

It was during this segment that I noticed the quality of the video, multiple camera angles, seamless editing and clear sound. This was no amateur production. I grew suspicious of this "grass-roots" movement and I hoped that it wasn't going to end up being a sneaker commercial.

Turns out it's part of the guerrilla marketing campaign for the new Nine Inch Nails album. After the short speech, the kids are rewarded with a concert by Trent Reznor and his band. The show is supposedly raided by the cops, but it looks staged.

This whole thing feels like the skillful manipulation of a target demographic by a major corporation. (Nine Inch Nails is part of Universal Music Group.) It leaves me feeling a bit more cynical, and these days cynicism is the ally of the groups that Reznor and his Open Source Resistance purport to oppose.

War Is Not The Answer

General Wes Clark is the face of stopIranWar.com, a grassroots organization trying to head off a war against Iran. Where those who protested the Iraq War failed, this movement will succeed.

President Bush can't drum up enough political support for an invasion for Iran, even with the threat of Islam with the bomb. The country trusted him once on a mission to eradicate weapons of mass destruction and won't get fooled again.

Secondly, our all-volunteer military is stretched too thin to invade and occupy yet another country. Entering Iran would require reinstating the draft which is politically impossible.

To ignore both of those points, Bush would be setting himself up for some serious Shakespearean folly.

All Out for Mumia

Mumia Abu-Jamal's is a case that has become a cause. I've seen this guy's face on flyers for as long as I've lived in New York.

The state of Pennsylvania says that Mumia (born Wesley Cook) killed a Philadelphia cop. The far left believes that he is a political prisoner of the global police state.

Mumia's death sentence was overturned so it looks like this battle will continue for the rest of his life.

HELL

I found this chunk of fire and brimstone on the sidewalk in The first part of the text explains how the Bible condemns homosexuality and the second part claims that by giving yourself over to Christ you will be saved and no longer gay.

This is exactly the wrong way to win people over. It's like if Revlon ran an ad that had UGLY as the headline (with Unattractive and You extending from the U and Y) with copy citing Revlon corporate literature that specifically forbids not wearing makeup as not only unsightly but also morally bereft. After setting up the problem, the solution would be a face full of Revlon products that would transform you into Halle Berry no matter how ghastly you look at the moment.

No More War

Insta-Protest is a site that makes left wing propaganda instantly downloadable to your printer. This poster is fitting for an endeavor with the goal of taking the work out of political activism. As if the solution to war is to just say no. We gave peace a chance - many chances - and war is still with us.

Imperialism

This poem sounds like a spoof of a spoken word artist's first efforts. After writing this, the poet would address the issues of racism, capitalism, the police state and Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Euthanasia Nation

Some people work all their lives for their 15 minutes of fame and others have it thrust upon them while in a coma. I'm refering to Terri Schaivo who, at the time this was written, was enough of a media presence that only her first name was necessary.