Poster of the Week

Do You Give A Shit About Water Pollution?

Mark Heller

Steve Gottlieb, Photographer

Personality Posters

Offset, 1971

New York, New York

17499

This 1971 poster uses irony to call attention to the issue of water pollution—an issue that made international headlines this past week.

Before people were warned against about a disastrous chemical leak in Charleston, West Virginia on January 9, 2014, they ate, drank and bathed as usual.  After people began to be hospitalized and reports of burned scalps, blistered throats, open sores on bodies and nausea began to be reported, they were finally warned not to used their tap water for ANYTHING but flushing the toilet. A chemical spill from a company absurdly named “Freedom Industries” left 300,000 West Virginians without tap water for days, sparking a state of emergency. Even after the ban was partially lifted, pregnant women were warned not to drink the water, and the reality is that there is so little information about the chemical that much remains unknown. The plant hadn’t been inspected since 1991.  To add insult to injury, Freedom Industries filed for bankruptcy on January 17.

Chemical safety is not a West Virginia problem, it’s a national problem, said Devra Davis, a founding member of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board and now president of the Environmental Health Trust, a nonprofit group.

“It would be farcical were it not so grave. This is a huge threat,” she said. “In a sense, we all live downstream now.”

When will we ever learn.
 Bottom of Form

Sources:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=surviving-the-west-virginia-water-crisis&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ScientificAmerican-News+%28Content%3A+News%29

 http://www.democracynow.org/2014/1/14/west_virginia_water_crisis_behind_chemical

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/west-virginia-chemical-spill-in-elk-river-poses-a-new-chemistry-test-for-lawmakers/2014/01/19/993d5a66-7ed7-11e3-93c1-0e888170b723_story.html

Poster of the Week

Free Lynne Stewart

Christopher Hutchinson

Digital Print, 2009

Hartford, CT

41047

Civil rights attorney Lynne Stewart returned home last week from prison after a federal judge ordered her compassionate release. Stewart is 74 years old and dying from late-stage breast cancer. Viewed by supporters as a political prisoner, she had served almost four years of a 10-year sentence for distributing press releases on behalf of her client, Omar Abdel-Rahman, an Egyptian cleric known as the "blind Sheikh." Stewart arrived to a group of cheering supporters in New York City on Wednesday, January 2, 2014. Stewart plans to continue fighting for political prisoners — and for her own life — now that she's free.

The charges against Stewart stemmed from two press releases that she released via Reuters on behalf of her client, Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, that urged his followers to think critically about the cease-fire terms offered between them and the Egyptian government.

Stewart and her supporters describe her situation as an attempt by the U.S. government to generally intimidate lawyers. The government is especially interested in suppressing any evidence of misconduct and abuse at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib that might arise from lawsuits filed by current and former prisoners. Stewart says she did nothing that a committed lawyer would not do for any client. Stewart and her supporters accused the U.S. government of using the Patriot Act to erode civil liberties.

Sources and more information, including interviews with Stewart:
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/1/2/exclusive_dying_lawyer_lynne_stewarts_jubilant

http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2013/12/31/breaking_fed_govt_asks_judge_to

Poster of the Week

Stop Global Warming
Peggy White
Ultrachrome print, 2009
Kansas City, Missouri
29188

The unfolding disaster in the Philippines is evoked by CSPG’s Poster of the Week.  Super Typhoon Haiyan, aka Yolanda, one of the strongest storms in recorded history to make landfall, slammed the Philippines, killing an estimated 10,000 people in the city of Tacloban alone. Sustained winds of up to 195 miles per hour with gusts of up to 235 mph, generated huge, tsunami-like waves—from 10 to more than 30 feet high (some reports say up to 45 feet high)—that battered the island, destroying 70-80% of the buildings and roads. 1/6^th of the entire population is without food, clean water and shelter. 

Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at the Weather Underground, said, “Typhoons take their energy from the heat of the oceans, and they convert it to the energy of their winds. In a storm like this that gets wound up to Category 5 status, it’s going to pile up a huge area of water that will then come ashore with it as it makes landfall. And that’s what happened in Tacloban. The wall of water that came in, probably at least 10 or 15 feet high, was pushed by these Category 5 winds right into the heart of this downtown area… rising sea levels caused by global warming increased the size of the storm’s surge, while the heating of the oceans threatens more extreme storms that could form into typhoons.”

Peggy White appropriated Katsushika Hokusai’s iconic The Great Wave off Kanagawa (1832) to call attention to global warming.  Hokusai’s Wave, one of the best known Japanese art works in the world, has been used to denounce pollution of the air, land, and seas, and relate this to global warming, flooding and other ecological disasters.  In the Hokusai, nature is the primary power; in this adaptation, human interference has caused nature to become even more destructive.

Poster artists have used Hokusai’s wave for a variety of topics since the 1970s if not earlier, but its use has increased over the last decade as awareness of climate change continues to grow. Unfortunately, as long as governments and corporations put profits over people, the environmental pollution that causes climate change continues to escalate. 

SIGN PETITION To UN Climate negotiators

Governments are meeting in Warsaw the next two weeks for the annual UN climate negotiations. This ritual has dragged on for years without conclusion, largely because the great powers have done so little. On days like these, their inaction amounts to mockery. So Bill McGibbons and 350.org setup a page—  http://act.350.org/sign/haiyan/ —where you can add your name to a petition that their staff will hand-deliver to negotiators at the UN climate summit. In short, we need to let world leaders know that their inaction is wrecking the world, and the time is long past for mere talk -- we need action, and we need it now.  Please sign and pass the page on.

Sources:

http://350.org/

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/11/11/if_not_now_then_when_as

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/10/us-philippines-typhoon-idUSBRE9A603Q201311

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24887337

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/world/asia/philippines-typhoon.html

Poster of the Week

HAPPY HALLOWEEN – IF THIS DOESN’T SCARE YOU NOTHING WILL!

COURT AWARDS $38,000 TO POLICE OFFICER WHO PEPPER SPRAYED STUDENTS

DURING PEACEFUL SIT-IN  AT U.C. DAVIS IN 2011.

The World Famous Linda Katehi Anti-Occupy Spray Patent Pending

Roque Montez

Taller Arte Del Nuevo Amanecer (TANA)

Silkscreen, 2012

Davis, California

39967

UC Davis police Lieutenant John Pike, who pepper-sprayed students during a peaceful sit-in at an "Occupy UCD" demonstration in Davis, Calif. on Nov. 18, 2011, was awarded $38,000 to compensate him for psychiatric damage he claimed to have suffered from the 2011 incident.   The students he pepper sprayed received less--$30,000 each.

Students were seated arm and arm and refused to follow police commands to move when Pike and another officer doused them with pepper spray at close range.

Pike was immediately put on paid administrative leave following the incident, which drew criticism from all over the country and had many calling for Chancellor Linda Katehi to be fired.

Pike had been collecting a six-figure salary until his separation from the department in July 2012. He filed a worker’s comp claim on grounds that he was victimized by the way he was treated after the fact.

A scathing 190-page report on the incident found that university officials and UC Davis police used poor judgment and excessive force in the confrontation. And the incident was widely mocked in satirical messages posted on the Internet in which still photos of Pike wielding his pepper spray were inserted into famed works or art or pop culture images.

The university last fall agreed to pay $1 million to settle a lawsuit brought on behalf of the 21 students who got sprayed and later reported suffering panic attacks, trauma and academic problems as a result.

Sources:

http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2013/10/23/pepper-spray-cop-former-uc-davis-officer-pike-awarded-nearly-40000-in-comp-claim/

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/23/21105239-university-of-california-cop-who-pepper-sprayed-student-protesters-awarded-38000?lite

Poster of the Week

Support the U.F.W.A. International Boycott

Ricardo Favela

Royal Chicano Air Force (RCAF)

Silkscreen, 1976

Sacramento, CA

2497

José Montoya, poet, muralist, printmaker, musician and teacher died last week at 81. He taught at California State University, Sacramento for 27 years and served as Poet Laureate of Sacramento from 2002 to 2004.  In 1969, José and other activists, artists, poets and students (including Esteban Villa, Juanishi Orosco, Ricardo Favela, Armando R. Cid, Eva Garcia, Lorraine García-Nakata, Juan Cervantes, and Joe Serna, Jr.) co-founded the Royal Chicano Air Force (RCAF).  Initially named Rebel Chicano Art Front, they changed their name in response to confusion caused by having the same initials as the Royal Canadian Air Force.  The RCAF was noted for their outrageous humor, and built upon the Royal Canadian Air Force connection by dressing as WWII pilots—as in the above poster of the week—and claiming to fly adobe airplanes.   

RCAF was one of the earliest and most influential of the Chicano art collectives.  Based in Sacramento, the RCAF advocated for Chicano civil rights and the United Farm Workers.  They often brought silkscreen equipment right into the fields, producing posters on site.

CSPG’s Poster of the Week was done by RCAF co-founder Ricardo Favela.  Four members of the RCAF, dressed in WWII bomber jackets, are doing creative boycotting in front of a Safeway Market, targeted by the United Farm Workers for selling non union grapes and lettuce.  After the photo was taken they accidentally entered a parade—where they won 2^nd prize for the best float!

The Center for the Study of Political Graphics is honored to have more than 60 RCAF silkscreens in the archive, and will continue to exhibit these powerful graphics to future generations.  José Montoya’s work will continue to inspire.

José Montoya

(1932-2013)

¡ PRESENTE !

To see an interview with José Montoya:

http://www.sacbee.com/2013/09/26/5771228/jose-montoya-sacramento-poet-and.html

Additional Sources:

http://library.csus.edu/content2.asp?pageID=668

http://blog.sfmoma.org/2013/09/jose-montoya-1932-2013-royal-chicano-air-force-founder/

http://www.kvie.org/programs/kvie/viewfinder/rcaf_flies_again/  

Poster of the Week - The Other September 11th

Long Live Free Chile!

Third World Students Coalition

Offset, mid 1970s

Eugene, Oregon

6680

On September 11, 1973 the democratically elected government of Chile, led by President Salvador Allende, was overthrown by a CIA- engineered coup.  Today is the 40^th anniversary of that brutal coup in which thousands were tortured, murdered and disappeared under the U.S. backed dictatorship of Augosto Pinochet.  The dictatorship lasted 17 years. 

This poster shows President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger behind Chilean dictator Augosto Pinochet, while Vice-President Gerald Ford stands off to the side.  Kissinger was a key architect behind the Chilean coup. 

Additional Sources:

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/9/10/40_years_after_chiles_9_11

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/9/10/40_years_after_chilean_coup_allende

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO309A.html

Poster of the Week

Tell your Senators and Members of Congress Not to Attack Syria. Sign the petition:  http://dontattacksyria.com

OFF/ON

Leon Kuhn
Offset, 2008
London, United Kingdom
31376