Poster of the Week

 

Make Civil Rights Equal for All People

Artist Unknown

Silkscreen, 2010

Los Angeles, California

32864

CSPG’s Poster of the Week refers to two historic cases about Marriage Equality being argued before the U.S. Supreme Court this week.  The two cases (United States v. Windsor;  Perry v. Schwarzenegger) challenge the constitutionality of the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California’s Proposition 8.  Both DOMA, signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996, and Proposition 8, passed in 2008, stipulate that marriage is only between a man and a woman, denying same sex couples the same rights and benefits of their heterosexual counterparts.

Additional Sources:

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/3/27/inside_the_landmark_same_sex_marriage

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/3/27/widower_of_first_openly_gay_congressman

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/3/27/a_historic_moment_california_couple_on

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_Marriage_Act

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8

Poster of the Week

NO

David Gentleman

Stop the War Coalition

East End Offset

Offset, circa 2003

London, UK

24662

CSPG’s Poster of the Week marks the 10^th anniversary of the Iraq War.  This dramatic but simple poster uses David Gentleman’s signature blood splatter to escalate the written “NO” into a SCREAMED,  

NO

On February 15, 2013, a month before the war began, tens of millions of people demonstrated in approximately 800 cities around the world, trying to prevent the war—the largest protest in history.  This poster was carried in the London anti-war protest, where up to one million protestors gathered in Hyde Park.

DemocracyNow.org marked the 10^th anniversary by presenting "The Costs of War," a new report by a team of 30 economists, anthropologists, political scientists, legal experts and physicians about the impact of the Iraq War. The report found the total number of people who have died from the Iraq War, including soldiers, militants, police, contractors, journalists, humanitarian workers and Iraqi civilians, has reached at least 189,000 people, including at least 123,000 civilians. Financially, the report estimates a cost to U.S. taxpayers of $2.2 trillion, a figure that could one day approach $4 trillion with the interest accrued on the borrowed money used to fund the war.

It is critical to remember that the war, as so many other U.S. wars, was started on a lie.  The lie behind the Iraq War claimed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.  This lie was compounded by the continual linking by the George W. Bush Administration, that Saddam Hussein was directly involved with the September 11, 2001 attack on the U.S. It is also important to remember that the Viet Nam War escalated due to a lie that U.S. destroyers were attacked by the North Vietnamese in the Gulf of Tonkin. 

When will we ever learn?

Sources:

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/3/19/the_costs_of_war_10_years

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_the_Iraq_War

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5242/5363603894_44b1baed05_z.jpg

Poster of the Week

Viva la Lucha Antiimperialista
Offset, circa 2011
South America, possibly Venezuela
39439

Translation:

Long live the Struggle against Imperialism 

Internationalist and Proletarian Solidarity

CSPG’s Poster of the Week commemorates Hugo Chávez (1954-2013), President of Venezuela since 1999. Chávez died March 5, 2013, after two years of battling cancer.  He was 58. In this Ecuadoran poster he is shown in the center of past and current heroes of the Latin American left:

Bottom:  Current heroes, L-R

Rafael Correa, President of Ecuador

Raúl Castro, President of Cuba

Hugo Chávez, President of Venezuela

Evo Morales, President of Bolivia

Fidel Castro, former President of Cuba  (1976 to 2008)

Top:  Past heroes, L-R:

Che Guevara, Salvador Allende, Simon Bolivar and José Martí

Chávez promoted participatory democracy, the nationalization of several key industries, increased government funding of health care and education, and significant reductions in poverty.  He introduced a system of worker-managed cooperatives, as well as a program of land reform. He was instrumental in creating the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our Americas (ALBA), including Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. ALBA is the progressive alternative to the U.S. dominated Organization of American States (OAS).  Chávez was lauded by many for his anti-imperialism and his efforts to aid the poor. For these same reasons, he was reviled by the rich and powerful.

For an informative article on Hugo Chavez and his role in Venezuelan history, see:
http://venezuelanalysis.com/node/5787

Hugo Chavez

¡PRESENTE!