One of my life heroes steps up to the plate:

Protesting in Pictures
Appealing to the Visual Sense Has Long Been a Key Component of Dissent.
by Milton Glaser | LA Times

Dissent is more important now than ever because without it democracy cannot survive. When dissent disappears, the very nature of a democratic society is compromised.

For centuries, people have turned to visual communication as a form of protest. Because this form is so immediate, it can be an extremely powerful means for disseminating messages. Because of the passion behind this type of communication, these messages tend to be expressions of rage or horror.

Unfortunately, anger is not an effective way of convincing others. It tends to communicate only to those people who are already in agreement, and it certifies their beliefs.

If one is interested in changing opinions, other methods must be employed. Provoking a sense of empathy in the viewer that creates a sense of commonality can lead to the idea that we are all in the same boat.

“Child’s Play!” is a poster produced in 1998 in reaction to the killing of a Palestinian boy, and it ignites exactly that empathy. The poster addresses the issue of what happens in war, but in a way that separates it from the political issues. It reminds us that regardless of who’s right and who’s wrong, it is the innocent who suffer.

Even for those who are not generally sympathetic to the Palestinian point of view, the poster’s powerful image penetrates one’s sense of self-righteousness by illustrating war’s horrible consequences.

Humor and parody can also be effective vehicles when linked to consciousness-raising. If, however, the work becomes a vicious satire, it can simply lapse back into rage and lose its strength. Humor has the ability to penetrate minds or engage them because we become interested when things are presented in a funny way. The “Got Oil?” poster is a good example. It relies on knowledge that exists in the viewer’s mind: familiarity with the “Got Milk?” campaign.

Here we see the arresting and scary image of President Bush with oil on his lips. The visceral idea of having oil on one’s lips is disgusting, yet this is an essential part of the power of the image. More important, however, is that the image suggests clearly and unmistakably the idea that war and peace are directly related to issues of oil.

“iRaq” works in much the same way. Again the artist has transformed the elements in a popular ad campaign to great effect. By altering, yet maintaining, each of the elements in their exact position, one cannot miss the irony. In the original advertisement, the iPod headphone wire represents freedom and euphoria, while in the parody it represents ideas of imprisonment and torture.

The most significant challenge in communication is that people frequently do not want to listen to serious messages ? they feel they have heard enough and seen enough. We are constantly assailed and thus spend most of our time deflecting information. We subconsciously develop methodologies for filtering out that which either causes pain or difficulty.

As a result, it is more and more difficult to catch people’s attention ? at a moment when it is increasingly important to do so. We must pay attention and publicly voice our opinions because so much is at stake, and every one of us is responsible for taking an active role in our democratic system.

Milton Glaser, a graphic designer, has had one-man shows at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He is the coauthor of “The Design of Dissent.”

Some of Glaser’s work….

http://www.miltonglaser.com/

http://www.lawrencewright.com/WrightSoufan.pdf

Did any one else read this article in the NewYorker.

“Did the CIA stop an FBI detective from preventing 9/11?”
“Ali Soufan, as the FBI’s lead investigator on the USS Cole bombing, suspected a larger Al Qaeda plot.”

It seems that US foreign policy (which drove every Western initiative in Central and Eastern Europ) is failing in Central and Eastern Europe as well as in the Middle East. The following is an interesting point of view from Michael Werbowski, a writer in the Czech Republic:

‘New’ Europe Reunites With Its Old Demons

The West introduced market capitalism immediately after the fall of the wall. Its main sales or pitchman was Jeffery Sachs, a brilliant young Harvard professor who was practically anointed as the apostle or father of “shock therapy” in the form of the “new economic theory of the transition.” As Gowan describes it, “a western-directed plan for regional social engineering” to achieve a market economy. At the time, Sachs ran up against skepticism from some eminent thinkers, for example, Baron Ralf Gustav Darendorf.

Instead if imposing an economic model on central Europe, Darendorf, an “old school” German social democrat, argued that the cornerstone for fostering regional growth should be “respecting the existing tissue of social institutions” and strengthening social institutions through “the circulation of ideas and the building of consensus through debate, negotiations and compromise,” explains Gowan, who is professor of International Relations at London Metropolitan University. The legal state where the “rule of law” was supposed to reign has to be established by means of an “open society” or “civil society”; again slogans popularized by “movers and shakers” at the time, such as George Soros. The reality, however, was quite different. Sachs rejected Darendorf’s “open experimentation” in a free society. He feared it would lead the populace down the wrong road toward reform.

When I read this, I said ‘wow’ more than once:

The Death of the Dead Sea

Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN)
United Nations
October 16, 2006

As the Dead Sea slowly shrinks towards extinction, fears are growing that the saltiest body of water on earth will not disappear without taking a few lives along with it.

The Dead Sea has fallen more than 20 meters over the past 40 years. Studies by scientists at the University of Jordan have shown that the sea now drops one meter in depth each year. The water level has declined faster than ever since Israel took control of the water resources that feed the Jordan River after occupying the West Bank after the 1967 Arab/Israel war.

“For at least 30 years, Israel diverted most of the Jordan River tributaries and controlled water coming from Tiberias Lake [the Sea of Galilee] in a way that the river level was heavily effected,” said Najib Abu Karaki, head of the geology department at the University of Jordan.

Israel, however, has insisted that its dispute with Jordan over the use of the river was settled in peace agreements, which state that Israel will supply water to Jordan. Israel pumps water from the Sea of Galilee through its Movil Artzi water carrier to be used for irrigation of the Negev and other areas in Israel.

Although the problem of the Dead Sea’s decline starts at the northern borders of Jordan, villagers at the southern edge of the Dead Sea are bearing the full brunt of the problem. Farms have been disappearing to sinkholes caused by the shrinking sea. Villagers lost their homes, cattle and their lives.

“It’s like living on a landmine,” said Jaber Abu Jarrar, 46, a farmer from Ghour Al Haditha village. He lost half his farm to emerging sinkholes.

Almost a week and a half ago, Anna Politkovskaya was killed. I was thinking about free speech and the people around us who really ‘get it’. She was one one of them. Her brutal honestly and well thought-out criticism of Russia and the war on terror had made her famous (of infamous depending on what side of the fence or isle you are on). I posted at least one article of hers in EGOS a few months back, and I have read her often.

There is a cost to free speech, Anna — like thousands before her — paid the price.

Slain Russian Journalist Remembered

Anna Politkovskaya, a U.S.-born Russian journalist known for her opposition to the Chechen conflict and the administration of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was shot dead on Saturday, Oct. 7 in an elevator located in her central Moscow apartment block. Reports have indicated that it was a contract killing carried out by a professional. The mother of two, Politkovskaya was 48 years old.

Politkovskaya reported extensively on the Chechen conflict for Russia’s liberal newspaper, Novaya Gazeta. Her writing was often extremely critical of the Russian government, and fervent in its support for human rights and the rule of law. Her murder caused a strong international reaction.

That’s my assertion.

Good bye due process. Good bye habeas corpus. Hello torture.

“Of the hundreds of detainees being jailed at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, only 10 have been selected for trial. The indefinite detention of others has been condemned by human rights groups as violating international law.”

You all may recall me talking of this in the past when discussing charity.

So it’s entirely fitting that this year’s Peace Prize was awarded to Muhammad Yunus and his for-profit Grameen Bank. The bank has made tiny business loans to millions of very poor Bangladeshis, improving individual and village life. As the Nobel Committee observed on Friday, “Lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty.”
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1017/p08s02-comv.html