Tiananmen Square, Beijing, 20 years ago today… (photo by Jeff Widener)

Winnipeg, Canada

Geez Issue No. 15—Gullibility

We’re bombarded with a non-stop, high-gloss, soul-numbing onslaught of messages. Many of these messages, whether in word or image, aim to connive, cajole or coerce us. How do we cut through the crap, analyze the agendas and keep from being suckered?

This issue of Geez will consider how to navigate the info-saturated world. How can Geez help readers become a community of resistance against the media-driven, consumer-oriented messaging madness? Help us with analysis and avenues for change. We’re looking for:

•  your deconstruction of imagery used in ads, brochures, fundraising letters, news reports, or elsewhere;

•  your ad jams;

•  your exploration of the particular uses of images in churches, monastic communities and other religio-spiritual settings;

•  your images that illustrate your own efforts to talk back to the noise, jam the message machinery, subvert media agendas or escape the mental clutter.

Deadline: June 25, 2009

Pay: We offer a modest honorarium for published material.

Files: Please send small files or links to online galleries.

Unfortunately we are not able to respond to every pitch. If you do not hear from us within six weeks of the deadline, assume we were not able to use your idea or article. Send emails to: stories[at]geezmagazine.org  Send regular mail to: Gullibility Issue, Geez magazine, 400 Edmonton St., Winnipeg MB  R3B 2M2, Canada.

New York, USA

A clever wrap-around poster for the Global Coalition for Peace bearing a profound message… And, a timeless (also ironic) quotation by the USA’s 34th president (NATO’s first supreme commander) expressed exactly 50 years before the ill-informed and wrong-headed 2003 invasion of Iraq:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone, it is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children… under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, 16 April 1953

Amsterdam | Milano

Good 50×70 was created in 2007 as an independent, non-profit initiative with the the aims of promoting the value of social communication in the creative community, providing charities with a (free) database of communication tools, and inspiring the public via graphic design. 2009 represents the third year of this annual design contest involving posters that address (or confront) seven of the critical issues affecting today’s world.

Some of my favorites this year: The Scream by Malgorzata Bedowsda, Poland; Guantánamo by Jose Rubio Malagón, Spain; Darkness (child labour) by Guowei Wu Wu, China; Extinction by Marco Valentini, Italy; HIV Positive by Giovanni Mastroeni, Italy. 

A cautionary message for the United States…

I know this is going to come across as preachy* and I apologize in advance. I’ve been saddened over the past two days at various news reports from our American neighbours, and I just can’t help but respond (rant warning)… It’s incomprehensible to me how such an allegedly “developed” nation as the U.S. can be so blind to basic rules of nature and the truisms of history—state it in whatever terms you like, but “you end up sleeping in the bed you make.” Three troubling traits, to wit…

1). Greed

The U.S. (Wall Street et al at the helm) has recently precipitated a global financial melt-down—we’re told that nearly half of the world’s wealth has disappeared within the past 18 months—affecting both its own hapless citizens as well as the rest of the globalized world. I’ve posted on greed before, so no need to blather on here… though my heart goes out to the auto workers being laid off in droves, to the tens of thousands who have been forced out of homes they can no longer afford, and to the would-be retirees who have lost their life savings and dreams for relaxation in their pensioned September years.

2). Violence

News out this week that Obama will be doubling the number of U.S. troops waging war in Afghanistan (big disappointment there, but I guess I was being naive in thinking that Bush’s departure would bring about a change in Washington’s long-standing, hegemonic approach to war-faring), and that he will be “fighting to prevent the release of photographs documenting abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan by United States military personnel, thereby reversing his earlier position on the issue” after commanders warned that the images “could set off a deadly backlash against American troops.” Duh! The Russians have a great saying that applies here methinks: “Lies have short legs.”—I’d suggest that the only way for the U.S. to purge itself of the scourge and hatred it has brought upon itself through the practice of illegal torture and degradation of its opponents is to finally come clean, rather than to continue with a policy of obfuscation and cover-up at the expense of transparency and accountability. (Just imagine the redemptive and conflict-healing effect that a contrite apology and change of ways from Washington could have on potential young jihadists).

Particularly troubling was the story I chanced across yesterday (here) regarding the Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that began 60 years ago, now training thousands of young people “in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence,” with a focus on weapon use—essentially educating impressionable teenagers to be armed vigilantes. Is this not akin to training child soldiers? Are there not more positive alternatives than teaching militarism? Perhaps learning about organic gardening, for example, or conflict resolution, or bicycle repair, or learning another language, or acquiring sustainable living skills?

3). Injustice

Another big disappointment today was hearing that the promised shut-down of Guantanamo Bay and the end of the military commission system (tribunals) that the Bush administration created to try “suspected terrorists” is also being forestalled by Obama. But perhaps this also shouldn’t come as a surprise—the U.S. imprisons more of its citizens by far than any other nation on earth (with only 5% of the world’s population, the U.S. boasts 25% of the world’s incarcerated population—very profibable business for the likes of Halliburton, mind you, see comments re: “Greed” above). A look at the U.N.’s statistics on national incarceration rates is telling—the U.S. locks up nearly 7 times as many folks per capita as Canada does, more than 10 times as many as Denmark, and over 20 times as many as India. Home of the brave, land of the free?

*My father was a pacifist pulpiter, so I come by this naturally—is that a valid excuse? He taught me things like “if you live by the sword, expect to die by the sword,” and “you can tell a tree by its fruit…”

Above images: U.S. Explorers (a Boy Scouts of America affiliate) being trained in militarism; see more here.