Thutrang's blog

It's not every day that political activists get panegyrized (just learned this word, had to use it, natch). But this October, it's our turn: the Center for the Study of Political Graphics will honor Yo! What Happened to Peace? and our curator John Carr with the aptly named "Art is Hammer Award." It's like a match made in political graphics heaven because, for as long as I can remember, our MySpace's tagline has been this Bertolt Brecht quote: "Art is not a mirror to reflect the world, but a hammer with which to shape it." One German poet-playwright's quippy remark, our raison d'etre.

For me - and even this unabashed exercise of verbosity is an oversimplification - Yo Peace is classic because it brings artists of various genres and varied levels of notoriety into this egalitarian space of antiwar, counter-culture messaging, while actuating a culture of peace and community. We internalize that which we want for our society and the world. Without writing a dissertation, what does Yo Peace mean to you? Share, do post a comment!

So, Yo Peace has been at it since 2003, and already in the last half-decade, the ouevres have graced gallery walls in NYC, Stockholm, London, San Francisco and of course LA, where it's all based. The team's also screen printing live at progressive events (like at the recent LA Social Forum) and of course at art happenings. These posters are more well-traveled than I - just one more thing to toast to. Throw one back at the 2008 Annual pARTy AuCTION this fall, details below. Congrats to John and the other Yo Peace cats!

Emcee Sandra Tsing Loh  |  Silent & Live Auction including original art, vintage and contemporary posters  |  Elegant Dinner Buffet  |  Great Entertainment & Company  |  Honoring SUSAN ADELMAN & CLAUDIO LLANOS (Culture of Liberation Award) + ERIN AUBRY KAPLAN (Historian of the Lions Award) + and, of course, JOHN CARR & YO! WHAT HAPPENED TO PEACE? (Art is a Hammer Award)

Technorati Tags: Center for the Study of Political Graphics, John Carr, Political graphics, Yo Peace, Yo! What Happened to Peace?

As long as the Iraqistan wars rage on, there'll be no shortage of material or subjects for Jon Orlando. Jon photographs Iraq veterans and war resisters in his ongoing portrait series called "Courage to Resist." He started this series at the end of May 2007, when a friend suggested he do a portrait of Iraq vet Jared Hood, who went AWOL after his unit denied him bereavement leave for a family death, according to his IVAW member profile. Jon quotes Jared as saying: "I can no longer serve a government that can justify an occupation."

So, what motivates Jon to take still images of seemingly hardened men now hellbent on peace? Jon says he finds inspiration in "the possibilities of radical self-transformation," and in how these beings could make the transition "from soldier in an unjust war to soldier for peace" in a most restrictive setting - the military, the meat grinder. And why photography versus motion documentary or some other medium? He says in one artist bio: "It relentlessly challenges me to capture the truths of a lifetime in a single moment."

And it helps that Jon can relate to his subjects, given that he has experienced a major transformation of his own. He says he grew up "racist, extremely nationalistic, unquestioning of my government," and like many troops and pro-war folks today, "supportive of [the government's] efforts to kick other people's asses in my name." Over a decade, his viewpoints drastically changed and listening to Jared and other vets recount how and why they morphed keeps him visually documenting their stories.

So Jon's studio portrait of Jared saluting a peace flag in a sense was a watershed. He's captured other vets since, some he met through Jared and others he meets around the country (we know they be many!). He tries to explore their human nature and capture their inner realities with a unique theatrical approach to his form, a style he says is "very deliberate and is intended to match the feel of the stories and their placement in the context of the larger society."

It seems that as long as more and more vets speak out against the war, Jon will keep his "Courage to Resist" series open-ended. With the goal of only photographing what's socially and politically important, he's starting another series on Buddhism within the prison system. So shutterbugs unite: Click those cameras and bring it cuz Fox and CNN ain't!

(Photos courtesy of Jon Orlando. Matted and signed 8'x12'prints are available for $60. Paying it forward, Jon gives 10% of all sales proceeds to IVAW.)

Technorati Tags: Courage to resist, Iraq veterans, IVAW, Jared Hood, Jon Orlando photography, Peace photography, Soldier portraits, War resisters

With all the talk about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, might be easy to forget a 60-year -old war going on elsewhere in the Middle East. It was in 1948 when Jewish-Israeli nationalists started pushing Palestinians/Arabs out...to fulfill a scriptural prophecy...dispossessed Palestinians struggling for the right of return ever since...

Or so that's what I think I know about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is older than I am. Those things reportedly happened, but even the alternative media I often suckle can be biased!

Noa Baum makes it a point to tell both Israeli and Palestinian stories in her show, "A Land Twice Promised." It's showing again, since some months ago, THIS Saturday in LA. Performing all the parts herself, Noa gives the testimonies of four women, two Palestinian, two Jewish. Her site says she's "an Israeli who began a heartfelt dialogue with a Palestinian woman" and then "weaves together their memories and their mothers' stories." She juxtaposes an Israeli narrative with a Palestinian narrative, the different experiences/recollections of war. Instead of a war of narratives here, she's going for their coexistence.

Everything about "A Land Twice Promised" lends itself to peace, from how it was conceived between whom, to who performs, to in front of whom it's performed. While conversations between her Israeli self and the Palestinian woman inspired the production, the resulting performance is negotiated between Noa and musician Naser Musa who's part-Palestinian, and before an audience that has included Israelis and Palestinians. That's peace.

Go check out "A Land Twice Promised" this weekend!!!
Saturday, June 21, 2008 at 8:00 PM (running time: 70 min.)
Barnsdall Gallery Theatre at 4800 Hollywood Blvd., LA, Calif. 90027

Stay after for artist talkback and reception. Order tix here or call Levantine Cultural Center for purchase by phone, +1 (310) 657-5511. $35 preferred seating, $25 general seating. (Logo and photo courtesy of Noa Baum)

Technorati Tags: A Land Twice Promised, Iraqistan, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, middle east peace, Noa Baum, Promised Land, storytelling

OC-RAP, a Southern California group that works to counterbalance military recruiting propaganda, was recently blocked by a school principal from finishing a 1-hour presentation about the realities of military enlistment and career alternatives. She was visibly pissed off that she wasn't notified about the assembly, which featured special guest speakers consisting of one veteran and one military parent. Counter-military recruitment is a movement that apparently irks principals because it's counter-establishment. But others see it as a sustainable and effective strategy to end the Iraq War and other stupid wars.

Wendy Barranco of Iraq Veterans Against the War didn't get to speak about her experience as an Army medic in Iraq at all. She barely identified herself before the principal superseded the mic to harangue the students about how "both sides" need to be presented.

Many doing counter-military recruitment - aka C-R, truth-in-recruiting, informed enlistment - across the country (and around the world like in Britain and Japan) have come up against this proverbial wall. Pro-militarism types somehow must always be there, in the flesh, in real time, if C-R activists want to say their piece. But in my experience it's never the other way around. As a counter-recruiter, I've never been called on to give the "other side of the story," to even-steven with a military recruiter visiting a campus, to cry foul when I hear him promise an unwitting student something like "No, you won't go to Iraq. I'll get you a non-combat job."

Lucky for us, there's this 1986 court ruling: Card v. Grossmont requires public schools to give counter-recruiters the same access to students as granted to military recruiters. CAMS, also based in Southern California, is moving on this. The LA Times recently published an article about CAMS's proposal to get equal access to multiple campuses, where for instance they would show students how to opt out of having their personal info released to the military. So besides resisting war, C-R aims to address the student privacy issue caused by Section 9528 of the misnomered No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which dictates to public high schools to divulge pupil names, addresses and phone numbers, lest the schools lose federal funding. Talk about "books not bombs"...

(Graphic artist unknown; quote from Bertolt Brecht's poem "General, Your Tank Is a Powerful Vehicle," circa 1938)

Technorati Tags: Activism, Antiwar, Counter-military recruitment, Counter-recruitment, IVAW, Peace, Section 9528, U.S. militarism

Ann Wright has every reason to make the rounds and we have no excuse not to roll with her when she comes through. She spoke at the Los Altos United Methodist Church in Long Beach on May 30. The ever vociferous antiwar hero, she is promoting a new book she co-authored, “Dissent, Voices of Conscience: Government Insiders Speak Out Against the War in Iraq.”

She served in the US Army for 13 years, rising to the rank of Colonel, and was in the Reserves for 16. During her reservist years, she was a career diplomat for the U.S. Foreign Service. Now she’s a full-time agent of change, calling for an expeditious end to the occupation, everywhere she goes. Ann is well-traveled and has become a peace movement ethnographer by default. At an antiwar vigil at the Old Towne Orange traffic circle, she told Code Pink Orange County Chapter members and supporters (with me in tow as the NLG-trained legal observer) that folks in virtually all other corners of the country are taking to the streets, too.

On the eve of the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Ann cabled a letter of resignation to then Secretary of State Colin Powell, in direct protest of the preemptive strike on Iraq absent UN Security Council authorization. Everyone remembers that contemptuous transgression of international law, and no one could remind you better than Ann or guest speaker Raed Jarrar.

Half-Palestinian, half-Iraqi and half-Sunni, half-Shiite, Raed said something that seemingly everyone but US-Americans knows, and I liberally paraphrase: It’s not a sectarian civil war, Stupid, it’s a political-economic war between Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds who want the U.S. to stay and Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds who don’t.

(Photo of Code Pink demo courtesy of Vietnam vet Ed Garza)

Technorati Tags: Activism, Activist, Ann Wright, Antiwar, Code Pink, Iraq whistleblowers, Iraq, Peace, Raed Jarrar, Sectarian War