...it isn't just that we (as Americans) have lived up to our promise, it that we have done that thing that makes us uniquely American...we have chosen risk over safety, listened to our hearts and done the thing we thought right and true. We are willing to give a first-term senator a try...because though less experienced, he captured and embodies the American dream.

It's not a dream of 2.5 kids and a suburban house (though he falls into that demographic) it is the dream of a better, brighter future with a young vigorous leader at the helm. We are taking the chance on Obama and with him. And though I don't doubt he will stumble here and there, I do not think he will fall.

Yes we did.

Jacksonville makes national news

From the Times:

“They’re going to throw out votes,” said Larone Wesley, a 53-year-old black Vietnam veteran. “I can’t say exactly how, but they are going to accomplish that quite naturally. I’m so afraid for my friend Obama. I look at this through the eyes of the ’60s, and I feel there ain’t no way they’re going to let him make it.”

life+liberty: a brighter day?

Obama '08 - Vote For Hope from MC Yogi on Vimeo.

Got this from my friend Josef, I am probably preaching to the choir here, but it's hopeful and has nice (if pop-ish) beats.

killed story

I originally wrote this for the Times Union...but due to time and budgetary constraints, it did not make it in. And though it is a little late, I figured that is better than never...maybe?

Posters and Political Propagandizing

By Madeleine Peck

Walking into the Partisan the Sea poster show, Ann Peebles’s “Straight From the Heart,” (as sampled by the Rza) was spinning on the turntables. It set the tone for the show: hopeful, defiant, and honest.

The posters, which were ostensibly designed to focus on one of the two candidates (though one can suppose if there had been a third-party candidate represented, the organizers would’ve gleefully mounted it), where overwhelmingly in support of Barak Obama.

When Joey Marchy, one of the show’s organizers is asked about it, he admits that although he didn’t expect a lot of posters in support of the Republican camp, he was surprised by the amount of Obama-centric material.

“I thought there would be more posters about issues. But he’s (Obama) a very powerful catalyzing figure; plus, the iconic Shepard Fairey poster probably inspired a lot of people in the show,” said Marchy.

The temperature of the show was somewhere between party and rally. As Friday’s presidential debate began, volunteers frantically tried to get the audio portion of the television/projection/computer to work. Even so, a cadre of about 10 people stood around a 19 inch television attempting to read the candidates’ words as they scrolled along the bottom of the screen.

As the debate started, people were still wandering in and out, looking at the work, and buying some posters available for sale (including one that referenced AC/DC’s Back in Black album). When asked, why posters? Marchy said, “Traditionally, posters have been used both by dissidents and the government [because of] mass production, and high visibility…they capture peoples’ attention almost like an ad.”

Levi Ratliff, a designer and creator of local street-art site urbanartwarfare.com, was also instrumental in putting the show together. With a network of like-minded (that is poster art) individuals, Ratliff put together a show that seems to showcase an exhausted but still hopeful cadre of artists and designers. Posters like one of George W. Bush’s lips, with the word believe written across them, and “lie” highlighted created by Mike Barnhart, or those laced with venomous irony: “All we’re saying is, give war a chance” by someguy, to Jefferson Rall’s image of an oil drum with the word “toil.”

When asked about the cant towards the Obama camp, Ratliff said, “We asked all kinds of Republicans—no one did it.”

**And then, there is this entry over at CoolHunting, that talks about the support Obama has garnered from the creative community.

Perspectives

Let me begin by saying that I will vote for Obama. It’s pretty simple really. But most of you probably knew that. However, as much as I support him for president, I think it’s important to keep in perspective that he is a politician, and therefore an open target.

The recent cover of Obama and Michele on the cover of The New Yorker doesn’t vilify their character or persons, as much as it pokes fun at those paranoid psychos that actually espouse views that Obama is “un-American,” –whatever that means, and that he’s a flag-burning extremist (Muslim or otherwise) with nefarious plans for office.

However, I find it equally galling that because so many people see in Obama a hope for a better tomorrow, that he is somehow exempt from political cartooning.

Was the picture offensive or in poor taste? Perhaps. But really isn’t that the role of the artist—to upend thoughts and challenge the statue quo—and in doing so, the cartoonist especially is participating in a time-honored, deeply American tradition, the lampooning of leaders lest these same leaders forget that they too (for all their power) are ultimately only citizens.