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Blah, Blah, Blah T-Shirt
These 100% cotton T-shirts are made in the USA in Los Angeles by US Blanks and printed in Houston by Night Owls Printing. The shirts are a fundraiser for the American Civil Liberties Union. Each shirt is 40$, shipping in continental USA included. After production costs and shipping, the remaining 21$ per shirt will be donated to the ACLU.
The Blah Blah Blah design is adapted from an anti-Vietnam war poster produced in 1969, and found in the Yanker Poster Collection of the Library of Congress (POS 6 - US, no. 865). The original poster is included in Prop Art (New York: Darien House, 1972) by Gary Yanker. The design included eight white thought-bubble skulls on a black background with purple type that read, “Talk is cheap. The war is not over until all the G.I.s are brought home alive.” It was originally made by the Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in S.E. Asia, an organization that was founded in 1966 as the Student Mobilization Committee. They worked in cities and on college campuses “to coordinate opposition to U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam among college and high school students.” In 1969 they had centers in fifteen US cities, and this poster was produced out of the New York City office. This is just one of a large number of interesting flyers that the Student Mobilization Committee created during the height of opposition to the Vietnam War.
I adapted the design to include six thought-bubble skulls in a cloud-like formation, which differs from the original eight that were arranged in a pyramidal hierarchical composition. In this T-shirt the talking heads hover together as though a crowd is speaking at once without a dominant voice. By removing the original text, which reflects the original anti-war sentiment, the design takes on new meanings, primarily informed by the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time of writing (Oct, 24, 2020) the United States has 8.54 million cases of the disease and 224,000 recorded deaths. The Trump administration has mismanaged the crisis by trying to talk their way out of it; ignoring science, denigrating health professionals and infectious disease experts through mass media, and verbally repeating anti-mask wearing propaganda. They have articulated an us-vs-them position, which de-incentivizes Americans from collaborating on managing both the pandemic and the economy at the same time. Republican governors have largely fallen into line, with the result that COVID-19 cases are on the rise in Republican led states. Many people have needlessly died from government inaction and fatal political prattle.
Talk is cheap, and lately it can be fatal, but without free speech a society suffers. As a Nation we’ve been here before. The struggles of the 1960s resonate with the activists working today. The appropriation and adaptation of this 1969 poster speaks to our current social condition, one that is informed by our own histories. Through history and voice we articulate a path forward.
All profit made from the sale of these t-shirts will be donated to the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU was founded in 1920 in response to the “Palmer Raids,” Attorney General Mitchell Palmer’s arrest and deportation of so-called radicals who were denied their civil rights and held in terrible conditions. The ACLU has proven its effectiveness in standing up for American’s rights over the last century in numerous successful and unsuccessful court challenges such as the 1925 Scopes Trial (promoting the public teaching of evolution), and their partnering with the NAACP in the 1954 Brown vs,. Board of Education challenge to racial segregation in public schools. Free speech is one of the central rights defended by ACLU lawyers. According to their website, “The fight for freedom of speech has been a bedrock of the ACLU’s mission since the organization was founded in 1920, driven by the need to protect the constitutional rights of conscientious objectors and anti-war protesters. The organization’s work quickly spread to combating censorship, securing the right to assembly, and promoting free speech in schools.”
As an academic, these issues are central to my work. Regardless of the 2020 election results, social battles are only more likely to be fought in the court, and the ACLU is needed as much as ever.
Blah, Blah, Blah T-Shirt
These 100% cotton T-shirts are made in the USA in Los Angeles by US Blanks and printed in Houston by Night Owls Printing. The shirts are a fundraiser for the American Civil Liberties Union. Each shirt is 40$, shipping in continental USA included. After production costs and shipping, the remaining 21$ per shirt will be donated to the ACLU.
The Blah Blah Blah design is adapted from an anti-Vietnam war poster produced in 1969, and found in the Yanker Poster Collection of the Library of Congress (POS 6 - US, no. 865). The original poster is included in Prop Art (New York: Darien House, 1972) by Gary Yanker. The design included eight white thought-bubble skulls on a black background with purple type that read, “Talk is cheap. The war is not over until all the G.I.s are brought home alive.” It was originally made by the Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in S.E. Asia, an organization that was founded in 1966 as the Student Mobilization Committee. They worked in cities and on college campuses “to coordinate opposition to U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam among college and high school students.” In 1969 they had centers in fifteen US cities, and this poster was produced out of the New York City office. This is just one of a large number of interesting flyers that the Student Mobilization Committee created during the height of opposition to the Vietnam War.
I adapted the design to include six thought-bubble skulls in a cloud-like formation, which differs from the original eight that were arranged in a pyramidal hierarchical composition. In this T-shirt the talking heads hover together as though a crowd is speaking at once without a dominant voice. By removing the original text, which reflects the original anti-war sentiment, the design takes on new meanings, primarily informed by the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time of writing (Oct, 24, 2020) the United States has 8.54 million cases of the disease and 224,000 recorded deaths. The Trump administration has mismanaged the crisis by trying to talk their way out of it; ignoring science, denigrating health professionals and infectious disease experts through mass media, and verbally repeating anti-mask wearing propaganda. They have articulated an us-vs-them position, which de-incentivizes Americans from collaborating on managing both the pandemic and the economy at the same time. Republican governors have largely fallen into line, with the result that COVID-19 cases are on the rise in Republican led states. Many people have needlessly died from government inaction and fatal political prattle.
Talk is cheap, and lately it can be fatal, but without free speech a society suffers. As a Nation we’ve been here before. The struggles of the 1960s resonate with the activists working today. The appropriation and adaptation of this 1969 poster speaks to our current social condition, one that is informed by our own histories. Through history and voice we articulate a path forward.
All profit made from the sale of these t-shirts will be donated to the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU was founded in 1920 in response to the “Palmer Raids,” Attorney General Mitchell Palmer’s arrest and deportation of so-called radicals who were denied their civil rights and held in terrible conditions. The ACLU has proven its effectiveness in standing up for American’s rights over the last century in numerous successful and unsuccessful court challenges such as the 1925 Scopes Trial (promoting the public teaching of evolution), and their partnering with the NAACP in the 1954 Brown vs,. Board of Education challenge to racial segregation in public schools. Free speech is one of the central rights defended by ACLU lawyers. According to their website, “The fight for freedom of speech has been a bedrock of the ACLU’s mission since the organization was founded in 1920, driven by the need to protect the constitutional rights of conscientious objectors and anti-war protesters. The organization’s work quickly spread to combating censorship, securing the right to assembly, and promoting free speech in schools.”
As an academic, these issues are central to my work. Regardless of the 2020 election results, social battles are only more likely to be fought in the court, and the ACLU is needed as much as ever.