[Peace-discuss] "casualty posters" P4P display THIS SATURDAY

[Randall Cotton]

As some of you know from attending the AWARE meeting last Sunday, I reworked
the "casualty posters" idea based on feedback I received at the previous
meeting and this revision was greeted with greater support and acceptance
this time around (I discuss the changes later in this message). I feel that
in order to have the greatest impact with this effort, it's important to
maximize the number of participants, so I deliberately set about making this
idea appeal to as many AWARE members as possible without compromising its
core purpose.

Though I couldn't achieve universal consensus (more on this below), I feel I
have enough interest and support to go ahead with this. Again, the idea is
that each participant would dress in black (inasmuch as possible) and hold
one of these large foamboard posters depicting a US or Iraqi casualty
(details on the posters are provided later in this message) and we'd all
line up in a continuous line, evenly separated and angled toward northbound
traffic, in the block which begins at the northeast corner of Marketview and
Prospect (that is, in the area by the pond in front of Lowe's). This puts us
away from the counter-protestors and also separates us slightly from the
rest of P4P (no one was present in this area by the pond last week). The
idea is that passing drivers, as they proceed north on Prospect, would first
see the counter-protestors, then our normal P4P protestors, and finally a
stark, somber, mournful display so large and coordinated that it couldn't
possibly be ignored.

Please reply to me if you're interested in participating. I plan to have a
poster ready for everyone that replies (plus some extras to cover
spontaneous interest).

For those interested, here are details:

Audience
---------
The audience is those people who support the war, but harbor doubts about
it. As I've recently argued in e-mail to the peace-discuss list, the primary
reason Americans support the war right now (beyond equating it with support
for the troops) is that they put faith in the administration's unproven
justifications: Saddam links to Al-qaeda and 9/11, weapons of mass
destruction, "liberation" of Iraqi people, decrease of terrorism, beneficial
spread of democracy in the middle east, positive future progress on the
Israel/Palestine conflict and, finally, a relatively short and easy war with
few casualties. While there are certainly those who mindlessly support the
war no matter what, support is conditional for many others, based on the
validity of these justifications (and polls bear this out). That is, there
are many who harbor doubts and whose final view on whether the war was right
or wrong could change if one or more of the president's "justifications"
don't pan out.

Purpose
--------
The initial purpose of this project is to help crystallize the fact, in the
mind of our audience, that the last of these justifications (particularly
the promise of few casualties) is now being exposed as fraudulent. "Shock
and Awe" failed. Resistance was significant and underestimated from day one.
There are already over 120 US/UK deaths and over 900 verifiable civilian
deaths (and, no doubt, many times these numbers injured, some horrifically).
Plus, of course, untold thousands of dead Iraqi combatant (many of whom, it
seems, were civilians who became combatants for no other reason than they
would be shot dead otherwise). Only a handful of smaller towns are under
full US/UK control and even those are still in some chaos. The assault on
Baghdad (5 millions people) has only just begun. There is a natural tendency
to repress the gravity and extent of war deaths and injuries (and our
corporate media, of course, cooperates in this). Unexpected vivid images of
individual casualties can be a powerful way to cut through that (much more
than mere words) and force folks to face the "awful truth".

In the future, as evidence mounts and other "justifications" for the war are
called into question, additional components could be added to this
presentation that focus on these new frauds. An always-present background
display of lost lives and other casualties would then also serve as a
damning exclamation point to emphasize the price that's already been paid
and raise the specter that lives were lost and survivors suffered without
cause, and thus that this war was wrong. To begin with though, I think it's
best to start with the basic display I've already described and go from
there, based on guidance from AWARE in general and direct participants in
particular.

Building Consensus
-------------------
Initially, I proposed emphasizing images of killed US soldiers, which are
ubiquitous on the Internet - one can find them in the "fallen heroes"
section of any major web media outlet. This was based on an assumption that
our intended audience would, in general, place more value on the lives of
U.S. soldiers than Iraqi civilians. Setting aside the issue of whether or
not such an outlook is morally reprehensible (and of course, it is), I still
feel it's an accurate assumption. However, some AWARE folks were
uncomfortable with the imbalance, so I now plan on having roughly equal
numbers of US and civilian casualty posters (though it is many times harder
to obtain civilian casualty images and the facts surrounding them). I think
it's fair to say that many of those that "harbor doubts" about the war would
still be affected to some degree by images of civilian casualties
(particularly children), so this doesn't necessarily blunt the overall
effect.

The first sample poster I presented at the AWARE meeting two Sundays ago was
also more provocative than some cared to support. Each poster nearly shouted
"KILLED" in a text block superimposed over the image of each US soldier. In
addition, there was a challenging anti-war slogan at the bottom of each
poster (such as "Bush CHOSE this war! Ask yourself why.") Again, I lost some
people who thought that was a bit too "in your face". Indeed, the
superimposed text block could, in the most extreme interpretation, be viewed
as a "defacing" of the soldier's image and the slogan could easily be seen
(again, in the extreme interpretation) as implying that the soldier died for
no reason. I feel that these extreme interpretations would generally only
come from those who fanatically support the war no matter what (such as the
counter-protestors) and these folks are not the intended audience anyway.
However, to gain more consensus, I made the posters less provocative and
more "mournful". I removed the anti-war slogans at the bottom and moved the
"killed" caption (which also notes date and location of death) down to the
bottom, completely off the soldier's image, in place of the anti-war slogan,
also de-emphasizing it using smaller type.

Now while I might personally prefer to carry the more provocative original
version at P4P, there is something to be said about "neutralizing" the
poster like this. It still achieves the core purpose of vividly presenting a
war casualty, yet it makes the poster suitable and broadly appealing in a
wide range of contexts. You could display it most anywhere with little if
any controversy. In fact, it wouldn't necessarily be out of place in a
"pro-war" demonstration (where one might carry it with the intent of
memorializing a "fallen hero"). This allows a certain flexibility - the
posters are no longer limited to a demonstration like P4P - they could be
used to demonstrate in a  much more "mainstream" context - a congressman's
"town hall meeting", for example. Yet, by planting additional signs along
with these posters, we could "sharpen the point" as little or as much as we
want. We could use the same "Bush CHOSE this war! Ask yourself why." in much
bigger lettering on a sheet-type banner planted in front of the poster line,
or go even further (e.g. "NO WMD IN IRAQ! THEY ALL DIED FOR BUSH'S LIE!").

Another concern I encountered was that the original poster sample was
somewhat complicit in glorifying the military. I had included military rank
designation with the soldier's name at the top of each poster (e.g. Cpl.
Brian Kennedy) and made no effort to de-emphasize military uniform and
insignias. In retrospect, I was again attempting to appeal to the intended
audience on the assumption that not only would they, in general, view a US
life as more valuable than an Iraqi life, but that they view a US *military*
life as particularly valuable (perhaps more than even a US civilian life -
after all, they are viewed as "heroes" by much of this crowd simply by being
in the military). Once again, setting aside the obvious moral bankruptcy of
such value judgments, I do feel it may indeed be an accurate assumption. I
did, however, remove the military designations in soldier names (this really
isn't a big deal anyway). Then I experimented with cropping soldier images
to de-emphasize uniforms and insignias and in the process it occurred to me
that the posters might actually have a much greater visual impact if I
cropped out nearly everything, focusing entirely on their faces (making
their face essentially take up nearly the entire poster). Some of the images
when blown up that much might appear pretty grainy when viewed within 10
feet or so, but at the distances we'll use in practice, I doubt it will be a
significant drawback.

Which brings me to the last major concern voiced, which I could not
accommodate because it would essentially negate the purpose of the project.
Some AWARE folks objected to using the images of soldiers or the names of
soldiers or both. I'm not sure I understand exactly why some people felt
this way, but as best I could tell (and someone please set me straight if
I'm off the mark), the grounds were that we don't have the right to do this
because it might upset the families or friends of the soldiers if they were
to find out we were carrying their names or images in an anti-war
demonstration. Once you accept this premise, though, the project's purpose
is severely compromised =8-) Interestingly enough, those same folks didn't
express objection to portraying the names or images of injured Iraqi
civilians, which seems inconsistent on the surface. But I digress =8-)
Granted, it may indeed upset family or friends of the soldier, but I can't
imagine it would really matter that much to them. The same names and images
I would use already appear in unfathomably countless places worldwide and to
much wider audiences than ours. The families and friends can't possibly
agree with every one of these uses of the soldier's name and image - why
would they particularly care about our use of the same on North Prospect
Ave.? And what are the odds this would ever come to their attention?
Nevertheless, it does cross a line. It may upset someone. However, the same
can be said of attending P4P in the first place. Consider that hundreds of
people were so upset by the very existence of P4P that they gave up their
Saturday afternoons, some traveling from out of town to stand on the
sidewalk in frigid weather to counter-protest. Surely that doesn't mean we
should all pack it in and give up. Effecting positive social (or political)
change requires upsetting at least *some* people. If one isn't interested in
that, I'm curious why one would be active in AWARE to begin with =8-)

R