Photo by Grace Shane
It’s hard to imagine America at war with itself. But there’s a fifth column inside the White House, and while we may not be in a Civil War, we are indeed in a Civics War. The shredding of the social contract has left the nation reeling. So Bonnie Siegler of 8 point 5 put the enemies of the Constitution on notice with a series of posters that contain a familiar message. Here, Siegler talks about her campaign and the inspiration behind it.
What were these posters made for?
A group of us planned to march in the Hands Off protest on Fifth Avenue on April 5. As the only graphic designer in the group (and the author of a 2018 book called Signs of Resistance about the history of protest), I led the effort with the posters. There were 12 of us, so I wanted an idea that would benefit from a large group. And I wanted them to be two-sided, because that meant I could get away with addressing 24 culprits.
I presume that the phrasing derives from Joseph Welch’s admonition to Eugene McCarthy during the kangaroo senate hearings: “Have you no decency, sir?” A phrase that was the beginning of the end of McCarthyism.
Absolutely, and now that we are back in a similar situation with a power-drunk madman dominating politics, the reuse of those words empowered our protest. We beat that monster 70 years ago and we can beat this one, too.
Do you think that your reinterpretation will have any impact on these culprits?
It wasn’t for them. It was for us. One person cannot hold the evil-doers responsible but if we all work together, we stand a chance of making a difference. Also, we wanted to remind everyone of all the sycophants, ass-kissers and enablers who allow Trump to get away with the cruelty and the lawlessness.
They ALL must be held accountable, too.
What kind of response did you get when you marched with them?
The impact was profound. I attribute it to the mix of humor and serious accusations. When we all stood together, crowds gathered to take pictures. “Have You No Shame?” was where we began, but the multiple posters allowed me to twist the knife personally for each monster. For example, we reserved “Have You No Balls?” for the billionaires, and Brett Kavanaugh got “Have You No Beer?” People were pointing and laughing and asking us questions. We felt like the belles of the ball.
You made them available via download. What sort of traffic have they gotten?
After the images of the posters appeared online, there were a lot of requests to make them available for purchase. I wanted them to be downloadable for free, but first I had to replace the photos with public-domain images. (I also removed the New York-centric ones, like Mayor Adams, and added newly relevant people, like Pam Bondi.)
And then The Contrarian on Substack agreed to host the download.
I am not sure how many times the PDF was downloaded, but at the next NYC march three days after the posters were made available, we saw them being held high by total strangers. That was incredibly gratifying.
What is the ideal outcome of making this counter-agit prop?
It was definitely helpful with my personal rage, but the ideal outcome is that we get our democracy back.
Every one of us has to do what we can to call attention to the depth of the corruption and hopefully end it sooner rather than later.
The post The Daily Heller: Shameless, Shameless, Shameless appeared first on PRINT Magazine.