Patriotic Posters

In the years before huge corporations could buy media platforms from which to foist their ideas about the innate superiority of neo-feudalist kleptocracy over representative democracy, governments relied on propaganda poster art to put their memes across. Some of those posters were very good—from the visionary work of artists in Nazi Germany to the posters of Stalin-era USSR and, later, the Cultural Revolution in China. Now that our government has taken a decided authoritarian cast, the wags at whitehouse.org (not the official White House site, by the way) have come up with 16 stirring designs, available as a calendar, that drive home the point of view that the glorious reign of Pax Bushistana must proceed unimpeded. “Sgt. Rummy Sez: ‘Hope Allah’s Wearing Kevlar!’ ” one of them reads. Another says, “Saddam tried to kill Dubya’s Daddy! So now YOUR daddy’s gonna kill ALL them camel jockeys!”