Political Graffiti

Out here in the midwest, it’s all lawn signs and bumper stickers proclaiming themselves as either right-wing nut-jobs or liberal weeners. New York, I was expecting something similar. But no. I didn’t see one bumper sticker or a single sign in anyone’s window. I didn’t even see a badge (or button as my new compadres like to say).

In fact, I only saw two political comments other than the pro-Kerry T-shirt I wore on Saturday. One was another T-shirt with George senior and George junior sporting the caption “Dumb and Dumber”. The other was some graffiti up on a subway poster for a new TV series.

The poster shows a dad holding a kid up and someone has added a speech bubble to make it look like he’s addressing his son.

“The neo cons have killed more than 1,000 Americans in Iraq”. Someone else has added the word ‘Jews’ so it says “The neo Jews…”. A third person has added, “That’s only a quarter of the Americans killed on 9/11.” [As if those facts–Iraq and 9/11–are actually related, which sadly many Americans actually seem to believe.] A final fourth graffiti contributor has added simply “Grow a brain” although it’s not sure which of the others they’re talking to.

So there you have it. That’s the extent of grass roots, ‘in your face’ political posturing I witnessed in the Big Apple.

Only another 34 more days until the Presidential elections…