This piece originally appeared in the Village Voice back in 1991, during
Desert Storm. It soon took on a life of its own, and a second life now with
Iraq.
When it was first published, Patrick Flynn asked if he could publish it as
poster and sell it through the magazine as a fund-raiser for the
Progressive. That was an easy yes. I also told Patrick to add a line
running across the bottom saying that the work was copyright free, so that
anyone who wanted to could reproduce it.
It was picked up and republished on op-ed pages all across the country as
well as in Canada and Europe. MTV ran a piece on war merchandise that was
mostly anti-Saddam and pro-war stuff. Saddam toilet paper, dart boards, that
sort of thing. The only anti-war item they showed was this poster with a
phone number at the Progressive for anyone who wanted to order a copy. They
sold tons of them and it went into several printings. The Village Voice gave
away a pile of them as a first-come first serve freebie. The Progressive
also printed up t-shirts, which also sold briskly.
As a news junkie, during the ’92 Presidential campaign I would see the
poster hanging on podiums and walls at various Democratic Party forums and
functions on C-SPAN. The original art and the poster hung in New York’s
Museum of Modern Art. It’s since been included in several museum posters
collections, published in several anthologies and textbooks including Steven
Heller’s Angry Graphics: Protest Posters of the Reagan/Bush Era, (With
Karrie Jacobs) Salt Lake City, Utah: Peregrine Smith Books, 1992.
Heller wrote: ““Illustrators whose ideas were otherwise too controversial
for, and squelched in mainstream publications could stretch their critical
wings. One such, Stephen Kroninger, created a photo-collage send-up of
“Uncle Sam Wants You” (originally published in the Villiage Voice ) showing
the first President George Bush hawking his Iraq war (the ransom note
lettering accompanying the image reads, “Uncle George wants you to forget
failing banks, education, drugs, AIDs, poor heath care, unemployment, crime,
racism, corruption. and have a good war.”). This art was made into a
Progressive poster, and because opponents were starved for alternative
graphic statements in this image-managed war, it also became one of the few
oppositional icons of the Desert Storm escapade.”
In the run-up to the latest war with Iraq I began getting e-mail requests
from around the country, asking permission to reprint the image for regional
protest marches. I offered to update it by changing the old Bush’s head for
the new Bush and altering the text to reflect contemporary issues, but
everyone who asked said it was perfect the way it was.
