Deface the Nation

The recent upheavals in the Middle East and other parts of the world have brought forth a barrage of one of the most potent forms of graphic expression: the defaced political poster. Let's leave aside the actual messages presented in these images—many of the posters come from an anti-Semitic mindset and others have insults not easily decipherable to western eyes. I'm still not sure how Mubarak can be both Hitler and an Israeli sympathizer. But is there a more passionate form of visual communication? On the home front we've seen Barack Obama photoshopped into The Joker, Hitler, and a bleeding-eyed Abraham Lincoln. These pale in comparison to the urgent paint and marker-ed images from the Middle East. Images that people risk their lives to create.