The board game that brings the thrill of trampling the Constitution right into your home!

PATRIOT ACT: The Home Version, is a game inspired by the  historic abuse of governmental powers of the same name. Many of the  hypothetical situations in the game are based on real-life events.  Either as a game to be played or as a statement to be read, Patriot Act: The Home Version educates the user to the current erosion of our civil rights by the  government while claiming to be protecting our freedoms. John Ashcroft  may no longer be Attorney General, but his legacy lives on in the  anti-freedom legislation that this game is a tribute to. 

This was I game I created to educate the public as to what was contained in the massive Patriot Act that was rushed though congress post 9-11. I originally posted the game as a free download for people to print at home and play, in which thousands of downloads were tracked in the first few months alone. It also garnered worldwide press attention, as well as gaining me many detractors on the Right.

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2. All images, artwork and terms used are the  exclusive intellectual property of the artist and may not be reproduced  or used without prior written consent of the artist.

3. The game is NOT available for retail sale and  is in no way affiliated with Parker Brothers or Hasbro, Inc. No profit  is being made from the creation of this game and was initially  distributed as a political commentary and teaching aid. 

Patriot Act: The Home Version is Copyright ©2004 Graphix4change.com. 

These are a continuation of the appropriation of advertising  campaigns as a vehicle for socio-political statements. By sneaking in  under their radar, viewers at least have the opportunity to view a  message that they may previously have never given a first glance.

I have been appropriating fashion advertising, specifically GAP,  which is a vehicle for promoting homogony in society — and inserting  Arabs who have been immigrating to America for the past hundred years.  My idea is to show Arab-Americans to be as much a part of today’s  society as any other ethnic group. But as the American conflict with  Iraq developed, so did anti-Arab sentiment in this country. 

An alarming number of Americans came down on the side of fear and  blind patriotism, unaware that measures like the Patriot Act would not  only affect the rights of suspected Muslim terrorists, but every person  in this country. While my need to address the concerns of anti-Arab bias  is great, my need to address the actions of the current administration  is equally pressing. These works deal not only with Arab bias, but also  with the willful undermining of American civil liberties. 

It is important to note that the “GAP” style was chosen not  because of any particular policy of the corporation (I have no issue  with the company), but because GAP is the paradigm of casual mainstream  American style and promotes conformity in its advertising.

These past 10 years have been very  difficult from a social-political parody perspective, as events happened  so quickly, there is not enough time to respond properly. Unless you had a  team of writers and artists as they do on the Daily Show or SNL, or  unless you are a trained editorial illustrator who can bang out an image  and publish it online the same day, it was just too hard to keep up  with the glut of Trump-induced situations. Even comedians complained  that their jokes were old by the time they got to perform them, because  in the time they wrote the joke and their performance, Trump created 10  more horrible events or comments. As an artist, educator, father and  homeowner, I could not keep up with the pace, not to mention that trying  to do so created such dread and depression that I could not find the  humor in the situation. 

The covers focus on the all-too familiar rantings of FOX News  and the remnants of the GOP, who predictably attack the most ridiculous  targets possible. Their recent feigned outrage at the “cancelling” of  Dr. Seuss has been fact-checked ad-nauseum, so I won’t bother. However,  being a fan of the good doctor since childhood provided the necessary  fuel to get me off my ass and do some fun images again.  I figured  that if these faux-conservatives missed reading Dr. Seuss so much, I  would give them some books that they would be happier with. 

This series of "Political Consumer Products" marked a new artistic  direction. The idea to subvert products is nothing new, but these are  more fully-realized packages than most subversions. The product look  parodies several well known breakfast cereals and act as 3D political  cartoons. The product information on the sides and back serve as an area  for expanded political commentary — broken down to simple, easy to  understand concepts or activities. Much like a child (or adult) would  sit and read the cereal box while eating breakfast, these political  boxes read like the editorial section of the newspaper.  Please note that these are empty boxes and do not contain any actual food product.    

"Neo-Con Krispies" takes on the Neo-Cons in the administration  who pushed for the invasion of Iraq, predicting a "cakewalk." The game  on the back has the Krispies (Cheney, Perle and Wolfowitz) re-drawing  the map of the Middle East, much the same way Britain did with Palestine  and Iraq, creating the problems those areas are dealing with today.

"Conservative Crunch" is a commentary on the 2004 Elections. The  Republicans, and specifically Conservatives in the party won control of  The White House, The House and the Senate and now hold control over the  future of the Supreme Court, an we are effectively experiencing  government by a one-party system.

"Moral Charms" examines the "moral values" and the Fundamentalist  Christian base that swayed this election. Lead by Pat Robertson, the  Christian Coalition hammered images of the Apocalypse with nothing but  gay people, clones and Muslims running amok over THEIR God's creation.  The side panels list only some of Robertson’s most self-righteous and  un-Christlike quotes.    

These four ad parodies created in 2006 take aim at the  Administration's Warrantless Wiretapping Program, and the willful  compliance of telecom giants like AT&T and Verizon, so the logo and  layout parody AT&Ts rebranding effort. Much has developed over this  program since these were produced, including the resignation of Attorney  General Alberto Gonzalez, and the pressure from these telecom companies  to have the administration retroactively rewrite the law so that the  telecom companies do not get sued by their clients. With Senate  testimony from previous DOJ officials (including the revelation that  even former AG John Ashcroft felt the program went too far), and all the  secrecy surrounding the program, it is certain that the Administration  was illegally spying on American citizens; to what extent and for how  long is the only question.

Got War

These ads were created at the time of the impending Iraq war,  which the Bush Administration seemed determined to wage regardless of  public opinion and with little resistance from the American media.
     Although I understood the need to be patriotic and respectful of  the service men and women who were about to fight for our country, I  could not understand why there were not more questions asked, why the  administration had been given a free pass, or why some of the most  obvious conflicts of interest were simply glossed over. The American  media as well as the public and Congress were all too fearful of seeming  unpatriotic to voice any dissent.
     I created these parodies of a popular ad campaign centered around  the four key figures in the Bush Administration. The text for each image  voices some accusations that generally went unspoken before the start  of the war, presented in a slightly humorous fashion.      (Images currently not shown.)

This series is a continuation of the first “got war?” campaign  created immediately after the initial bombings of Iraq. The images in  this series focus on the after-effects of the war on the Iraqi people.  While most American news services showed only the same clip of Iraqis  cheering American troops as they drove through the streets, the American  public never got to see the effects of the war; as far as everyone  knew, no civilians were killed or even harmed and our “smart bombs” only  decimated the Baathist strongholds. These images show only a fraction  of the destruction we unleashed on the country, and only now are we  realizing how hard it is to put it all back together again. 

Once again, I decided to use a sarcastic tone in the text of  these posters. Since the American opinion was one of “look at the great  thing we just did bringing liberty and freedom to the Iraqi people,”  then the text needed to reflect that attitude, while remaining oblivious  to the carnage in the photos. Also, the images are not in color, but  black and white to represent the sense of hopelessness that the Iraqi  people still feel after Saddam’s demise.
 

This series extends into the occupation, which hasn't exactly  gone as smoothly as everyone thought. This time, I decided to take a  look from the American soldier's perspective at what is happening to  them in Iraq, in the media and to their benefits at home. 

Those willing and eager chickenhawks pictured in the first series  can make all the media appearances they want, but it is the men and  women who actually have to serve who have no voice or even face in the  media. Remember all the flack about the photos of the coffins? The Nightline special commemorating the war dead? All stuff the government didn't  want you to see? This series was completed before any of the torture  photos surfaced, and I decided not to go back and incorporate that  incident into these, since these represented a snapshot in time.

I became friends with some of the comics in the earliest iterations of this yearly event. I felt their branding could use a bit of a facelift and thus began a decades-long working relationship with some of the most talented and politically astute comedians working today. These are highlights of some of my favorite poster campaigns for their yearly festival.