Mike Flugennock
Encyclopedia
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
He is best known for his political posters, which he and others paste across D.C. and in other cities around the country. He is relatively well-known, and his work has received coverage in the Washington Post on several occasions. He also did the cover art for the October 2002 edition of The Progressive
The Progressive
The Progressive is an American monthly magazine of politics, culture and progressivism with a pronounced liberal perspective on some issues. Known for its pacifism, it has strongly opposed military interventions, such as the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The magazine also devotes much coverage...
magazine, as well as designed one of the event posters for the Operation Ceasefire
Operation Ceasefire
Operation Ceasefire is a youth gun violence intervention strategy, first implemented in 1996 in Boston.-Boston:...
events held on September 24, 2005. Mike Flugennock is also an editor of DC Indymedia.
His work is noted for its universal criticism of government figures, recent subjects of criticism have been both President George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
and the Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
; the former for his domestic and foreign policies, the latter for what he claims is its inability to provide a true, progressive alternative to the Republican party. During the Clinton era, most of his posters were critical of Clinton's military actions, and policies such as the North American Free Trade Agreement
North American Free Trade Agreement
The North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA is an agreement signed by the governments of Canada, Mexico, and the United States, creating a trilateral trade bloc in North America. The agreement came into force on January 1, 1994. It superseded the Canada – United States Free Trade Agreement...
(NAFTA), the Communications Decency Act
Communications Decency Act
The Communications Decency Act of 1996 was the first notable attempt by the United States Congress to regulate pornographic material on the Internet. In 1997, in the landmark cyberlaw case of Reno v. ACLU, the United States Supreme Court struck the anti-indecency provisions of the Act.The Act was...
, and the Defense of Marriage Act
Defense of Marriage Act
The Defense of Marriage Act is a United States federal law whereby the federal government defines marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman. Under the law, no U.S. state may be required to recognize as a marriage a same-sex relationship considered a marriage in another state...
. More recently, he has been critical of Democrats such as John Kerry
John Kerry
John Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...
and Hillary Clinton.
In addition to national politics, Flugennock is often critical of D.C. politicians, and he has made several posters criticizing Mayor Anthony Williams
Anthony A. Williams
Anthony Allen "Tony" Williams is an American politician who served as the fifth mayor of the District of Columbia for two terms, from 1999 to 2007. He had previously served as chief financial officer for the District, managing to balance the budget and achieve a surplus within two years of...
, whom he depicts as a rat.
Flugennock's political cartoons have been featured in galleries http://provisionslibrary.org/, and various publications, such as "The Progressive" cover. His posters have appeared on the streets of Washington D.C., and other cities. Another political artists with similar venues is Robbie Conal. http://www.robbieconal.com/
Much of his political cartooning is provocative. Particularly controversial are these political cartoons on the Iraq warhttp://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/109185/index.php http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/93882/index.php http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/134715/index.php, and those criticizing Israeli policy towards Palestinians.
A Flugennock cartoon was submitted as an entry in the Iranian Holocaust cartoon contest, a competition purportedly organized to test Western willingness to print Holocaust related cartoons in response to the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy
Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy
The Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy began after 12 editorial cartoons, most of which depicted the Islamic prophet Muhammad, were published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on 30 September 2005...
. While Flugennock did not personally submit his cartoon to the Iranian contest, he welcomes the controversy and is fine with many uses of his work, as long as credit is given. http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002157845 http://www.sinkers.org/posters/newwar/whatsharonlearned.jpg
