DeadElephant.ORG is a virally distributed “anti-marketing campaign” to re-brand the neoCons using their own words and ideas wherever possible. The campaign features 50 FREE click-&-print instant bumper-strips, FREE protest posters, and FREE t-shirt transfers, - all with a dead-GOP-elephant logo. Messages like “Torture and apple pie” and “A good war lasts forever” capture that earnest neoCon self-satisfaction. It's a web-based viral movement resulting in a real-world expression of outrage.

For most Americans the slogans of the Vietnam era are long forgotten. But there is one “message” that everybody still remembers, that even the children born long after still recognize… the PEACE sign. That was the “symbol discipline” that arose organically in the 60’s. And it came to stand for much more than ending the war in Vietnam. It stood for ending the entire culture which had given rise to that war. It stood for a new culture. And because is was purely graphical, it could embrace the entire range of values that defined the new culture.

The current era, sadly, is much more cynical, and would not likely gravitate to such an overtly idealistic symbol as the PEACE sign. Progressives don’t seem ready to express a coherent new culture, and in any case, we have short-term problems to resolve that are absolutely dire. Bad as things were in the 60’s, we were not back then facing the simultaneous threats of rising American totalitarianism, World War Three in the Middle East, and total environmental collapse.

The neoCons who control our government and the corporate media might be insane, but they are damned effective at what they do. And their effectiveness is founded on their overtly manipulative use of language and symbol (“culture of life”, “homosexual agenda”, “liberal media”, “right to life”, “troop surge”) and on ruthless character assassination (Cindy Sheehan, John Kerry, Jack Murtha, the 911 widows, Jimmy Carter). Yet despite their stranglehold on the media, and their “message discipline”, the public is beginning to reject them.

The DeadElephant symbol is intended to crystallize that rejection of neo-conservative messages. Our goal is to make it impossible for anyone to hear their messages without thinking about the opposite message: the “culture of life” will make us think of the “culture of lies”, “regime change” will bring impeachment to mind, and the symbol of their brand of politics will become a DeadElephant. That’s why we’ve called this an “anti-marketing campaign”. Think of it as the marketing equivalent of monkey-wrenching.

Obviously, putting an end to the neoCons is not by itself enough. We have a world to save. But it’s an inescapable prerequisite. And it will happen.