From New York! It's... the Pennies!

The Prestigious International Award for Creativity in Protest Signage

It’s time, once again, for the Pennies, the prestigious international award for Creativity in Protest Signage. This time (meaning October 10, 2023 at 5:00 pm on the steps of the Astor Library on 42nd Street, Manhattan), the jury’s task was complicated because of the palpable sense, among the participants, that any statement whatsoever would be taken as a gotcha! Die Sprache verriet mich dem Schlächter, “My words denounced me to the slaughterer.” But as Bertolt Brecht pointed out in the same poem, in times like these, even silence is a gotcha!

So: to the Democratic Socialists of America as a whole,

The Party Discipline Staying on Message Award:

Which meant the most interesting, promising slogans were going to be spontaneous, oral.

Most Promising Slogan in Oral Presentation:

Never again is Now!

Likewise, predictably, the most aesthetically appealing visuals were also the best-prepared, the safest aesthetically, hence the safest politically as well. Hence,

The Yoko Ono All We Are Saying Feelgood Award:

And, finally, because of intense pressure from one of the jurors,

The Language of Resistance Award

To remind us that Yiddish has been to Ivrit what Palestinians are to Sionists: a threat to be eradicated. There is such a thing as cultural genocide as well:

And remember:

The Pennies... mightier than the sword!

WOID XXIII-31

October 21, 2023