Oleg Atbashian
Oleg Atbashian (born 1960 in the Ukranian SSR) is an American graphics designer in Florida, who is a political activist for anti-Democratic-Party causes.
Early life[edit]
Atbashian was raised in the Cherkasy,Ukrainian SSR (see Ukraine), which at the time was part of the Soviet Union.[1] He worked making propaganda posters for the Communist Party in Siberia.[1]
Atbashian first entered the United States in 1990, around the time of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, where he worked in Fort Mason, California translating Russian and Ukranian poetry. He underwent immigration to the United States in 1994.[lower-alpha 1][lower-alpha 2] He worked as a web designer while living in New York until 2011, and later moved to Florida.
Politics[edit]
Atbashian is a conservative,[2] influenced by Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, and Ludwig von Mises. He became an activist, and has been involved in several presidential election campaigns since 2001, generally in support of the Republican nominee. With respect to his political satire, Atbashian has been influenced by Rush Limbaugh, as well as Zhvanetsky and Shenderovich.
Communists for Kerry[edit]
Communists for Kerry (CFK) was co-founded in May 2004 by a core group of six people. The CFK group's website was run by Atbashian, while it was financially organized as a 527 group.
Conservative group CFK counter-protested an anti-Bush march on August 29, 2004, on 7th Avenue in New York City, which The New Republic called the "most noteworthy street theater" of the events that day.[3][4] Costumed members of CFK (pro-Bush), marched alongside the formally-attired Billionaires for Bush (pro-Kerry), juxtaposed with symbolic coffins, to protest the Iraq war; the overall result was a protest which invoked satire, irony, and humour, intermixed with the serious and even the solemn.[5] Journalist Jack Beatty suggested CFK was a false flag pro-Bush group. Zach Wamp also noticed the CFK sign among the anti-Bush protestors, calling it 'totally wild' and suggested the CFK sign-holders might be 'little more than professional protestors'- that Kerry would probably not appreciate.[6]The protest managed to get wide-spread coverage in the national press.[7][8][9]
After the election cycle, one of the photos depicting a joint CFK / Protest Warrior counter-protest was published in Time Magazine,[10][11] The caption incorrectly indicated that CFK's sign was authentically criticizing conservative commentator Ann Coulter; the mistake was later corrected.[11] CFK remained active until at least 2006, when the CFK site faux-endorsed the U.S. Senate re-election campaign of Hillary Clinton.[12]
In 2006, the New York Sun characterized the CFK site as hilarious, saying the in-person CFK actions were "tongue-in-cheek operations that tweaked the biases of the major news organization[s]."[12] In 2016, RT characterized the CFK website (created in 2004) as a Trollgruppe (troll group). CFK later (in 2005) morphed into the parody project TPC, grouping Atbashian's two efforts, alongside 2004 startup Pajamas Media and 2005 startup Breitbart.com.[lower-alpha 3]
The People's Cube[edit]
The website of The People's Cube (TPC) was launched on April 1, 2005; sibling-site Che-mart was also launched in early 2005. The concept of the tangible TPC was first developed and used during CFK events of 2004,[lower-alpha 4][lower-alpha 5] Atbashian was the originator of the TPC website in early 2005.
Atbashian and The People's Cube contributors have created various parodies regarding the actions and policies of Barack Obama since the 2008 election cycle.[lower-alpha 6] It has also from time to time parodied liberal news-organizations. In a 2010 book, one of the 2006 TPC parodies about a fabricated front page which was satirically misattributed to the New York Times was discussed by Neil deGrasse Tyson, who said the faux headlines of the parody-piece were "mirrors to the mores of modern America."[13]
On September 13th, 2017, a Twitter user[14] tweeted a GIF meme originally posted to The People's Cube website the month prior.[15] This post was subsequently retweeted by United States President Donald Trump's personal Twitter account[14] later the same day. National and international media outlets published news reports concerning the US President's association with and use of such satirical means.[16][17][18][19][20]
Other political activism[edit]
Atbashian was arrested at George Mason University by campus police in November 2016, and was charged with allegedly putting up posters (resulting in property damage claims) as part of a protest against Students for Justice in Palestine.[lower-alpha 7][lower-alpha 8]
Selected works[edit]
- Atbashian is the author of the 2010 book Shakedown Socialism[lower-alpha 9] which claims that Obama's policies are similar to the USSR under communism.[1]
See also[edit]
- Protest Warrior, a similar pro-conservatism anti-liberalism group with which CFK was informally affiliated.
References[edit]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2
Laurie E. Gries, Ph.D (April 1, 2015). "Obama Hope". Still Life with Rhetoric: A New Materialist Approach for Visual Rhetorics (1st ed.). University of Colorado-Boulder: Utah State University Press. p. 231,233-235. ISBN 9780874219777. Search this book on
- ↑ David A. Fahrenthold (2012-10-08). "Sandra Fluke brings her testimony across the nation". The Washington Post.
- ↑ Sasha Polakow-Suransky (2004-08-30). "The NYPD Overreacts". The New Republic.
- ↑ Elana Berkowitz (August 27, 2004). "TNR Online's Guide To The Convention Protestors: Group Tour". The New Republic.
- ↑ Peter C. Beller (September 2, 2004). "The Few and the Loud: East Enders day-trip to protest R.N.C. in N.Y.C." The East Hampton Star.
- ↑ Tom Humphrey (August 31, 2004). "Thompson says politics in past". New York City: Knoxville News Sentinel. p. A5. Archived from the original on August 31, 2004 – via www.CommunistsForKerry.com website.
- ↑
"100,000 March in Manhattan Against Bush". The Scotsman. 2004-08-30.
|section=ignored (help) - ↑ Michael Powell and Dale Russakoff (2004-08-30). "200,000 in N.Y. Protest Bush". Washington Post.
- ↑ Robert Wilonsky (September 9, 2004). "The Right's Stuff". Dallas Observer.
- ↑ John Cloud (April 25, 2005). "Ann Coulter: Ms. Right". Time Magazine. Vol. 165 no. 17. Time, Inc. p. 34 – via Time.com photo gallery.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 "Photo Gallery: Ann Coulter". Time.com. Time, Inc. April 17, 2005. Archived from the original on 2005-09-03.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Alicia Colon (November 14, 2006). "Rebels With A Cause — Conservatism". New York Sun.
- ↑
Neil DeGrasse Tyson (Jul 12, 2010). "Chapter Six: Pluto's Judgement Day". The Pluto Files. W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 122, 124–126. ISBN 9780393073348. Search this book on
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 user @Fuctupmind (2017-09-13). "Donald Trump's amazing golf swing #Crooked Hillary". Twitter.
- ↑ Evil Smiley (2017-08-26). "TRUMP SABOTAGE: why Hillary has been falling down". The People’s Cube.
- ↑ Jeremy Diamond (2017-09-17). "Trump retweets GIF of him hitting Clinton with golf ball". CNN.
- ↑ Christina Caron (2017-09-17). "Trump Tweets Doctored GIF of His Golf Ball Hitting Hillary Clinton". New York Times.
- ↑ Laura King (2017-09-17). "Trump retweets meme of him hitting Hillary Clinton with golf ball, knocking her down". Los Angeles Times.
- ↑ Amy B. Wang (2017-09-17). "Trump shares GIF of himself striking Hillary Clinton in the back with a golf ball". Washington Post.
- ↑ Edward Helmore (2017-09-17). "Trump tweets inti-Clinton meme as tensions flare over her memoir". Guardian (UK).
Notes[edit]
- ↑ Алексей ОРЛОВ ('Aleksey Orlov') (September 24, 2010). "Социализм в США?" [Socialism in the USA?]. www.NRS.com (in Russian). New York City: ru:Новое Русское Слово ('Novoye Russkoye Slovo'). p. 22. ISSN 0730-8949. Archived from the original on December 6, 2010. Retrieved January 29, 2017.CS1 maint: Unrecognized language (link)
- ↑ Kerry Picket (March 10, 2014). "Former Soviet Propaganda Artist Sees Echos of Cold War In Ukraine Debate". Breitbart News.
- ↑ "'Trump Today': US-Medienplattform Breitbart News will Deutschland erobern". Russia Today. 2016-11-15.
- ↑ Harry Siegel (September 3, 2004). "Movement v. System". New Partisan – via opinion piece in the New York Post,[1].
- ↑ "Re-Education". 2004. Archived from the original on October 13, 2004.
- ↑ Oleg Atbashian. American Agitprop in the Age of Obama. Oleg Atbashian. Retrieved 2017-01-19.
- ↑ Debra Heine (November 16, 2016). "People's Cube Artist Faces 5 Years in Prison for Hanging Up Anti-Terror Posters at GMU". PJ Media.
- ↑ Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center (2016-11-14). "Pro-Israel Artist Threatened With 5 Years in Jail for Anti-Terror Posters at GMU". Front Page Magazine.
- ↑
Oleg Atbashian (2010). Shakedown Socialism: Unions, Pitchforks, Collective Greed, the Fallacy of Economic Equality, and Other Optical Illusions of 'Redistributive Justice' (2nd ed.). Lebanon, Tennessee: Greenleaf – via Still Life With Rhetoric, by Laurie E. Gries, page 233. Search this book on
External links[edit]
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