Making Deplorable Political Art by Mashing Up Google Images

Instructional Video on YouTube ^ | June 2, 2017 | PoconoPundit

[poconopundit]

Making Deplorable Political Art by Mashing Up Google Images

Have you toyed with the idea of creating political images, but wondered how to get started?  Well, this video was designed for you.

Producing digital mashups (the kind you can be proud of) is easier than you think.  Free tools are readily available: it just requires a little practice to learn some basic techniques and gain some confidence.  Also, the millions of well-indexed Google Images out there make the process remarkably easy and fun.

In this 29-minute course I give advice on: image search & selection strategies; graphic design ideas; free software tools to use; including fancy on-line fonts; merging with commentary; process walk-throughs; and three political art types: parody, heroic, and humorous mashups.  The video concludes with a 2-minute slide show with TRiUMPhant music in the background.

Hyperlinked Index to the Video

00:00 Introduction & Why Make Political Art
01:40 Simple Mashup Images: Trump vs. Hillary Rally, Healthcare Charts
03:27 Trump's Fake News Trophy Room -- Process walk-thru for Complex Mashup
07:09 Software tools used: image capture, image editing, image assembly
09:04 Parody Mashup: Boobamba Foundation; The Russians are Coming
11:30 Watergate Parody: All the President's Spies -- Process walk-thru
15:48 Using On-Line Fancy Fonts: Trump and Grant Image
18:04 Heroic Mashups: Great Wall of China; Intrepid at Okinawa; T-Rex
20:46 Hero Comparisons: Ulysses and Trump; Franklin and Trump
22:58 Horse Laugh Images: Hillary/Putin; McCain/Custer; Trump/Bernie Trains
25:41 Poetry Parody with Images: Macavity the Mystery Cat
26:22 Weird Stuff: Trumpazine and Cats; Trump/Melania at Circus
27:35 Accessing PoconoPundit's Images and Stories
28:05 FreeRepublic: Largest on-line forum of Self-Reliant Lovers of Liberty
29:08 Slideshow of Deplorable Digital Art set to TRiUMPhant music: MAGA!

As I prepared this video, little did I know that the week I'd finish it we'd be discussing a singularly barbarian act of political "art" that has stirred righteous anger on our side, and only mild, slap-on-the-wrist censure from the Left.

However the production of strong, sometimes disturbing -- but civilized -- political art is one place where we Self-Reliant Deplorables can seize the high ground and win.

I am amazed at the illustrating and creative genius of guys like Ben Garrison and Michael Ramirez.   Yet the simpler-to-produce mashup images also have their place.

Political art is particularly effective against the Left because it delivers a gut punch to their emotions.  It ridicules the Leftists or causes everyone to laugh at their ridiculous positions and lies. 

There's also what I call "heroic political art" that fires up Deplorables along the road to MAGA and rouses them to continue the good fight.

Video Production Pointers

• The Visuals for the video were created from 64 PowerPoint slides with a few fancy "transitions" in the slides.
• The Narrative was recorded as a separate audio for each slide to an Olympus Digital Voice Recorder
• Audio editing was done using the free software Audacity.
• Video assembly and production was through Camtasia Studio 8 -- I make lots of mistakes and that entailed time-consuming do-overs, but now that I scaled that hill, future videos will be easier. 
• Sound track -- The concluding two-minutes slide show of 20 images was set to a TRiUMPhal soundtrack from Onna Joushu Naotora, the "taiga" samurai drama being telecast on NHK and TV Japan this year. 
• Upload to YouTube was easy through Camtasia.  By verifying your Google account, you can post videos greater than 10 minutes long.

[poconopundit]

A non-geeky guide to creating image mashups you can post on FR.  Here I explain the methods I use.  Yes, I've probably broken every rule in the graphic designer's book, but it works for me. 

This is a very satisfying hobby for those of us who lead a Deplorable lives staring at light-emitting glass screens.   And if you're so inclined, you might find it's a nice diversion from reading a book or watching TV.

[reed13k]

Bfl

[marktwain]

Very cool. BFL.

[V K Lee]

PP

After years of viewing images of this and that, Lois L., Comey, BO’B, IRS director K, and on and on - we the people have realized one fact. IF we are able to see up their nose, they should be deemed to be elitist and probably crooked. Just words to live by from this deplorable.

[jonrick46]

Bookmark!

[Ray76]

Excellent! Thanks.

I always liked the “All The Presidents Spies” image. It was very well done.

[Jim W N]

Thanks for including me. I’ll have to check this out. The ones showing are pretty good except I can’t who that is on the T-Rex.

[AlanGreenSpam]

Great vid, Poco! Are you the one who has been posting so many classic/funny images on FR? If so, thank you so much for the good work and please keep it going.

I often cut & paste the good ones and send them to my friends and enemies. Ha!

I have a great theme for you to work up, perhaps as a book cover with Maxine Waters and Hillary on the front:

How about:

-— “GREEDY LIBERAL - while posing as being generous and compassionate, they actually want to take your money using government force.”

-— “Inside, learn how it is actually liberals who are the greedy ones because they want to take $hit from other people. Conservatives just want to be left alone to provide for their families.”

Can you put one of your prize-winning images like that together? I’ve told Dinesh D’Souza that he (or Anne Coulter) needs to write a book with the title “Greedy Liberals.”

I hereby relinquish any copyrights over the book title name.

If you can put a classic image together, it should be tweeted to Dinesh and Anne Coulter. One of them will take it and run with it. A book like this needs to get out and read by the sheeple.

[GOPJ]

Thanks for including me in your ping... interesting stuff.

[poconopundit]

Thanks, Jim. T-Rex would be Rex Tillerson, Secty of State.

[poconopundit]

Thanks for you comments, Alan. Great to hear you've been taking some images and giving them a wider distribution to friends.

I like your theme of "Greedy Liberal". The difficulty of that one is there are so many forms of greedy liberal aren't there?

You've got a Warren Buffet who sides with Obama to stop the Keystone pipeline so his Burlington Northern railroad can make a killing transporting oil.

There's the lowly Obamaphone lady multiplied by the millions who feel entitled to the paycheck that someone else earned.

And then there are the greedy leaders like France's Macron and Pope Francis who support the elitist EU bankrupting and destroying a continent. And figure why not shame Americans to pay for their schemes.

The title probably needs to be expanded. For example: "The Liberal Use of MY Money: In Greed We Trust"

Ann Coulter's book title: Adios, America!: The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country Into a Third World Hell-Hole. Now that's a spectacular book title!

[libertarian27]

Excellent video.

I use GIMP too and throw everything on PowerPoint to manipulate and save.

Last year I threw all my stuff on IMGFlip but nowadays they all go to twitter (and can be copied/paste anywhere else from there)

Just bumped into another free program yesterday, RealWorld Paint, looks promising to add to the arsenal.

We need a “Memer Ping List” group ;)

[poconopundit]

Great, libertarian. Glad you liked the video and thanks for saying so.

Very appreciated tip about RealWorld Paint. It looks very promising. Notice it has a vector feature I'm eager to check out.

For my images, I bought a domain name that mirrors the images stored on my desktop in about 30 folders. Then when I want to use an image a second or third time, I do a search in Windows Explorer then drag the image into a box that generates the HTML code for post on FR.

I've also wondered if there's a way FReeper could share a partitioned website where each FReeper has his own password protected folder to post to and use.

I like your idea for a Ping List. I had to look up what meme really means and found this on Wiki...

A meme (/ˈmiːm/ MEEM), is "an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture".

A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena with a mimicked theme.

Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate, and respond to selective pressures.

This concept is very interesting.

This is my third video produced and it was the most ambitious. The transitions in PowerPoint caused havoc when I imported into Camtasia. Next time, I'm going to treat my slides with transitions separately because they tend to mess up the timing of other slides in the video.

For my next video, I'm thinking of stringing together a few video clips with the speech Trump gave at the official opening of Trump International at the Old Post Office.

It was a speech with great imagery compared his mastery of the trade of construction and renovating buildings with that of renovating a nation and getting the most potential out of America's people.

[novemberslady]

Thank you

[AlanGreenSpam]

—”The difficulty of that one is there are so many forms of greedy liberal aren’t there? “

Yes indeed! That would make for many chapters of the book, e.g.

-One chapter would be “Greedy Wealthy Liberals” (Buffet, Gates, Musk)

-Another would be “Greedy Obamaphone Liberals” (free stuff for ME!).

-Another chapter would be about those who “Punish successful people (by using gov’t to steal their property).

-And one chapter could be Greedy Race Baiter Liberals (Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, the BLM -aka “Chocolate Klan”)

[poconopundit]

RE: a proposed book, The Greedy Liberal, discussing the many forms of greed, one per chapter:

1. Greedy Wealthy Liberals (Buffet, Gates, Musk)
2. Greedy Obamaphone Liberals (free stuff for ME!).
3. Punish the Successful Liberals (by using gov’t to steal their property).
4. Greedy Race Baiter Liberals (Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, the BLM -aka “Chocolate Klan”)
5. Others...

Alan, good work.  I think the book would be a winner.  I like the way you've scoped out the chapters.  We need to check, but I do not believe it's been done before.

Breaking down and explaining the greedy personalities would be a great service to the MAGA movement.  So I applaud the effort and would contribute in some way.

My own inclination is to produce an interactive tool that explains the various forms of greed.

In my work life, I research the software solutions for technology fraud.  And it's fascinating to learn the various forms of fraud and how they are defeated.

So the "greed story" is much the same way.  How can we map out the way greed is perpetrated?  A detective story engages people.

FReepers were excited to follow the twists and turns of the 2016 campaign -- and now Trump's march to MAGA. It's like a Grimm's fairy tale of slaying the dragons in the corrupt swamp.

I've long felt the Milton Friedman's of the world -- though they achieved a lot -- did not bring their knowledge down to the level of the common man.

Now, I'll admit that economics is a very complex subject to teach.  But I loved Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt.  That kind of work has multi-generational value.

And just now as I write to you, I stopped for a few minutes and found The Law by Frederic Bastiat, written in 1850.  The English translation is cumbersome, but the ideas are spectacular.  And he explains the whole area of "Legal Plunder" -- another word for Liberal Greed.

So the better translation and distribution of this work could be the framework for drilling down on particular forms of greed -- most of which didn't exist in Bastiat's time.

So I ramble on because I, like you, want to contribute something of enduring value to help the MAGA cause.

* * *

I am pinging a few people who may have some ideas to help flesh out this idea -- and play Devil's Advocate.

[poconopundit]

Alan,

If it's an interactive map of Liberal Greed, this image I made could be turned into that. You see a particular kind of greed in the picture, so you click on it and some text pops up to explain what it is.

I feel this would make a nice educational tool.

[V K Lee]

Tossing this into the mix. It might be of benefit

MAKE MINE FREEDOM

Also, the constant reference to chocolate. Chocolate = candy The word summons up an image of the Candy Man. The horror movie done by Clive Barker

Bill O'R enjoyed using the term 'pinheads'. This summons up an image of the movie HELLRAISER and the character 'Pinhead'

When BO'B first appeared on the political scene, his name was thought to make him of IRISH descent. The MFM went gaga attempting to find family history that this would be true. Of course, when he made his first trip to the Emerald Isle, they made a big to do about his 'going home'. THUS: Barack O'Bama became plain ol' BO'B to this average deplorable.

The idea of Kathy G as one of the French Revolution knitters is self apparent. Pink knitted caps, guillotine, collecting heads.

We all know of the Midas touch. Now we have seen the BO'B touch, nothing to nothing; chaos to follow.

[RightGeek]

Like!