That charming GEICO gecko looks like he’s darned fed-up with the highway police in Memphis, Tennessee. Why else is he telling drivers to defund them?

In an act of detournement worthy of the earliest billboard artists/activists and Letterists, last night the INDECLINE collective altered the text of two displays to make that elegant green gecko rally for pulling the plug on funding the boys in blue, according to the press release they sent out after pulling this artful dodge.

“When we talk about abolishing police, we mean it’s past time to reimagine the system in its entirety,” they say. “Remember, it was once impossible for many Americans to imagine a country not organized around slavery.”

Yes, many would take that point – and “Defund The Police” became a moderately catchy slogan during many marches for rights across the country over the last decade. Unfortunately, it’s a slogan that is confusing and counterproductive, possibly because the police provide valuable services to society as well.

It’s true that Police brutality, corruption, militarization, dehumanization are definitely here and being discussed; and it looks like we are living in a police state often wherever you turn. Meanwhile, the social safety net is being shredded, and economic/food/housing insecurity is ever-rising, and the jail population is the largest per capita worldwide.

Bashing the institution of police with a baton won’t solve our problems at their root, but pulling the plug entirely doesn’t exactly solve it either, does it? What’s that word everyone loves to use today, nuance?

In the meantime, the time-honored practice of hi-jacking billboards for political or social messages is alive and well.

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