Just in time for the holidays, protest greeting cards

Looking for a different way to say ”Happy Holidays,” ”Peace on Earth” or “Happy New Year”? How about sending your friends and loved ones greeting cards with photos from protests that show people carrying signs reading “War on Morons,” “Cure Electile Dysfunction” and “One Nation Under Debt”? Photographer Al Crespo is pitching them, six for $12.95 online, as “greeting cards for people who are pissed off.”

Shoppers can select any combination of photos from among 81 grouped in categories such as anti-war, “Law and Disorder,” equal rights, “Your Money,” farm workers, immigration, pro-choice and “Well Known” — a category reserved for activist celebs like Jesse Jackson and Michael Moore.

A Miami-based photographer who’s been covering protests across the country for the last 12 years, Crespo has published a book based on his documentation project “Protest in the Land of Plenty.” But he may be best known for the legal case that bears his name: Al Crespo v. City of Los Angeles.

“I’m the guy that got shot in the head in 2000,” he says, recalling his injuries from rubber bullets while covering the Democratic National Convention that year. The successful American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit won $60,000 for seven journalists and prompted recognition of reporters’ rights to cover public assemblies, whether the protests are legal or unlawful.

Crespo has more of his work at a separate Web site, including a 241-image portfolio from the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

“What happened in Minnesota was not cool at all,” Crespo told MnIndy. “With all the tens of millions of dollars they spend on riot gear, you’d think they could spend $10,000 on a decent sound system to control a crowd.”

Giving orders to disperse that people can’t hear is “bullshit,” he says. He also wonders why police and press can’t get together before protest events to establish rules that would let photographers do their jobs.

It was Crespo’s first visit to the Twin Cities, but he had at least a couple of cultural touchstones to guide him: MnIndy, which he consulted as preparation for his work at the RNC, and “A Prairie Home Companion,” of which he’s a longtime fan. Taking time away from the RNC protest action to photograph the Fitzgerald Theater where Garrison Keillor holds forth was a necessary side-pilgramage.