Jose Rodriguez is an American political activist. He was born in the Panama Canal Zone

Panama Canal Zone

The Panama Canal Zone was a unorganized U.S. territory located within the Republic of Panama, consisting of the Panama Canal and an area generally extending 5 miles on each side of the centerline, but excluding Panama City and Colón, which otherwise would have been partly within the limits of...

 in 1952 and was naturalized as a child because of his father's long career in the U.S. Air Force. Getting drafted for Vietnam

Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

 changed his pro-war attitudes. As the war wound down, he spent four years in the Air Force, stationed outside of Los Angeles.

Rodriguez then moved to Virginia

Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

, enrolled in George Mason University

George Mason University

George Mason University is a public university based in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, south of and adjacent to the city of Fairfax. Additional campuses are located nearby in Arlington County, Prince William County, and Loudoun County...

 and became involved in the anti-nuclear movement, the beginning of a career as an activist. He worked on the 1984 campaigns of Alan Cranston

Alan Cranston

Alan MacGregor Cranston was an American journalist and Democratic Senator from California.-Education:Cranston earned his high school diploma from the old Mountain View High School, where among other things, he was a track star...

, Gary Hart

Gary Hart

Gary Hart is an American politician, lawyer, author, professor and commentator. He served as a Democratic Senator representing Colorado , and ran in the U.S...

 and Walter Mondale

Walter Mondale

Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale is an American Democratic Party politician, who served as the 42nd Vice President of the United States , under President Jimmy Carter, and as a United States Senator for Minnesota...

. He did press advance for Joan Mondale

Joan Mondale

Joan Adams Mondale is the wife of Walter Mondale, the 42nd Vice President of the United States and later the U.S. ambassador to Japan. She is an advocate for the arts....

.

Rodriguez went on to become associate director of Freeze Voter, the political action committee of the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign. He then joined the 1986 Great Peace March, both traveling on the road and working in the Washington D.C. office.

While continuing to organize protest

Protest

A protest is an expression of objection, by words or by actions, to particular events, policies or situations. Protests can take many different forms, from individual statements to mass demonstrations...

s and rallies, in the late 1980s he started selling t-shirts and buttons at street fairs, music concerts and political rallies, using many of his own designs. During the early 1990s he opened his Politically Correct

Politically Correct

Politically Correct may refer to:*Political correctness, language, ideas, policies, or behaviour seeking to minimize offence to groups of people-See also:*Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, book by James Finn Garner, published in 1994...

 Clothing store at three locations in Washington, DC. News stories about his efforts, accompanied by photographs, have run in the Washington Post  and the Dallas Morning News.

From 1991 to 1993 Rodriguez hosted the Politically Correct Cooking show on Fairfax Public Access

Fairfax Public Access

Fairfax Public Access was established in October 1981 as a non-profit Public, educational, and government access cable tv station based in Fairfax, Virginia, and now operates three channels....

 cable TV channel Ten. He interviewed many Washington, DC area leading peace and justice advocates such as Hilda Mason, Josephine Butler, Ira Shor, Dacajeweah, Andy Shallal

Andy Shallal

Anas "Andy" Shallal is an Iraqi-American artist, activist and restaurateur. He is best known for his opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq and as proprietor of the Busboys and Poets restaurant chain in the Washington, DC area.-Early life:Shallal moved to the United States with his family in 1966...

, Louise Franklin-Ramirez and Benito Torres. In 1993 the show won the Hometown Award for best Informational Series sponsored by the Alliance for Community Media. The show also was featured in news stories on NBC Nightly News

NBC Nightly News

NBC Nightly News is the flagship daily evening television news program for NBC News and broadcasts. NBC Nightly News has aired from Studio 3B, located on floors 3 of the NBC Studios is the headquarters of the GE Building forms the centerpiece of 30th Rockefeller Center it is located in the center...

 and the early 1990s CNBC cable television show "Equal Time" co-hosted by Mary Matalin

Mary Matalin

Mary Joe Matalin is an American political consultant, well known for her work with the Republican Party. She was an assistant to President George W. Bush and counselor to Vice President Dick Cheney until 2003. Matalin has been chief editor of Threshold Editions, a conservative publishing imprint...

 and Jane Wallace

Jane Wallace

Jane Wallace is an American journalist. She was correspondent for CBS News as well as the news magazine West 57th.-References:...

.

Rodriguez also was an active participant in a widely publicized free speech lawsuit "Friends of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial v. Kennedy." In 1997 the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia affirmed the rights of activists to sell literature, buttons and stickers on the National Mall

National Mall

The National Mall is an open-area national park in downtown Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. The National Mall is a unit of the National Park Service , and is administered by the National Mall and Memorial Parks unit...

, although it did uphold a ban on t-shirt sales.

Photos of Rodriguez' Abu Ghraib

Abu Ghraib

The city of Abu Ghraib in the Baghdad Governorate of Iraq is located just west of Baghdad's city center, or northwest of Baghdad International Airport. It has a population of 189,000. The old road to Jordan passes through Abu Ghraib...

 anti-torture protest at peace demos were used repeatedly by mainstream press during 2005. In 2006 he began appearing at DC protests in his "Nuclear Death" costume, leading to more mainstream press photographs, including a prominent photo on the Drudge Report

Drudge Report

The Drudge Report is a news aggregation website. Run by Matt Drudge with the help of Joseph Curl and Charles Hurt, the site consists mainly of links to stories from the United States and international mainstream media about politics, entertainment, and current events as well as links to many...

on July 4th. In that year he was also logistics coordinator for the two week Camp Democracy project.