Guerilla Democrating

[Atman]

I started it yesterday. In your face time, folks.

The cashier at the grocery store was bitching about whether he'd get overtime for working Sunday. Demographically, young people are actually far more likely to support Bush, because (IMO) he does lie a wonderful game; he does portray himself as caring, and with the help of The Fourth Estate, only the good, warm, happy Fatherly Bush ever is presented to this audience with a near-fatal reaction to reading and the printed media. So, they buy what they've been sold in the headlines, having never lifted a paper to see the tiny follow-ups on page 37C.

So anyway, the cashier bitched about overtime. I am one of those silent types in the store...I bag my own stuff, stay out of the way until I have to pay...but this time I spoke back to the cashier. I said, "Then I'm sure you'll be telling all your friends not to support president Bush. He and the republicans don't think you should get overtime pay anymore." He looked at me like "Whhaaaaa?"

"Believe me!" I said, stretching the truth only slightly..."I do this stuff for a living (that is the stretch...you call this a living?)...if Bush supports it, you can bet your minimum wage that it will be harmful to anyone in our income brackets. He is billionaire working for billionaires, and he's getting his billions by taking away YOUR overtime pay."

He mumbled something about "Yeah, well that's not good if that's what he's doing." The guy clearly had no clue. Do you think his boss published anything about it in the Stop & Shop employee newsletter? So where are these guys supposed to get the message we are bitching at them for ignoring?

People, it is going to have to be US. If the newspapers started printing everything tomorrow, the fact is, young adults like Bush, and don't read newspapers or watch the news. Demographically, this is just the way it is. The young adults on DU are the exception, not the norm.

So, in true activist fashion, we, the committed, the ones who DO read the foreign press and monitor the lies coming out of Washington, we are the ones that need to take the message to the people, excuse the cliched reference.

It isn't just the young adults, mind you. It is just about anybody you'd run into in Wal Mart on any given day. Again, stereotypes may be repugnant to some, but if you want to catch fish, go to a stocked pond.

Every chance we get, when we hear something said that we know is contrary to the facts, we need to get the real message out. Hell, carry a pamphlet with you covered with URL's (to sites the right would consider "legitimate," such as wire service stories, or MSNBC, or something normally not associated with liberal lefty media). Start talking it up. So what if they go home and start the dinner table conversation (does anyone have those anymore, either?) by mentioning the liberal whacko he met at the store...if he starts talking, the issues are getting out. Seeds of doubt will be planted, and may have to germinate a while before another similar story makes them take root in the listener's head.

We are turning a Titanic steered by a capn' hellbent on running us into the iceberg. He has the string quartet playing beautiful music for us as he stocks his lifeboats, and those of his travelling companions. We need to start pointing out to everyone, no matter where you are, that we are sinking, and the capn' is NOT on board to help us.

It will take time, and we have precious little of it left. Admit "they" own the media, and take the dialogue to the streets. I'd like to say "what do we have to lose," but we have LOTS to lose.

So smile at that kid reading Bill O'Reilly's book while waiting for a Christmas shopper to express interest in a cell phone face place at the mall kiosk.* Ask him about the Red White & Blue plate...it is a great conversation starter!


*True...seen at my local mall over the weekend.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

1. here's an idea we used once:

Take dollar bills and staple a small union flyer to each. Use these singles for the tip jar and waitstaff. Simple and effective.

[swittersnc]

2. WAY TO GO!!!!!!!

I haven't heard a better story about bringing republican lies and manipulations to the "what's in it for me" level.

[onecitizen]

3. I have this little flier........

printed up with the FACTS on it that I keep in my car and leave at various places. When I go to Dr appointments and such I stick them inside the magazines in the waiting rooms.

Just my own little way of getting the facts out there. After all, in Doctors waiting rooms there is little else to read and they're a captive audience.

But you are right Atman!

[cryofan]

4. I like the way you think....However....

....I think we need to broadcast the message using a ONE-TO-MANY transmission mode, rather than a ONE-TO-ONE mode.

See my freeway/roads blogging thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=924950

Also, we need to use the same propaganda techniques that the neoliberal forces are using: namely, repeating the same phrases and ideas over and over using mass media. As it now stands, the American media is closed off to egalitarian messages presented as propaganda. So the freeway/road blogging idea may be the best way, other than going online with our egalitarian propaganda. But there are so many people, who even though they have Net access, read very little material online. THey are not explorers....they prefer slickly packaged, ingenuous television programs.....

Take the clogged commuter roads and freeway overpasses....pound away on those memes....FIGHT BACK!

Great thread, BTW. Good to see something but candidate wars on here....

[pocoloco]

5. I've printed an assortment of of address labels that I stick on the

back of my letters and I also carry some with me and stick them around town when ever I find a good place. They are from quotes I've read here on DU such as:

" An idiot reigns Deceptive and still
stupid though named President"

"Disent is the highest form of Patriotism"(Jefferson)

"If any question why we died,Tell them because our leaders died" Kipling

Any other suggestions???

[Atman]

6. Use for your dollar bills

Buy a basic rubber stamp. Or make one...you can get kits at the crafts store. Or use a magic marker. Write a message in the margins of the bill in red ink, or use your stamp.

Ideally, a short, succinct "headline" about a Bush lie, maybe even with a URL to back it up. These circulate through a lot hands.

[girlphoenix]

7. Rubber stamps

I bet it wouldn't be too hard to find a W and ? for those bills...

-girlphoenix

[Atman]

8. kick...

...Bush out of office!

[cryofan]

9. kick