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Oh, rats. That is a pity if Notes-n-Quotes is gone.<br>
<br>
Trying to think of union-worker printing shops in Champaign -- I
*think* I heard that is true for UpClose (<a
href="http://upcloseprinting.com/">upcloseprinting.com</a>), at
120 W. White St. They do make B&W copies/prints. <br>
<br>
But they're closed on weekends, so no help for this time. I can't
think of anybody better than fedex/kinkos at the moment. (UPS
stores have print services too, but they're $.10/page, same as
kinkos.)<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
As to David Swanson's pickup lines -- yes, this is fun. I'll try
to make a few copies for the farmer's market in the morning.<br>
<br>
But it is long, isn't it? At 4-6 pages this comes out more like a
leaflet than a flyer...<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 11/2/12 5:11 PM, Carl G. Estabrook
wrote:<br>
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Notes-n-Quotes, where we usually get flyers copied, seems to have
gone out of business.
<div><br>
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<div>(Evidence: the shop is closed, and there's a large "For Rent"
sign on the front window.)</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Anyone have a good suggestion of where to get flyers printed
cheap? --CGE</div>
<div><br>
</div>
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<div>
<div>On Nov 2, 2012, at 2:47 PM, Carl G. Estabrook <<a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:galliher@illinois.edu">galliher@illinois.edu</a>>
wrote:</div>
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<h1 class="with-tabs">Swing State Pickup Lines</h1>
By David Swanson<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://warisacrime.org/content/swing-state-pickup-lines">http://warisacrime.org/content/swing-state-pickup-lines</a><br>
<br>
Hi. You're beautiful. And I don't give a damn who you're
voting for.<br>
<br>
Seriously?<br>
<br>
Which part?<br>
<br>
You don't give a damn who I'm voting for?<br>
<br>
I swear on the Fourth Amendment.<br>
<br>
We don't have that amendment anymore.<br>
<br>
You know that?<br>
<br>
Yes. What's the catch? Which hack are you hocking?<br>
<br>
None of them. I'm serious.<br>
<br>
For real? What planet are you from? Scratch that. Will
you marry me and what planet are you from?<br>
<br>
I'm not entirely sure.<br>
<br>
Which part?<br>
<br>
I'm not sure what planet I'm from, and of course I'll
marry you. Now I do want to ask you one thing.<br>
<br>
I knew it! I want a prenuptial agreement.<br>
<br>
No. No. I want to tell you something about me and ask
you if you can understand it. I want to know if you can
understand why I'm not voting for Obama.<br>
<br>
But I don't care why. <br>
<br>
You don't?<br>
<br>
OK, let me guess. He's less evil than Romney but less
evil is still evil, and you don't want to be evil, and
you just haven't managed to grasp that the more evil
candidate is even more evil?<br>
<br>
Good guess, but … completely wrong. You have to
remember here that I'm not a blithering idiot. I know
it's hard, but try. In fact, I'm willing to suggest
that lesser evilism is a truism, requiring exactly zero
cerebral exertion to comprehend. The more evil
candidate will do more evil. Got it. But I'm still not
voting for the less evil one.<br>
<br>
OK, I have another guess.<br>
<br>
I'm listening.<br>
<br>
You want the more evil candidate to win because you
imagine it will create the sort of mass resistance that
will turn the country completely around, whereas the
less evil guy will just keep boiling us slowly like
frogs.<br>
<br>
Now that's slander.<br>
<br>
How can it be slander when it's a guess?<br>
<br>
Of the frogs, I mean. If you heat a pot the frog jumps
out, and if you drop him in an already boiling pot he
cooks. It's all backwards because frogs are just not as
stupid as humans. We like to imagine . . .<br>
<br>
So you DO want to make Romney president!<br>
<br>
No. I do not want to make Romney president. Not to
create mass resistance. Not to make it easier for
President Hillary to put the final nail in our national
coffin four years hence. Not because I'm mad at Obama
and he hurt my wittle feelings. Not for any reason.<br>
<br>
OK, I've got it.<br>
<br>
You've got it?<br>
<br>
Yeah, you're not going to vote at all because that way
you're sending a message to the whole corrupt system
that it sucks and you don't.<br>
<br>
Um, we've got almost 100 million people trying that, and
it hasn't sent anybody so much as a postcard yet.<br>
<br>
All right. Let me think.<br>
<br>
By all means. I'm not the thought police.<br>
<br>
I'm thinking.<br>
<br>
I can see that.<br>
<br>
OK. This is it. You believe that Jill Stein or Rocky
Anderson or some other hopeless candidate is our last
true hope. You think they can win, or could
theoretically win, or might begin to build a party that
could theoretically someday win, or something like that.<br>
<br>
That's five guesses.<br>
<br>
We don't waste time in swing states.<br>
<br>
Well, they're all wrong. They're so far off Diebold
couldn't count them. They're not in the same ballpark.
Those guesses are about as close to right as …<br>
<br>
OK, so this isn't fair, because the answer is some crazy
thing having to do with that other planet you're from or
something. It's not fair unless it's something I know
about.<br>
<br>
You know about it.<br>
<br>
Yeah, well, I call.<br>
<br>
Are we playing poker?<br>
<br>
Yeah, and I call. What have you got?<br>
<br>
What are we playing for?<br>
<br>
Beer.<br>
<br>
Beer? Are you, or are you not, better off than you were
four beers ago?<br>
<br>
I am.<br>
<br>
All right. Here's the deal. <br>
<br>
It's too late to deal. I call.<br>
<br>
All right. All right. You know how we're always
supposed to vote for the lesser evil candidate, but then
four years later they're both more evil? <br>
<br>
I guess.<br>
<br>
You know how last time the lesser evil candidate was for
taxing the rich and ending wars and fixing NAFTA and
restoring the rule of law and protecting civil liberties
and tackling climate change and passing the Employee
Free Choice Act, and this time the lesser evil candidate
is for cutting Social Security and Medicare and spying
without warrants and letting the CIA and Special Forces
kill people every day and expanding NAFTA to the whole
damn world and establishing an assassination program for
men women and children and imprisoning people forever
without charge or trial and drilling more oil?<br>
<br>
Well, yeah, when you put it that way.<br>
<br>
No, I'm not putting it that way. Remember, I'm agreeing
that the more evil guy is more evil. We've been there,
done that, right?<br>
<br>
Right, so … ?<br>
<br>
OK, so if we vote for the lesser evil guy every time but
then the two choices are both more evil, there must be
something else we should be doing. And I have an idea
what it is. And we can't do it if we're doing lesser
evil voting. So, I don't want Obama to win. I don't
want Romney to win. I don't imagine that Stein or
Anderson can win. I don't think the outcome of the
election can send a message. I'm not interested in the
outcome at all, because I'm more interested in whether
the people of this country are doing this other thing I
have in mind, and it just so happens that the only way
they can do it is if they are the kind of people who
vote for Stein or Anderson.<br>
<br>
So, you want Jill Stein or Rocky Anderson?<br>
<br>
No. I voted for Stein. Anderson is great too. I don't
give a rat's derriere whether they get 1% or 20%, except
as a side effect. I'm not interested in them, although
I like them both. I'm interested in the millions of
people who are going to vote or not vote and in what
kind of people they are.<br>
<br>
Who cares what kind of people they are if Romney ruins
their country.<br>
<br>
He can't. He can't do it if they're the kind of people
I have in mind. And either Obama or Romney will do it,
perhaps at slightly different speeds, if people allow
them to.<br>
<br>
I don't understand.<br>
<br>
OK, well, let me try to explain. It's hard to put into
a sound byte. Change comes from broad-based popular
movements that impact the entire culture. This is how
we got civil and political rights, how we got workplace
rights and environmental protections -- such as they
are. Everything worth achieving has been achieved by
educating, organizing, inspiring, and pressuring the
government, and not by picking the right portion of the
government to reelect, cheer for, and withhold all
criticism from. Now, you can say you want to vote for
the lesser evil person while simultaneously protesting
him, but it doesn't work that way. Most people's minds
and most popular organizations devote themselves to
lesser evilism on a permanent basis, not just the week
of an election. Obama in 2009 told the big
environmentalist groups not to talk about climate
change, and most of them haven't mentioned it since,
even in the midst of a hurricane. One group mentioned
it and declared that the tar sands pipeline would be
Obama's test, but the price for failing the test is
having that group and its members vote for Obama's
reelection a little less cheerfully. Obama told the
unions and advocacy groups not to say "single-payer
healthcare" and they obeyed, forbidding mention of it at
their rallies, asking instead for a mysterious "public
option" that was then of course denied them. You'd
think it would be hard for people to sell out this way,
especially in non-election years, but they help
themselves along by the art of selective information
consumption. Most -- not all, but most -- Obama voters
have managed not to know about drone wars or kill lists
or the Trans-Pacific Partnership. And, of course, it's
extra hard to engage in serious activism while unaware
what's going on. By activism I mean educating,
organizing, rallying, marching, lobbying, reporting,
editorializing, inspiring, blockading, boycotting,
interrupting, mocking, replacing, and nonviolently
resisting evil policies in the thousands and thousands
of ways available to nonviolent activists. Someone said
to me yesterday: "But Martin Luther King Jr. didn't
start a third party." Of course he didn't. Neither am
I. I wouldn't have wanted him to. I wouldn't want you
to. But he also didn't sell out to an existing party.
He didn't endorse and campaign for candidates. He
didn't tell anyone that voting was the only tool
available, because -- of course -- voting comes far down
the list of tools that have proven effective through
history. And when the voting system is as corrupted as
ours is now, the only way to render it even more useless
is to promise half the candidates that you will strive
to annoy them throughout their terms but never ever vote
against them (unless it's in a non-swing-state and in
small enough numbers not to matter), and if they'll let
you come to meetings at the White House you'll see what
you can do about not annoying them either. Latinos
threatened not to vote for Obama and won some
immigration reforms. Labor unions threatened to bend
over, and Obama kicked their ass. Is this beginning to
make sense?<br>
<br>
So, you think activism is more important than elections
and you really mean it? So when elections get in the
way of activism you want people to change their
electoral behavior in whatever way will make them better
activists, regardless of what happens in the election?<br>
<br>
Exactly! Is that marriage thing still on the table?<br>
<br>
Uh huh. You know what I was thinking?<br>
<br>
No.<br>
<br>
Remember when the peace movement was big several years
ago? I mean, not super big, but big enough to be
noticed?<br>
<br>
Yeah.<br>
<br>
And then the Democrats came into Congress and into the
White House, and it dried up, right?<br>
<br>
Yeah.<br>
<br>
Well, what if it hadn't? What if it had kept growing?
What if everything that went into electing Obama the
first time had gone into the peace movement? What if
the Nobel Committee in its infinite wisdom had given a
peace prize to the peace movement? What if the peace
movement had a billion dollars and a gazillion volunteer
hours to work with? Wouldn't that have been worth more
than having Obama instead of McCain? Wouldn't that have
made both McCain and Obama better or replaced them with
better people and led to a choice anyway of the lesser
evil candidate who would have been even less evil? Or
if it didn't, but the movement continued to grow,
wouldn't it stand a chance of turning things
dramatically around in the coming years, unlike Dr. 47%
or Captain Drone Warrior if left to their own devices?<br>
<br>
You actually understand this! Now I have to ask what
planet you are from.<br>
<br>
No, let me ask you something.<br>
<br>
OK.<br>
<br>
Did you call this "Swing State Pickup Lines" because
"Why Can't You Morons Get This Stuff Through Your Thick
Skulls" sounded less attractive? <br>
<br>
Maybe.<br>
<br clear="all">
<br>
-- <br>
<p>[David Swanson's books include "<a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://warisalie.org/"
target="_blank">War Is A Lie</a>." He blogs at <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://davidswanson.org/"
title="http://davidswanson.org" target="_blank">http://davidswanson.org</a>
and <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://warisacrime.org/"
title="http://warisacrime.org" target="_blank">http://warisacrime.org</a>
and works as Campaign Coordinator for the online
activist organization <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://rootsaction.org/"
title="http://rootsaction.org" target="_blank">http://rootsaction.org</a>.
He hosts <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://davidswanson.org/taxonomy/term/41"
target="_blank">Talk Nation Radio</a>. Follow him on
Twitter: <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://twitter.com/davidcnswanson"
target="_blank">@davidcnswanson</a> and <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/David-Swanson/297768373319#"
target="_blank">FaceBook</a>.]</p>
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