[Peace] Civil disobedience -- a BOGUS idea

[Durango Mendoza]

I like your idea.

----Original Message Follows----
From: Bill Strutz <billstrutz at yahoo.com>
To: peace at lists.chambana.net
Subject: [Peace] Civil disobedience -- a BOGUS idea
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2006 12:45:48 -0800 (PST)

       The moment has come for civil disobedience.

       Even after Democrats declared opposition to the Bush War in order to 
get elected on November 7 -- and even after they were elected -- American 
public opinion has swung even farther from the War.
       Yet ever since the election, the Democrats have backed away from 
their anti-war positions.  They are going to vote Bush $160 billion to fund 
the war for a long time to come; and (as The Decider and Commander in Chief, 
solely responsible for the conduct of war) he will ignore whatever 
limitations they try to put on the way that the money is spent.
        Why they don't just scale the request down (perhaps just a few 
months' of costs) I have no idea.

       Meanwhile, I've been thinking for a year or more about potential acts 
of civil disobedience.(1)

       A campaign of civil disobedience would have to address officialdom 
whenever it transgresses.  It would have to be ubiquitous.(2)  It would have 
to be totally non-destructive, and non-threatening.  It would have to spread 
like a virus, from person to person, without a deliberate information 
campaign.
       It would be something like a joke.  If a person finds a joke to be 
funny, they pass it along.  Or like a viral advertising campaign.

       Look up "Kilroy was here" in Wikipedia.  As a boy, I heard about the 
ubiquitous Kilroy, and (although I am not a Libertarian) I read Ayn Rand's 
fictional version of Kilroy, the graffiti "Who is John Galt?"

Getting to the point:
        I remember being at the airport recently and seeing the sign that 
says that Homeland Security puts us on an Orange Alert.
        I thought, what if someone made his own little orange sign on it?  A 
round, orange dot that said, "BOGUS"?
        It may take 40 words to explain something, and only take one word to 
deflate it.

        That would be defacing government property, of course; and airports 
are full of security cameras.  But what judge would consider it a severe 
offense if the dot did not prevent the poster from being read, and if it 
could be peeled off easily, without damaging the poster?

        If people see a "BOGUS" dot on a poster, maybe 10% would think, 
"Yeah, that announcement IS bogus."
       And of the 10%, maybe 10% would think, "I know of another public 
posting that is equally bogus."
       And of that 1%, maybe 10% would think, "Those little orange 
self-adhesive dots are available wherever office supplies are sold, and I 
could run a sheet of them through a printer to put the word "BOGUS" on them. 
. . . Yeah, and I could stick some on the inside flap of my coat or purse, 
ready to peel off and stick on."
       That adds up to one person in a thousand.  Nationwide, 300,000 
members of the BOGUS brigade.(3)

        The life expectancy of that first pioneering dot would be perhaps 15 
minutes.  Someone would peel it off right away -- but not before it had been 
seen.
          The life expectancy of the next dot would be five minutes, and of 
the third dot, one minute.  But if it came to the point where an armed guard 
stands next to a sign to prevent someone from putting an orange dot on it -- 
then the guard himself IS the orange dot, proclaiming that the sign is 
widely considered to be BOGUS.

        Think about it.  And if THIS idea isn't good, recommend OTHER types 
of civil disobedience.

        -- Bill Strutz

(1)  I'm a slow thinker but I arrive where I'm going, eventually.  For the 
entire preceding year, I thought about bumperstickers.  I realized that a 
bumpersticker doesn't convince anyone.  What it does is that it encourages 
others; it tells them, "There are more of us than you thought a minute ago."

(2)  Ubiquitous -- Carl, help us out here with a definition.  *wink*

(3)  Note to myself:  "Sell General Dynamics.  Buy Avery."


                                 William J Strutz

   People will be more readily accept your ideas if you say they're Benjamin 
Franklin's
"Whenever you feel listless, take quill and parchment to write one."  -- Ben 
Franklin

PO Box 11464,Champaign IL 61826       (217) 359-0598



















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