Just a quick reminder to everybody--Guerrilla politics

[Jackpine Radical]

If you buy or subscribe to rags like The Nation, the Progressive, etc. (and soon the American weekly edition of the Guardian), why not leave your old copies lying around in places like laundromats, coffee shops, doctors' waiting rooms--anywhere that they might be seen by bored people who would never otherwise look at them.

It's cheap, it's effective, and it will make you feel good.

[Dr Fate]

1. Print up articles you read at DU and do the same!!!

Or a list of anti-Bush talking points...

[StClone]

5. I've done that

I run off two or three articles that may be current or of long term interest (Prescott Bush/Nazi Connections are a favorite) and leave them stuffed into magazines piles.

I rarely hit the same place twice. Anywhere people wait or reading material is placed -- DMV, oil change places, dentists' office. If one person reads them I consider that a success for several reasons. Routine cleaning and removal of foreign material occurs. Most are disinclined to read such political writing let alone find it persuasive.

[TheBigGuy]

2. I like that.

Good idea!

[northernsoul]

3. good thinking, Jackpine

The guys at my neighborhood oil change / lube center still all wear their Wellstone buttons (gotta love progressive greasemonkeys). I think their lobby could use a few old Utne Readers.

[Cheswick2.0]

4. and I doubt they are raving far left liberals either!

they supported Wellstone because he was a popululist, am I right (or off base?)? We need a good populist message.

[northernsoul]

10. yep, ordinary working guys

who knew who was looking out for them and who wasn't. I doubt these guys would know what the hell you were talking about if you walked up to them and starting talking "BFEE" this and "LIHOP" that. Paul Wellstone explained it in terms that made sense to regular people and regular people responded by getting on the green bus.

We need that back!

[Classical_Liberal]

6. Link on the Guardian American Weekly?

I would love this if it were true!

[Jackpine Radical]

8. Link:

http://nymetro.com/nymetro/news/media/columns/medialife/n_8938

Also see LBN thread.

[Classical_Liberal]

9. I have been emailing the guardian with just such a request

since the selection. Thank you Gardian. Now we have to get more cable companies to carry the BBC. I wish La Mond would start translating their paper to English as well. Der Spegel would also be greaty in translation. Kill the media monopolies.

[Iverson]

7. haw haw haw!

I wonder what the local hairdresser would do with Z magazine!

[Augspies]

11. hehehe

I've got plenty of those laying around. I think I'll run some up the the laundrymat

Jeremy

[mdmc]

12. Yup, Good idea

:dem:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

13. And I can testify that it works!

Back in the early 1980s, when I was getting really, really upset with Reagan, aside from being unemployed and having to work for temp agencies, I took courses at the University of Minnesota in order to qualify for student health insurance.

One day I was walking through a classroom buliding when I saw "foreign matter" in the racks that usually held copies of the Minnesota Daily. It was a pile of old Nation mags. Always on the lookout for new reading material, I stuffed a couple dozen copies into my tote bag and took them home. Wow! A whole magazine that hated Reagan as much as I did!

Reading those articles gave me focus and got me involved in the anti-nuke and anti-intervention movements.

Later on, living in small town Oregon, I started leaving my own copies of The Nation in the laundry room of my apartment building. An elderly woman saw me and said, "Oh, you're the one who's been leaving those magazines around! Thank you!"

But alas, it turned out that what she liked were Christopher Hitchens' anti-choice diatribes. She xeroxed them and passed them around in her pro-life group.

Oh, well!