Many coon ages ago ( as we say in the South ) in a small Mississippi town along the
Gulf Coast the Vietnam war was in full swing. Circa 1970. American boys were still coming home in boxes, the Vietnamese were dying both North and South for no damn good reason, and the war raged on with no end in sight. We could see it all on the nightly news, along with the mass protests in the streets against the war.
Well, me and my friend Otis ( not his real name ) at the grand old age of 17 decided to do something about it, if only in a small way. Read on.
One of the main through fares in the town boasted a large billboard for all to see. It was a recruitment advertisement for the Marine Corp ( hey not dissing the Marines here I respect you guys. I just don’t want you sent to die needlessly in a stupid war ! )
The billboard read simply : “Ask a Marine” . Yes, ask a Marine to lay down his life for American paranoia and transnational corporations and financial interests. Sure.
That billboard was too good a target, so one night armed with walkie talkies, a stenciled word poster, and a game plan we went into action to alter the message a bit. “Ask a Marine” wasn’t quite complete a phrase without some additional wording. So this is what we did :
Co-ordinating our move with the aid of the walkie talkies so as not to be detected, we added these words and a symbol which had already been stenciled onto the poster board :
“What Hell Is “ along with a skull and crossbones, all in blood red.
Yes, “Ask a Marine What Hell Is” . Succinct and to the point. It stayed up there a long time.
Why am I relating this ?
As we did in 1970, maybe it’s time we all strike back against all the corporate messaging we are assaulted, bombarded, and buried with on a daily basis, and write our OWN messaging on the very medium which they use. We just take it as if we are powerless to broadcast our own message.
“The words of the prophet are written on the subway walls” – Sounds of Silence by Paul Simon.
That’s fine, but why not REALLY get the message out and write “Pig, Greed, Shame” on those beautiful plate glass windows at your local Bank of America with bright permanent pastel colors ? Or “Starbucks Uses Prison Labor” on their glassfronts with a widetip Sharpie at your local yuppie coffeeshop.
Spray paint “Tax Cheat” on the sign for Hewlett Packard in Palo Alto.
Here’s one “ Eat the Rich… It’s What’s for Dinner ! “ a bumper sticker you can slap on any handy Lotus or Ferrari you might come across. Those are the cars of the 1%. I think a bumper sticker worded in that way would beautifully compliment the rear end of said cars.
Ok, you say, that’s going too far, things could deteriorate into chaos, graffiti everywhere, we need to
maintain civility and decorum so things don’t get out of control.
Well, I say let them get out of control !! Corporate/1% bullshit is crammed down our throats incessantly 24/7/365. But, we don’t own the TV stations, the networks, the media, the advertising, the billboards, hate radio, Fox News, the right wing think tanks, newspapers, magazines, or the happy talk of corporate messaging. But any of us can buy a sharpie, a can of spray paint, or a piece of charcoal.
Imagine this being implemented on a large scale with millions of us engaged in this form of civil disobedience.
But we’re not breaking windows, just “redecorating" them.