The Year's Best Protest
Despite its slow start, today came around *BIG* time. For you see, today was the protest against the LaRouchies. A quick note for those not from the UW or otherwise unfamiliar with the LaRouche PAC – essentially they are this cult of brainwashed youth who are paid, housed, and indoctrinated by Lyndon LaRouche. The worst part is the man is more or less a fascist, but they try to appeal to liberal students and lure them in with twisted logic and catchy slogans like “Dick Cheney hates your grandma!” (Yes, they actually said that). They follow you around, call you a fascist if you disagree with them, and attempt to fill your head with lies. Clearly, there is no group more deserving of being satired….



Several of you may have seen this picture this morning. I spent about ten minutes throwing together the one piece of required equipment and am shown here modeling it. Handsome devil, no?



So here we are, maybe 20 strong. Reinforcements came later in the day, but we far outnumbered the 4-6 *actual* LaRouchies.



The LaRouchies were smart enough to just play along, even come over and talk to us, attempting to discover our devious designs, but we steadfastly insisted we were just there to show our support for the cause! To show our unity, I posed with one of those crazy mother fuckers. (Yes, I am aware of the irony in that *I* am the one wearing the tinfoil hat).



Another shot of me staring off into the distance, searching for the Verizon Wireless tower the government was futilely attempting to control my mind with. Futile because of my protective headgear. (This is also a nice shot of the back of the hat I created this morning)



I also did a good deal of outreach to the public, for they deserve to know the truth! Handing out flyers I employed the tactics of our foes, so as to effectively mock them. I followed people for up to 50 feet, just trying to convince them to take a flyer. Amusingly, some apparently had us confused with the real LaRouchies. Amusing because when people mistake us saying “Wyoming is not a real state!” with a real cause, well, that cause seems to lack credibility. Here’s a shot of me in action:



I tried to up the absurdity from what the *actual* LaRouchies say, but this is an incredibly difficult task. My standard repertoire included “Goldfish Crackers are made of people!” (I also shouted this one loudly at the beginning and end, though I suspect the allusion was underappreciated), “What happened to the ‘B’ batteries?! We have ‘A’ and we have ‘C’ but no B. LaRouche will bring back the ‘B’ batteries!” (the theme of another poster shown below)



Another slogan I used was “Dick Cheney is a salamander!” (this is what my sign said, as you will see below; our pamphlets had a picture of Dick Cheney and a picture of a salamander that I insisted were *exactly* the same. I will try to get an electronic version of the flyer and post it here). In this picture, note the *actual* LaRouchies in the back withtheir piles of propaganda.



I approached this one girl with my usual “Dick Cheney is a Salamander” line, pointing to the pictures of both Dick Cheney and a salamander in the pamphlet as proof. This one, though, she challenged me, constantly questioning the basis of my arguments. “What about the economy?” “How are they doing this?” I kept making up the most ludicrous answers I could possibly think of, wondering when she was going to catch on or at least give up. Then this *actual* LaRouchie came over and tried to hijack my answers by handing her materials, claiming my arguments were based on them. I then handed her my last pamphlet as well, hoping she would later realize the truth. Then the guy pointed our my sign said “RaLouche,” to which I retorted that he had just been blinded to the truth since her forgot his hat. The girl ended up rather frustrated, claiming that if I was going to protest I should at least have a point and that all my arguments and answers to her questions were “retarded.” She walked away with the LaRouchie and only *THEN* did I realize that she herself was an actual LaRouchie. Haha, I was so proud to have made her tell me my arguments were retarded…. Ah, the irony. I couldn’t help but feel that I had wasted those 5 minutes though, since no one was even listening in.

[no picture of this, sorry]

One of the personal highlights on the event was the presence of so many of the guys from my fraternity. I had given them a heads-up, but didn’t actually anticipate the attendance, much less participation, of many of them. Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of all 6-8 of us, but I *do* have this schnazzy photo of Joe and I.



As if this day could get no better, I discovered later, through an error on lj’s part, that for my participation I had been ignorantly maligned by a rabid conservative! I feel as though I am well on my way to fulfilling my goal of being slandered on FOX news. I know there is a big jump ahead of me yet to reach the big time, but this was an important first step. If I do end up working at any of my current ideal jobs (SPLC, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, or the ACLU) I think my dream can truly become reality.

*eyes on the prize*