guerrilla tactics - squared

(This update covers the first and second of November.)

  On Wednesday, I arrived on the square around noon, and skipped diagonally across it to my post opposite the anti-choice crowd, leaping high in the exact center to click my heels. Once entrenched, I bowed to them, low to the ground and proper-like, to initiate the day's bout. Among my counterparts were new faces, most of them boring except for the blatantly sex-deprived young man who recited his religion's slogans at high volume, continuously. There was also a curious older man who walked up carrying a cane and pushing a wheelchair (briskly), only to sit in his device and to prop his PRAY TO END ABORTION sign on his seemingly all-too-functional legs.

  My dear readers, the foes of freedom are pulling out all the stops in their battle against the right of the American adult to make a decision. While their minor offenses of blatantly and continuously obstructing foot traffic on their staked-out sidewalk and of jaywalking in full view of the world (to escape proximity to me), their major offense is their continued struggle to force the American People to live according to one set of religious rules among the thousands practiced here every day. Such actions, honored friends, constitute religious oppression by any rule and measure. Hence, my newest sign, END THIS RELIGIOUS OPPRESSION.

  Regarding the name of this article, my guerrilla tactics have proven very effective. (I would like to thank Sun Tzu, and Mao Zedong.) Instead of just waving at the people who give me thumbs up, I have begun waving at everyone who honks or waves, without exception. This has led to a general decrease in honking, and to many upset anti-choicers who try to convey with any hand signal but the middle finger that they in no way support me. This has also led drivers who happen to be watching to think that I am waving back at my supporters, which helps them to override their fears, whereupon they give me a nice broad smile or a secret nod of approval.

  As I am taking from my opponents their (open) public support, so have I taken their slogans. My signs, (DEFEND FREEDOM | END THIS RELIGIOUS OPPRESSION | WHAT'S NEXT? PRAY TO END FREE SPEECH), when used properly, in thirteen words are capable of changing the mind of the wary passer-by, whom I can watch evolve from impartial spectator to full-blown, horn-honking supporter. If I am lucky, I actually witness the beginning of long and potentially deal-breaking conversations between romantic couples who probably should have talked about the whole abortion thing before they read it on some crazy guy's signs.

  As an effort to maintain a level of self-mockery, I always come dressed in different costumes. This confuses my foes and robs them of the power to offend my pride. (Pride is a huge factor in participatory democracy: maintaining a stable emotional state is crucial, so my distinctive lack of self-respect is really coming in handy.)

  In line with the ancient tactics of long-deceased military minds, I am flexible where my foe is stagnant, my message fresh, entertaining, attention-getting, their message one-sided, fixed. I have side-stepped the false prizes my counterparts have offered (calling the cops of them, responding physically to harassment by priest or parishioner), striking instead boldly to the crux of the issue. One of the most important victories I have won is the ability to control the dialogue. By addressing my opponents directly (when they are trying so hard to ignore me, and to shut me down), and by cutting to the honest core of the issue, I have exposed the cruel, thinly-veiled heart of their message: YOU WILL BOW TO OUR GOD. To force the American People to live according to the rules of one god in particular is to rob us completely of our freedom. If we ease off, and allow religious fanatics to erode just one of our Constitutional rights (such as a woman's right to her body, which is her property), we will forsake all of our rights, we will destroy our inalienable protections, and we will make a mockery of a once free People.

  I was in the middle of my dramatic farewell bow, when, righting myself, I turned to find a quasi-homeless man (with whom I have spoken previously) smiling at me from a few feet away. “Why don't you leave those poor crazy people alone?” he said. A note to the anti-choicers: if homeless people are calling you crazy, then your message is in serious trouble. Our foes are shaken, their position increasingly untenable.

  Long live the forces of freedom!

Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

counter-protest | assault on the square

  In keeping with the horrendous pagan tradition known as Halloween, today I dressed up in a fine cashmere loden (cloak) and a nice, pointy felt hat, to keep me warm out on the square in downtown Hanover, Pennsylvania. My new sign for this heathen holiday: WHAT'S NEXT? PRAY TO END HALLOWEEN opposite KEEP DEMOCRACY MESSY.

  In addition to the usual jeers, middle fingers, and cautious votes of confidence, I was approached by a skinny, middle-aged man who claimed that freedom of religion means freedom to worship Jesus, not freedom to worship any other god (Satan). I told him he was wrong about that, and about his claims that the Quakers founded America (we were founded in 1776, by the 2^nd Constitutional Congress), whereupon he battered me (by tapping me on the arm with his cheap little fake-leather notebook). Immediately I sprung back out of his reach, lambasting him for violating my person and saying, “If you assault me again, sir, I will defend myself.” He laughed and scoffed and looked around to see if anyone else had witnessed his foul act, mocking my anger at having been touched without consent. He claimed to have at one time been a Marine, and said that he was about to beat the crap out of me.

  He called me a pussy (I agreed), and a faggot (I agreed), and I invited him to kindly go fuck himself somewhere else, but he stuck around to make fun of me and to try to block my sign with his body. “Why are you assaulting their freedom of speech?” he asked, to which I responded that I was doing nothing of the sort, rather that I was defending the rights of the women of America to decide for themselves what to do with their bodies, and with things growing inside their bodies. When he would not budge, I started singing my nonsense song about vaginas and wombs and keeping your business out of them, which sent him skittering across the road to safety.

  He talked to each of the anti-choice protester in turn (no doubt recounting his terrifying encounter), and when a police cruiser drove past (they drive past every few minutes now) he pointed at the officer and yelled at me to report his criminal conduct. I responded by smiling and nodding my head at him, so he gave me the finger, and fled into a nearby shoe store.

  With my new signs – WHAT'S NEXT? PRAY TO END FREE SPEECH and WHAT'S NEXT? PRAY TO END HALLOWEEN – I think I have been getting my message through to the disinterested drivers who pretend to ignore the sign-war on their square. The gist of my struggle is this: if we let the forces of moralistic and religious conservatism destroy one of our freedoms (that being liberty, or the ability to decide what to do with your own body), all other freedoms (speech, assembly, religion, &c) will be taken from us as well.

  Hence my other new sign, KEEP DEMOCRACY MESSY, to remind the People that counter-protest is vital to the healthy functioning of a true democracy in that, as an organic reaction to a well-organized and well-funded juggernaut of religious oppression (40 days for life), it provides a plurality of opinion.

  Stand up. Speak out. Challenge everything.

Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

counter-protesting | complainers beware

  The snow had been falling since dawn, and when I arrived on the square today, I was ill prepared for the sopping cold (much like the young girl who had been forced by her mother to stand outside in the driving rain). Unlike Friday, a day on which two separate grandmothers gave me the finger, today as I was standing out in the slanting snow, my fingers freezing, my sleeves dampening quickly, today we made some progress.

  At least two separate drivers flipped off the anti-choice crowd (without even attempting to show me their support), and at least four rolled down their windows to tell me how much they appreciated my efforts. Nonstop they came, the thumbs up, the shouts and the honks supporting my damp pacings. The signs I carried today: ANTI-CHOICE = ANTI-LIBERTY | NO ROSARIES IN MY OVARIES | I HEART PLANNED PARENTHOOD | NOT YOUR BODY? NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. One old man rolled down his window to call me an asshole after I had switched to the No Rosaries sign, which also garnered constant attention from the two anti-choice protesters hardy enough to stand out in the freezing slush.

  As soon as I started singing a nonsense song about ovaries and vaginas and keeping your business out of them, the lone remaining pro-lifer all but ran to his car, and fled. When I reached my own car, I had to shake an inch and a half of snow off of my cowboy hat, and my poncho (upon which are portrayed dueling cocks) was soaked nearly through.

  The estate was a mess, branches sagging over the road under the heavy snow, some having fallen already to block the narrow country lane that runs past the house. I dragged them out of the way, trimmed the low-hanging branches, and high-tailed it back to the neighbor's house, where they had the heat cranked up high enough to dry my soaking clothes. Not long after I arrived, the family's teenage son (with whom I play mad video games) left the house unexpectedly. He returned after a short interval, shook the snow off his clothes, and recounted excitedly what had just happened.

  Apparently, the organizer of the anti-choice demonstration (who lives a few doors down from him) had approached him to ask if I was in fact the individual out on the square counter-protesting. He said she complained about the offensive nature of my signs, about a sign that supposedly read, KEEP YOUR PRAYER HANDS OUT OF MY VAGINA (thanks for the great new slogan!), and that she grilled him about everything from my motives to my motivation. He claims to have stonewalled her thoroughly; similar the claims of his father, who was also approached by this woman, and who claims to have denied knowing anything about anybody.

  I have one piece of advice for the anti-choice crowd: next time, before you call the cops because you are offended by the public mention of a medical term (vagina), consider that your attempts at intimidation might cause the person on whom you snitched to resort to more colorful and creative terminology, words that you might decide offend you more. If the pro-lifers had just let me hold my vagina sign, I would have probably left it at that; since they ratted me out, I have made a new sign every day, with new and daring slogans that challenge the people of this small town to question why this struggle is playing out on their sad little square.

  I have the local ACLU chapter on speed-dial, primed and ready to go. The smell of escalation is in the air, and it reeks of excitement. I will fight to the last to secure the Blessings of Liberty for the people of America, and to keep speech free. Hence my new sign for Sunday:

WHAT'S NEXT? PRAY TO END FREE SPEECH

  Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp