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One of the many signs available at www.billionairesforbush.com
Photo by Billionaires For Bush

by Stephen Mills
Youth Session
Making Organizing Cool: Andrew Boyd, Billionaires for Bush; Malia Lazu, Cities for Progress; Rachel Ackoff, Sierra Student Coalition (moderator)

Andrew Boyd seems to be having a lot of fun holding polluters and corporate profiteers accountable for their misdeeds. 

That’s what struck me most about his presentation today on “Making Organizing Cool”—his use of humor to expose the hypocrisy of his opponents. This is after all the guy behind Billionaires for Bush, the crew who birddogged the president during the last election and whose disarming tactics often had the police and Republican officials believing that they were dealing with a Bush support group. Ha!

Early in his presentation Boyd offered a quote from Oscar Wilde who reportedly said, “If you’re going to tell people the truth, then you’d better make them laugh—or they’re going to want to kill you.”

Good advice for our movement I think, and definitely for me. As environmentalists, our subject matter is so serious, the fate of the planet no less. We’re serious as we deliver our sobering news, our wake up calls for Americans to reform their gluttonous consumerism and misguided support for crooked politicians. In fact we’re so serious and so glum that I suspect that we’re often ignored. Most Americans don’t want bad news anyway—never mind that we’re right.

Well, Boyd has the antidote: have fun by poking fun at your opponents. Masquerade as Young Republicans! Redefine the terms of the debate by hijacking their symbolism.

Boyd and some friends once pretended to be College Republicans to get details on a Steve Forbes campaign event. After gaining prominent positions at the rally, their campaign signs were rearranged to reveal slogans such as: “Billionaires for Steve Forbes…because inequality is not growing fast enough” and “Let workers pay the tax so investors can relax.” Pretty funny. 

I was impressed with the number of official events he was able to hijack just by dressing the part. Boyd said that such pranks can be useful when the media avenues are so controlled and his slide show was a testament to his many successes.

I loved the authentic-looking parking tickets that charge SUV drivers with crimes against the environment, and the “Buy Your Own President” and “One Million Jobs Lost: It’s a Start” placards used in their faux pro-Bush rally.

Boyd has just written a book called the Activist’s Cookbook. I need to find a copy and start having some fun.

-- 09/10/2005 Sat
10am