Letter From San Jose

Hey, I just wanted to write about what happened today, it was an amazing experience. As soon as duct-taped the sign to the fencing I got instant responses: I couldnt count all the honking horns, and passers-by who asked what the sign said were all pleasant. I stayed with the billboard until 6:30 when it got dark - the honking stopped so I decided to take it down.

I contemplated leaving but then decided that the sign needed more exposure. I went to a densely-populated area of the city at an intersection near a Church and a large City College. So I stood there on the corner of the street with my massive IMPEACH billboard and within minutes I was getting positive feedback. A lot of dropped jaws, a few "right-ons", TONS of honking cars. A Cop gave me the thumbs-up and firemen were smiling my way... after that I was pumped!

For awhile there I was nervous I was going to get hassled by police or stabbed by a bush supporter or something... but I was never once bothered (a few smug faces not many). I managed to give away all 30 of my burned Terrorstorm and America: Freedom to Fascism DVDs in the process. Overall it was a great experience: it's a great feeling to start getting active and getting your voice out there and I hope more freewaybloggers hit the streets, its a rush afterwards!

-San Jose

How To Get People To Think About Impeachment

Paint "Impeach" on a piece of cardboard.



Place cardboard by freeway.



Repeat.


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USA - 59

Spitoon

Amazing Tales from Joshua Sparling, Pfc

From Around the Country

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East Bay/North Bay

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New York Times!

One of my slogans made it into the New York Times! Hooray!
Story HERE

Veterans for Peace Homepage

Once people start adopting my tactics as well as my slogans, we'll have ourselves a revolution.

San Francisco: January 22nd

My charge seems to be recuperating well, though will be without the use of one arm for awhile. She gave me leave to do a bit of blogging yesterday and I managed to get these up in a little over two hours.


Once you have a city down, the way I do SF, San Diego, LA etc., reaching half a million people or so is simple - laughably so - requiring maybe ten signs and a couple of hours to hang them.


One or two dedicated freewaybloggers in every major city and we'd be able to reach damn near half the country. Daily.

If anyone has any ideas on how to make this happen, please let me know.



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USA - 34

Using Tyvek

Received this from a gentleman in New Hampshire who's posted almost 200 signs using Tyvek, a weatherproof plastic material used for home insulation:

I use mostly painted Tyvek. I use Rustoleum Flat Black, the gloss is hard to read due to reflection. Letters should be 16" high if the sign is to be on an overpass. Short messages are best as viewing time at 65 mph is short. The Dollar Store has been selling 6 packs of crappy bungee cords for $1.

I make the signs 7 feet long so that they fit between two uprights on the chain link fencing. I made a reel holder against the wall in my garage with two vertical strips of wood so that the last sign can be cut off while the paint is still wet and dried horizontally as the paint will run if it is left up there. Cutting off with scissors works best. You don't actually need to squeeze the handles together but just move it up through the material. I put a couple of binder clips from Staples along the top as the Tyvek moves if you paint fast. I've found that fonts with serifs are too hard and now use Arial Rounded Bold and make that bold so the letters are made with 1" lines. I use a sign brush about one inch wide.

I use an overhead projecter on a rolling cart, and change the size by moving the cart back and forth. Apart from fencing, I also hang signs stapled to wooden strips over soundbarriers provided they're set back a bit from the roadway. which are along many highways with residences on the other side. There's usually a road right behind the barrier where you can park and be hidden behind your truck while putting up the ladder (16') and placing the sign over the top.

Pretty much everyone here is armed and red. On the one hand I think they need the message, on the other hand, I no longer want to deliver it personally. When we posted yard signs I had people drive up my driveway and scream swear words at my wife, throw glass jars of paint in my driveway etc.. I've come to see that freewayblogging's a lot safer, and it reaches a Hell of a lot more people.
Yours In Southern New Hampshire

Chicago, New Hampshire, Berkeley

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USA - 34

SF/Marin January 18th

These were posted in San Francisco and Marin on the 18th. I'll be in SF for awhile taking care of a Dear Aunty while she recovers from an operation. Don't know how often I'll be able to get out for freewayblogging, but seeing as I'm ahead of y'all by almost a hundred signs now, I think I can afford to take a break.


Cardboard and paint, people... that's all it takes.





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Really Big Sign in SF

Made this by taping two big boxes together, tracing and painting it. Took about ten minutes. It stayed up for at least an hour during rush hour.


Posted in less than a minute using four long bungee cords.

These were all posted in SF on the 17th.





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Marin County: January 17th

Painted these last night and spent the day blogging Marin and San Francisco. It was a beautiful day: crisp and clear.



It seemed a shame to have to remind everyone that we were engaged in an immoral war, and that the president who brought us into it needs to be impeached...




But somebody has to do it.

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Southern Sonoma County

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Ohio

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When Silence is Betrayal

"A time comes when silence is betrayal...." (all quotes by) Martin Luther King Jr.

"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."

"We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people."

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."

"A riot is the language of the unheard."

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I-5 Between SF and LA

"I submit to you this morning that what is wrong in the world today is that the nations of the world are engaged in a bitter, colossal contest for supremacy." (all quotes by) - Martin Luther King Jr.


"We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."

"I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law."

"The greatest sin of our time is not the few who have destroyed but the vast majority who sat idly by."

"All we say to America is, "Be true to what you said on paper." If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges, because they hadn't committed themselves to that over there. But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of the press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right. And so just as I say, we aren't going to let any injunction turn us around. We are going on."

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USA - 16

San Diego/Oceanside

"When my country, into which I had just set my foot, was set on fire about my ears, it was time to stir. It was time for every man to stir." - Thomas Paine

"In a democracy dissent is an act of faith. Like medicine, the test of its value is not in its taste, but in its effects." - J. William Fulbright

"Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half." - Gore Vidal

"Energy and persistence conquer all things." - Benjamin Franklin



"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work... I want to achieve it through not dying." - Woody Allen


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USA - 16

Ann Arbor, San Jose, Taiwan

Psychomike-o sent these in from Ann Arbor, and was proud to report that the "Troops Home N(ow)" shown above was not one of his, but the work of a copycat. This is the goal of the true freewayblogger: beyond just knowing that what you say will be read by many, the hope that by just putting up signs that enough people will see them so that maybe... just maybe... one or two of them will realize "Hey, I could do that too!"




Our man in Portland sent these in from Taiwan. The sign above reads "Bush: Evil Doer".



San Jose.

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Southern Orange County

Put these up the day before yesterday along the 5 between Irvine and San Clemente. Came back through this morning and saw all but two of them were still up.

People driving through southern Orange County over the past couple of days would think the place was an absolute hotbed of political activism. And they'd be wrong.



It's just one guy with an overhead projecter and a pickup truck full of signs.




"All warfare is based on deception." - Sun Tzu

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USA - 8

Filming in LA

Down in LA working on a short film/tutorial on the art and science of freewayblogging... (Spoiler Alert: Put paint on cardboard, put cardboard near freeway.)

Last year I barely squeaked by, beating the rest of the nation by a paltry three signs.


This year I intend to kick ass.



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USA - 8

On the Road

Oakland
San Rafael


Novato/Pt. Richmond. The Pt. Richmond sign will probably be seen half a million times before it comes down.
Oakland


Berkeley

Special thanks to the Good Doctor Laniac for guestposting while I hang signs.

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USA - 8

Escalation by any other name smells just as stupid

Guest post by Dr. Laniac

First off, I want to thank my friend "Scarlet P" aka the Freewayblogger for inviting me to become a guest here at his blog. My own blog, Dr. Laniac's Laboratory, has fallen into some disrepair since I took on a demanding new job last year. I'm hoping that the responsibility of providing fresh content for this site will encourage me to write more often.

Now, as to the President's war escalation speech last night.

I always try to catch the Chimpinator's major speeches. Not that I think they'll help explain what's going on -- more like I'm afraid my magic Bush decoder ring will get out of sync and I won't be able to figue out what the hell he's talking about anymore. After listening to the latest offering, however, I'm afraid that's just what has happened.

I get the basic level of unreality that must be maintained, i.e. that Iraq=9/11. That whole "Sunni-insurgents-(al Qaeda)-trying-to-run-us-out-of-Iraq-and-follow-us-home" conceit. After all, the man can't admit that the small number of foriegn fighters that came into Iraq after the US invasion don't justify abandoning Afghanistan and spending blood and treasure to overthrow Saddam and find his non-existant nucular weapons of WMD.

So, of course our main enemy in Iraq is Jihadi's and "dead-enders". But we're gonna send most of those new "surge" troops we don't have to Baghdad to clamp down on the sectarian violence, where we're likely going to have to clash with Moqtada al Sadr in a major way.

Magic decoder ring, second pass: al Sadr is a Shia cleric and anti-Iranian militia leader who's party was instrumental in getting the current prime minister his job. At least until Sadr pulled his members out of parliment because Maliki was going to cooperate with Bush. His Mahdi Army is a major source of the sectarian violence in Baghdad.

So, the Bush plan (which is really the Iraqi plan -- seriously, that's what they were saying today. Even CNN couldn't figure that one out) involves the Iraqi parliment that's unable to meet (because Sadr's allies have pullled out and they don't have a quorum) passing a bunch of legislation that'll be really key. And we're gonna crack down on that Iranian influence, because the only people we're not going to be fighting in Iraq now are the Iranian-allied Shia factions (and of course the Kurds who are just waiting for partition).

At this point, my magic decoder ring started babbling about last season's Battlestar Galactica, that Bush was obviously a Cylon, (an incredibly incompetent Cylon,) and how we had to get the hell out of there now. I had to reboot it, after which it reported a serious kernel error and wanted to send an error report to the Department of Homeland Security. I denied its request to do so. (I think it was crying.)

Then Bush starts talking about how we're going to start passing out money to Iraqi's so they have a reason not to blow things up and have confidence in their government. The decoder ring made a snide remark about bricks of cash being handed out by soldiers two years ago with no accountability and how well that worked out. And then it just started repeating "halliburtonhalliburtonhalliburton". I restarted the translation service.

Luckily, the speech entered more familiar territory at this point, allowing the processor to cool and the decoder ring to simply print out "extended pandering about the bravery of troops, gratuitous 9/11 references, calls for sacrifice (for troops entering their third tour of duty, that is, not the tax-cut rich of Bush's base), etc., etc.

I'm afraid I'm not going to make it through another speech with my current decoder. I understand Apple's releasing a new model of iDecoder with a built in phone that will auto-dial 911 if you have a medical emergency from listening to the President. Comforting and likely very popular as the new iDecoder will be, I suspect I need the mini-Cray supercomputer-decoder, though. I'm converting my savings account to Euros so I'll be able to afford that one by the time Bush gives the speech explaining why the "surge" hasn't worked so well. Give it a couple of Friedman Units.
Dr. Laniac

Early Lead

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USA - 8

Marin and Sonoma

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USA - 8

From USA

Call To Action

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USA - 8

Sonoma County

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USA - 1

Why I'm Putting Signs on Freeways

from MichaelMoore.com

The basic premise of freewayblogging is this: when you put a sign up next to a freeway, people will read it until someone takes it down. Given the traffic on today's interstates, that can be a hell of a lot of people. I've put signs on freeways that have reached more people in a couple hours than I'll meet in my lifetime. Believe it.

We've all seen protest signs on freeways before, usually hand-scrawled or spray painted on butcher paper or bed sheets and generally unreadable thanks to tearing or a loose corner flapping in the wind. Signs painted on wood, cardboard or any other stiff medium are easier to paint, far easier and quicker to post and can last practically forever. I can't emphasize this enough: if you want to make signs, use cardboard or plywood. Paint the background white and make the lettering black. If you have extra bed sheets, give them to the homeless.

Over the last four years I've painted and posted over 3,500 signs against the war and the Bush administration by freeways up and down the west coast. Some stay up for hours, some stay up for days. Some stay up for weeks or even months, depending mostly on what they say and where I put them. Large signs placed on overpasses will generally come down quickly, smaller signs attached to trees or peripheral fencing will stay up much, much longer. Signs only need to be as large as it takes to be read and can be placed anywhere within direct sight of traffic. If you can see their windshields, they can see your sign.

The question I'm most often asked about freewayblogging is "Is it legal?" In over 3,500 sign postings I've only been caught by police seven times, and each time with no consequence beyond having to take down the sign. Given that I pick the time, place and manner of posting, the legality almost doesn't matter: I could do this for a hundred years and not get caught. If it ever comes to it though, I'm fully prepared to defend my actions in court. When the founding fathers of this country gave us the right to full and unfettered free speech, they didn't do it as a nicety or some sort of window dressing, they did it so that any citizen could sound the alarm to as many of their fellow citizens as possible during a time of crisis. I speak out against this administration, its war and its policies because I believe they're doing irreparable damage to my country. I use the freeways because that's where the people are.

If you want to send a message to half a million people tomorrow, here's how you do it: Paint about ten signs, stick them in your car with some bungee cords and duct tape, drive to a large city, and stick them up on fencing next to freeways. Be strategic in your placement: use fencing that's easy to see but difficult to reach. The freeways are filled with places where a fence that's only fifty feet away would require miles and miles of driving to actually get to. Finding those places is where the real sport of it -- the fun-and-gamesmanship of freewayblogging -- comes into play. I can't tell you what it's like to stick up a sign that says "The War is a Lie." in front of hundreds of people knowing, like they do, there's not a damn thing anyone can do to stop you. Apart from actual prisoners, you won't find a more captive audience than people stuck in traffic.

The only feeling I can think of that's better is the one I get when I drive by three days later and see the sign is still there. That feeling, the one you get seeing a sign you put up days before, knowing that a couple hundred thousand people saw it too... that feeling is indescribable. Once you've experienced it though, you'll know why I do what I do and why I'm trying so hard to get others to start doing it too.

There's a cancer growing on our society: you can see it on TV, you can hear it on the radio and you can read it in the papers. It's not the poison that they preach, though that's bad enough, it's the fact that by having monopolized the political dialogue they've taught us to believe that we, as individuals, are voiceless... our opinions meaningless. To an extent the left has been guilty of this too: our constant emphasis on "organizing" has led us to believe that we can't have any sort of meaningful impact unless we act as a group. This is bullshit.

It's 2007 now and if you want to speak out against the war or you want to impeach the President and you want to reach half a million people by 2008, start organizing now. If you want to do it by noon tomorrow, go find some cardboard and some paint. That's all it takes.

http://www.freewayblogger.com

WOW!

Ocean Beach, San Francisco

Friday Bunnyblogging

Meet Albert and Emily!

News Item

Bush Claims Right to Check Nation's Mail, Underwear

WASHINGTON - President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping powers to check American's mail and underwear without first obtaining a warrant. Bush asserted this authority in a signing statement attached to December's postal overhaul bill, causing a minor uproar on Capital Hill. "I'm all for fighting terrorism, and for giving the President all the tools he needs in that fight." said Representative Henry Waxman D-Los Angeles, "But to have him going around and checking everybody's underwear? That just seems ridiculous."

White House Spokesperson Tony Snow answered an avalanche of questions concerning Bush's controversial new authority. "I know it sounds strange," he said in today's press conference, "and there's a lot of people out there who want to turn this into some kind of weird, fetishistic thing the President has for America's underpants, and nothing could be further from the truth. The President's number one duty is to protect the American People, however he sees fit to do so and that's all there is to it."

Several psychiatrists were quick to agree that the President's motivation, if not entirely based on security concerns, was probably not sexually based either: "The President and the American People are suffering a highly dysfunctional relationship these days, filled with anger, resentment and frankly, disgust... and it runs both ways. Bush's desire to check our mail and underwear doesn't stem so much from the need to actually do it as it does the need to show us he can. These sorts of control issues are typical in almost all abusive relationships."

Political observers from both parties, while mixed on the constitutionality of signing statements and the political wisdom of sexually humiliating the entire American public, did agree that it worked on Clinton.

Peace on Earth

"Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man." - Mahatma Gandhi

"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." - Bertrand Russell



"He conquers who endures." - Persius


"Start your own revolution and cut out the middleman." - Billy Bragg

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FB - 1148 (Final)

Busy Day Part Three

"It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult." - Seneca

"Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich." - Sir Peter Ustinov


"America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy." - John Quincy Adams

"The last of the human freedoms is to choose one's attitudes." - Victor Frankl

"The big thieves hang the little ones." - Czech proverb

USA - 1145
FB - 1137

PT Cruiser Calls In

When I was out blogging I got a call from PT Cruiser saying he'd just seen one of my signs: "It was out on the 280: 'Peace on Earth.'"

"One of many, let me tell you... I've hung something like thirty signs so far today. You should see the 101 in Marin... it looks like a goddam art project. Wait a sec... what're you doing?""


"Just thought I'd hang a couple of signs... "
"YOU BASTARD! I'LL KILL YOU! I'll kill you myself! How many are you putting up?"

"Just a few... not many."
"Well, I've taken all the good spots... bastard! C'mon, how many?"
"Maybe five or six... not many. Just wanted to keep you honest."
"I hate you. Happy New Year."
"You too. Don't worry, you'll make it."
"You're killing me. You know that, right?"


USA - 1145
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Busy Day Part Two

"The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were." - John F. Kennedy

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." - Galileo Galilei

"The finger pulls the trigger, but the trigger may also be pulling the finger." - Dr. Leonard Berkowitz


"The hottest fires in hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in times of moral crisis." - Edmund Burke

USA - 1139
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Busy Day Part One

"A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny." - Alexander Solzhenitsyn


"We must be prepared to make heroic sacrifices for the cause of peace that we make ungrudgingly for the cause of war. There is no task that is more important or closer to my heart." - Albert Einstein



"Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creative." - Charles Mingus

"Man is free at the moment he wishes to be." - Voltaire

USA - 1139
FB - 1114