Posted by BruceLayne on 07/06/09 1:06 PM [Newer: End The Fed Protest In Louisville, Sunday November 22nd] [Older: Rand Paul - It's Happening Again!]

Our Central Kentucky Campaign For Liberty group participated in the Lexington Kentucky Independence Day Parade.  We had Big Bad Uncle Sam and General Motors.  We didn't want to portray Uncle Sam as a lovable grandfather figure because we think the federal government has grown way too large and is a big part of our nation's problems, so we had a Big Bad Uncle Sam on drywall stilts and five large pillows stuffed into a grossly over sized Uncle Sam costume.  He was over eight feet tall with the top hat, and over three feet wide... with a pig nose!  We passed out trillion dollar bills with Bernanke's face on them and the back was a mini-ad for the Campaign For Liberty.  We gave out over 500 of those, legislative action refrigerator magnets, official C4L recruiting brochures, pocket Constitutions, Bill of Rights bookmarks, etc.
 
Here's Big Bad Uncle Sam with five year old Olivia and her mom Ginny as General Motors. Olivia handed out campaign literature for her 2040 presidential bid. She has a very small government platform.  And like Ginny's sign says, "GM Will Brown Nose For Bailouts!"
 

About a third of the crowd of 50,000 didn't seem to get Big Bad Uncle Sam, about a third got it and LOVED the parody of Big Government, and about a third hated it.  A few of those big government advocates heckled us!
 
Big Bad Uncle Sam was loud and overbearing.  He promised people he'd print their stimulus checks out of thin air, but he'd take half of it back in taxes. General Motors was begging him for money.  Bazz and Darren carried a "We're All About Some Freedom In Kentucky" banner.  Wes and Paul carried the Campaign For Liberty banner. Scott and Mike passed out literature to the crowd.
 
I had a good idea what I'd say to the crowd as Big Bad Uncle Sam, but I was surprised that when I was in character, I was channeling some Dave Chappelle angry character (minus any racial overtones and profanity).  I'd tell the crowd: "Hiya' taxpayers!  Gimme all your money!  I'm broke!  And I need a few billion dollars to give to GM for their next bailout!"
 
Kids liked Big Bad Uncle Sam.
 
"Hiya' future taxpayers!  Save your money, 'cause I'll be taxing you in ten years!  You're gonna have to pay for these huge deficits!  It's all on you, little future tax payers!"
 
The kids liked it when I talked to them.  They didn't understand the message, but their parents surely did.  Hopefully, they felt some shame for allowing our non-representatives to give trillions to their corporate buddies and making our kids pay for this corporate fascist socialist travesty.

I'd pick out the couple of people in each group that seemed to get Big Bad Uncle Sam the most and I'd engage them to make it personal.  That seemed to be the best way to get the point across to the rest of the crowd.

"Your stimulus check is in the mail!  I printed them out of thin air this morning, so it's going to cause massive inflation and the rest of your money will be worth less!  Ha ha ha!  I give you a check but I get all the money!"

I'd wave my five foot tall cane at the crowd and yell, "I'm Big Government, and I'm taxing all of you fine taxpayers!  I've grown way too big, living large on your tax dollars.  It's the 4th of July, and you just now finished working to pay all of your taxes for this year!  Ha ha ha!"

As I was leaving, I'd wave back to the crowd and bellow, "Tax ya' later!"

My favorite part was passing in front of the reviewing stand.  Local TV personalities were there, along with some of the city council.  There was a very nice introduction to the Campaign For Liberty, explaining how we're working for individual liberty and smaller government.  Then I swept my big cane across the entire reviewing stand and shouted, "I'm taxing all of you people!"  I pointed the cane directly at mayor Newberry, leaned toward him, locked eyes with him, and I boomed, "I'm taxing YOU mayor!  I'm Big Government!"  His eyebrows shot up and he and the local CBS news anchor had this look on their faces that seemed to say, "Holy crap!  What is THIS?"

Next year, there will probably be some tighter qualifications, with all parade applicants required to submit a description of what their parade entry will be.  We can't allow people to make fun of Big Government like that.  Heh heh heh.

After the parade, we walked over to the TEA party at the courthouse and we mixed with the TEA Party folks and gave away the last of our trillion dollar bills and posed with 912ers who wanted a picture with Big Bad Uncle Sam.

Big Bad Uncle Sam appears for a few seconds, about two minutes into this video from the local newspaper.

http://videos.kentucky.com/vmix_hosted_apps/p/media?id=4914448&item_index=1& amp;all=1&sort=NULL

Hopefully, our dark comedy street theater we got some people thinking about the adverse role of Big Government in their lives.

If anyone wants me to email them the file for the trillion dollar Bernanke bucks with the C4L mini-ad on the back, just send me a message with your email address.

Posted 07/06/09 7:29 PM BruceLayne Lexington, KY

Good picture of Big Bad Uncle Sam and greedy little nationalized GM: http://photos4.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/8/3/8/9/highres_9513673.jpeg

Posted 07/06/09 8:36 PM Son Of Liberty Erie, PA

that is seriously awesome and creative! You should tell other coordinators about your theater ideas

Posted 07/07/09 12:06 PM BruceLayne Lexington, KY

I don't know how to effectively share this to the larger C4L group. I guess the state coordinator sees it and pushes it to the state level, and someone at the national level notices it and if it's deemed worthy, it's given some national attention? If so, I'm surprised it works in such a hierarchical manner. Given the personalities that flock to C4L, I think most people would prefer some sort of grassroots method to push stories into prominence - something like Digg or a voting system where people can give it a thumbs up and that'll make it more likely for others to see it in a prioritized list. The Bernanke Bucks went over very well. People got the idea of the trillion dollar bill, even if they didn't know it's called hyper-inflation, they understood the concept and they were thinking about monetary policy at the most basic level. I wish The Fed was considering the most basic concepts of monetary policy! I think the Big Bad Uncle Sam character could become something of a meme. It's been portrayed in political cartoons, but the time is right for it to go viral. Nothing communicates ideas like thos as well as satire and parody. One well crafted joke communicates more than an hour of preaching about the gloom and doom.