Jan Tuckley, founder of the 546-member ProgressiveTalk Yahoo list, gave me permission to share his “sales pitch” — from the heart of West Virginia, where Jan lives, not far from the trailer park where Lynndie England grew up.
wandering through the downtown Value City store, which sells mostly
Chinese made products at rock bottom prices. I didn’t really go in
there to buy anything, just to walk around with my “Exterminate Liberal Vermin” Bush shirt.
Anyway, I came upon a shelf with plastic resin figurines of police officers in various poses. They are all around 5 inches tall, full color, and mounted on a base with little felt pads underneath.
One of the figurines is that of a blonde, female deputy sheriff, down on one knee right in front of a yellow fire hydrant,
aiming her semi-automatic pistol with both arms outstretched. Under the
base, the tag was originally marked $20. That was marked out, and the
price below that was $8.00. The $8.00 price was also marked out, and
someone had written $3.95 below that. So I bought it.
So (BELOW) here’s the schtick:
Jan continues:
When I show this thing to someone, I say something like “Look here, what I bought. Isn’t it great?”
If they agree with me that it’s great, or even ask me where I bought it,
I know that I’m dealing with someone lacking the basic critical thought capability to derive much benefit from the routine, so I take my leave.
But if the person looks at me funny, or laughs, then I go into the routine.
First, I say “This wonderful piece of art was made in China out of
plastic resin. Plastic is a petroleum product, and the American company
that does its manufacturing in China probably makes millions of these
things. So this is made out of petroleum.After it’s manufactured,
it’s loaded on trucks that also burn petroleum, which heats up the
atmosphere. Global warming is caused by the burning of petroleum, and
global warming is causing all sorts of instability and unrest around the
world, if not outright violence.The Chinese trucks then take these
things to the docks where they are loaded onto big ocean freighters.
Then the freighters burn lots of petroleum taking these things across
the Pacific Ocean.You know, the United States is engaged in a big war
in Iraq right now, thousands of people have already died, and many more
will continue to die, mainly because the US wants to control the world’s
oil supplies. Iraq has a lot of oil.Then, after the huge freighter
makes it to the port in San Diego, these little gems are loaded on big
trucks that guzzle lots more petroleum, and these trucks carry these
things to stores all over the United States, including to Value City
here in Cumberland.All of this, so that I can walk into that store,
and buy this thing for $3.95 and the store makes maybe $1.00 profit.So
you see, in a way, the manufacture and transport and the ultimate sale
of this thing contributes to global violence and is a threat to peace.
And you want to know the ironic part?When I turn this thing over, the
name of the series this little statuette is marketed under, is called
“Protectors of Peace.”
Jan
