Went out flyering today, six of us downtown, about 3 hours. Went to retail stores, mainly chains, up in malls and that. Intimidating: security guards, cops, managers, big stores (feels surrounded). Why is this so intimidating? Small kiosks, much less so. One person alone in a small nick-nack or candy kind of store, less so. One gets used to it, but … damn. Also not a head thing - one can think it through, reason it out, but that’s not the level intimidation operates on. It’s a gut thing. The branch did some pre-May Day flyering in another area, on two separate days. Generated two calls in response. A friend speculated that the response rate is probably around 2%, I don’t know where he got the number from but that makes sense. I wonder what how those calls break down in terms of outcome as well. Hard work, but good for us to do and hopefully more than that eventually. Vamos poco a poco.
May 17, 2006
… is this so intimidating for?
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Forgot to mention the guy who hassled Jack and I when we were wrapping up, flyering on the street. He started off “are you guys for all those illegal immigrants?” or something like that. Jack said, simply, “yeah.” He got more and more heated. I opted for the “kill them with kindness if there isn’t an icepick handy” routine. Illegality depresses wages for everyone, a country founded by immigrants, etc insincerity and my best earnest face. His rejoinder was that “they” will just keep on coming then, and “we” don’t have enough space and why would I want all “those illegals” coming over here. It was good fun smiling sweetly as he got steamed and stuttering. I’d forgotten how fun that can be, it was one of the high points of this tremendously shit canvassing job I had a few years ago.
“Thanks for stopping sir, have a great day.”
“I hope you guys rot!” as he threw up his hands and stormed off.
“Nice talking to you too sir, thanks.”
“Rot!”
I hope the blood pressure spike gave him a stroke on the busride home, fucking racist scum.
Comment by Nate — May 18, 2006 @ 3:46 am