Propaganda disposal

Whenever there is evangelical activity in your neighborhood, you will find much of their propaganda littering the ground or stuck where people are likely to see it. This propaganda is of course always misleading, and will be filled with misinformation. And so, it is always best to dispose of it.

The simplest method of course, is to tear it up into small pieces and toss it into the nearest waste-basket. While it doesn't seem like much, it ends up costing them alot. When it comes to propaganda, the evangelical will spend a bundle on it. After looking at Living waters ministry, the American bible tract society, and Chick publications, the average tracts cost between 5-8$ per pack of 100, hence from 5 cents to eight cents a tract.

So each time you tear up a tract, you cost a ministry money, and it is not long before these poisoned little gifts start to cut in a ministry's budget. This can lead to dissention among the ranks in a church, especially when the leadership try paint it as persecution, rather than money wasted.

And so, let us look at clever ways to recycle these tracts.

Religious tract origami
I must give praise to the Japanese culture to have given us a perfect and elegant weapon against propaganda. No it's not a katana, it's the ancient art of paper-folding, Origami.

Origami is not only an interesting way to combat propaganda, it's a way to focus your mind away from their thought-reform techniques, it recycles their propaganda into something artistic and it can be easily taught to others.

And imagine the look on a preacher's face when he sees the propaganda he gave you, hoping to plant a seed with, transformed into a hopping frog or with a little practice, a crane?

Gathering leaves in a storm
This trick requires the assistance of some friends but it can be alot of fun. The evangelists have their handlers distributing tracts on campus grounds. This trick calls for you and your friends to capture as many of the tracts as you can, as they hand them out. This can be done using the following methods;

- Trading the tracts with something useful (whatever articles you can find at a dollar store)

- Making several passes and plucking them directly from the hands of the handlers themselves. - Picking them up as they are being tossed aside.

Once these tracts are gathered many things can be done. Although shredding them and sending it to the nearest recycling bin is what's recommended the most as an "evangelist" could "re-recycle" them. So their destruction has to happen, this will disarm the propaganda.

You can shred them, re-use them as colorful confetti, or wait on a night of a rally, and take the shredded propaganda and anonymously bring it to the rally, for everyone to see, to cause a most disheartening effect.

Chalk Wars
Some Christian Campus groups use "chalk advertising" on the sidewalks to promote an event that would promote their ideology, normally in a "bait and switch format" (see section 3.5.3 for details). And so, things can be done to discourage and ursup this advertising.

Get yourself some similar sidewalk chalk (easily found in dollar stores, and in kid's stores) and a floor brush. With these you can start altering the chalkings or parody them outright. Here are some suggestions on what kind of alterations to make

- Replace the evangelist's website with an Atheist website - "Convert now and get a free Ipod" - Put back some truth in their advertising "We are a jesus-freak nest!!" or "We take 10% of your income on Sunday".

Chalkings can also be used in an a particularly offensive manner as well, one situation that it can be used as such, is if they are planning a "free" concert, is to chalk up the "location" of the concert with iconoclastic imagery. Such as Jesus on a broken cross, or the fish symbol in a frying pan. Make sure they are large and hard to miss, and in plain view. The results will speak for themselves.

Truth in subvert-izing.
With the coming of youtube, the evangelical movement tries so hard to use this new medium as a means to push their propaganda, with instructionals on how to witness, with thinly disguised commercials for some ministries's "products". Right down to what many see as "Diatribes".

Well, one thing they did not expect is that some would be smart enough to download these videos and put them back up, but never in their original form. It can be from the simple "Warning, bullshit up ahead" to the most famous subverting of a preacher on video, the "Farting preacher" (which pre-dates youtube, but is still a classic).

A word of warning
Some ministries will not take kindly to this and will try to have your videos shutdown if not your entire account. The best strategy? Is to have a back-up of all your subscribers. They shut you down, you just get back up. Eventually they will get the hint that your media is not only free-speech but they can parody and it's fair use.