Bureaucrash, an international activist group based in Washington D.C., along with members of the Americans for Prosperity, and the Moving Picture Institute showed up at a D.C. premiere carrying signs saying, "Socialism Kills," and "Guaranteed health care is a Guaranteed Failure.

Entire article here. 

More on the Sicko Crash here including photos and video.

One of Bureaucrash’s latest project in defense of liberty was recently featured on NPR’s Day to Day. In the link, crashers are seen outside the Egyptian embassy protesting the imprisonment of Kareem Amer, an Egyptian blogger now imprisoned for his criticism of the state of Egypt.

This story was also picked up by popular internet news site Boing Boing.

Here are the photos of the event.

Mr. Talley said Bureaucrash, which joined the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) think tank in March, aims to influence young people for the cause of liberty by "marketing our ideas in a way that would be more interesting than your standard think-tank white paper." The group swears by viral marketing, a tactic designed to infiltrate markets with a message until it spreads from person to person like a virus.

The Bureaucrash Web site, www.bureaucrash.com, forms the home base for both Web surfers who make 2 million unique visits each year and the 5,000 "crashers" from around the world who have joined the online community. The Web site contains passionate blogs, free, pro-freedom graphics and an online store selling T-shirts, buttons and the like.

In order to use viral marketing, Mr. Talley said, Bureaucrash also makes its graphics available on Facebook, Flickr and the Second Life virtual world and has countless YouTube videos.

"We try to hit whatever is hot," he said.

Mr. Talley, a graphic artist, helps create the graphics so they appeal to Bureaucrash's young audience. His designs are bold and simple, making them prime fodder for the teenage and 20-something culture that eats up retro-style message tees.

The rest here.

Reason Editor-In-Chief covered our coverage of Public Service Recognition Weak:

Did you know that last week was Public Service Recognition Week, which culminated in a giveaway of crap like patriotic frisbees and pins on the Mall in Washington, DC (providing a perfect in its own way counterpoint to last Monday's sick-out by illegal immigrants)? Yes, yes, I know, every week is public service recognition week.

Bureaucrash, an entertaining libertarian guerrilla theatre-ish group (I can't wait to see their street version of Conquest of the Tax Code of The Planet of the Apes), documented the event. Check out the photos here. And then buy one of the group's inspired T-shirts here.

Sean Paige says some nice things about Bureaucrash in the Colorado Springs Gazette:

“Question authority” was one of the bumper sticker bromides behind the counterculture movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. In many ways, it seems as much a retro-relic as love beads, lava lamps, peace signs and day-glopainted school buses with pot stench wafting out the windows.

But aging hippies take note: your tired old slogan is being dusted off by a new generation of activists and rabble rousers, on the vanguard of what might be called the counter-counterculture. Only this time, the authority these young people are questioning is the authority of the regulatory superstate created largely by liberals. And the “establishment” they rebel against is the nutty left-wing dogma that was radical back in the ’60s but has become entrenched, oppressive and mainstream today.

These guerrilla fighters in the countercounterculture are members of the Bureaucrash Activist Network — www.bureaucrash. com — who, like the yippies, hippies and dippies of old, excel at using creative acts of street theater to get their point across. They delight in making steaks of liberal sacred cows.

“Bureaucrash is dedicated to fighting the increase of government control over our lives,” according to the network’s Web site. “Our international network of pro-freedom activists works to change the political ideology of our generation through creative activism. While most youth politics supports the growth of the already bloated government bureaucracy, we fight for personal freedom, free trade and limited government.”

Crashers “believe that bloated, sprawling governments and the bureaucrats and politicians who control them ought to be mocked. Mercilessly. Why? Because when governments grow, our freedom to live our lives as we see fit shrinks. Every time a new law is passed, some bureaucrat squirreled away in a cubicle somewhere gets more power to make decisions for us. And because the vast majority of people have no idea of the lives and freedoms crushed every time the government’s power grows.

“We believe that only by spreading information about this absurd arrangement can the sprawling bureaucracy be leashed and our fundamental freedoms restored.”

If that isn’t a mission statement that will resonate with young Americans — and one that would win approval with the powderwigged, dead white guys who started it all back in the revolutionary era — then the future of freedom in this country is in doubt. The emergence of the network gives me hope that America’s true revolutionary spirit, though long dormant, isn’t dead, and that something might yet be salvaged from the land of the free.

Jason Talley is the network's “crasher in chief,” a rank to which he rose after earning his stripes battling valiantly against a college town ordinance requiring bars to close at 2 a.m. — an act of rebellion of which patriot-brewer Sam Adams would have been proud. After all, can you really be said to live in a free country, and do personal liberty and property rights really mean anything, if bars have to close when the government says they do?

But Talley and other crashers have widened the scope of their activities considerably since then. And it sounds like they are having a blast while fighting for the right things.

At a Greenpeace conference, they embarrassed organizers by revealing that a supposedly solar-powered display was just a prop, actually powered by a gas generator. At a World Trade Organization meeting in Mexico, they set up a “fair trade” refreshment stand that charged patrons more for a “protectionist soda” than for “free trade soda.” At an International Monetary Fund meeting, where the usual gaggle of anarchists were pulling out their mangy dreadlocks, bemoaning the economic disparities in the world, crashers infiltrated the protest wearing “Enjoy capitalism” T-shirts.

They take their crusade for freedom and limited government not just to conferences, but to rock concerts — all in an effort to spread a quintessentially American message. “Historically, activism has been prostate because people looked to government to solve problems,” Talley said in an interview with CEI Planet, a publication of the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute. “Bureaucrash attempts to communicate that government is the problem and that real rebels don’t support centralized government authority.” Younger people naturally distrust the government, Talley says. But Americans, young and old, get co-opted because they look to government to take care of their pet projects.

Talley says “bad ideas” are the greatest threat to liberty today — “Especially the idea that the state can solve all your problems.” He says the group isn’t into promoting voting, political parties, candidates or legislative action. “We want to spread the idea of liberty from one person to another like a virus until everyone is infected.”

The virus seems to be spreading, with the network’s help. Like a plague, I hope.

 

I'll be guest blogging at To The People for the rest of the week which is awesome because it is easily one of my favorite blogs. They said some nice things about me and Bureaucrash so I'm going to post it to my virtual scrapbook:

Welcome TtP's First-Ever Guest Blogger

It's rare when a group of people come together from various points around the world to make a case for less government. Think of the UN, or the WHO, or Greenpeace. More, not less. It's even rarer that such a group might sell some kickass t-shirts. And make fun of big government ninnies.

Yet Bureacrash is all this -- an irreverent network of like-minded people across the globe who abhor and push back against governments that seek to exert force upon them.

Coming to us from Bureaucrash to hang out for a few days while Cicero and I drink incessantly on two sides of the continent, respectively, is JA$ON Talley, the "Crasher-In-Chief" of the Bureaucrash Activist Network. Bureaucrash is an international network of activists of all political persuasions who believe that bloated, sprawling governments and the bureaucrats and politicians who control them ought to be mocked. Mercilessly. In his spare time he likes to drink.

Bureaucrash just merged with CEI in March, and celebrated the merger last week with an excellent party at which I drank many free 22 oz. cans of Sapporo. You can read more about Jason and Bureaucrash in an interview at CEI's website here.

For all these reasons and, naturally, for his work at the Bureaucrash blog, we welcome Jason Talley. And we promise he will tire of us before we tire of him.

Yes, I'm the first-ever guest blogger for "To the People" which is almost as cool of an honor as first female black astronaut. See how much goodwill a bunch of Japanese beer will buy you?

Today's Washington Post covers the Bureaucrash launch party we threw on Wednesday. Here's what they had to say:

One in an occasional series of dispatches from parties you should have crashed.

Hosts: Competitive Enterprise Institute and Bureaucrash Activist Network

Site: Dragonfly nightclub

Occasion: The new partnership between the long-standing free-enterprise think tank and Bureaucrash's Web-based "feisty young libertarians."

Bar: Open! Beer and wine only.

Scene: Youngish, professionalish, hard to peg. Few neckties on the men but few ponytails either. Chatter about organizing a counter-protest against a protest against a biotech conference in Chicago.

Highlight: Free, high-quality T-shirts with provocative hipster-libertarian slogans -- "Capitalists of the World Unite!" "Freedom -- My Anti-Gov"; also one with Che Guevara wearing Mickey Mouse ears.

Overheard: "I don't actually know what the Che one means -- but it's funny!"

Disappointment: No one offered us any victimless crime weed.

Event photos here. Pictured above are Fred Smith from CEI, Amy Argetsinger from the Washington Post's Reliable Source and yours truly.

UPDATE: Here is a scan of the newspaper article.

The following is an interview I recently gave to the Competitive Enterprise Institutes's Planet Magazine:

The Leader of the Bureaucrash Activist Network on Spreading the Ideas of Liberty to a New Generation

JA$ON heads the Bureaucrash pro-freedom activist network—in Bureaucrash’s own parlance, he is the Crasher-in-Chief—spoke recently with CEI Planet on his organization’s accomplishments and what he envisions for the future. In March, Bureaucrash and CEI formed a new strategic partnership to combine the strengths of each organization to help spread the ideas of liberty.

CEI Planet: When, how, and why did Bureaucrash start, and how did you get involved with the organization and activism in general?

JA$ON: Bureaucrash started when various individuals had the same idea and were brought together by the now sadly defunct Henry Hazlitt Foundation (HHF). One group had the resources and the desire to reach young people with the gospel of freedom, the other had a plan on how to do it. HHF had the infrastructure to make it happen. All of the factors resulted in the birth of Bureaucrash in 2001.

I got involved in Bureaucrash-style activism in 2000. My hometown of Gainesville, Florida passed an ordinance that made bars close their doors at 2AM. Gainesville is a college town and as you may know college kids like to drink...a lot. My freedom-loving friends and I thought that this would be a great opportunity to show our fellow students that governments are all about denying them choices. We called ourselves the Liberty Project and raised a lot of hell.

When I moved to D.C. in 2001 I decided that I would either start a Liberty Project DC or find another group with an identical mission. That's when I fell in with the Bureaucrash crowd. I started volunteering with them by building websites and participating in counterprotests. In 2002 they hired me to be the Crasher-In-Chief and I've been battling the bureaucracy ever since.

CEI Planet: Have you found young people to be more, or less, interested in the ideas of liberty than you expected?

JA$ON: I've always known that most young people distrust the government. The problem is that most people have their own pet issue that they want to get the government involved in. Historically activism has been pro-state because people look to government to solve problems. Bureaucrash attempts to communicate that government is the problem and that “Real Rebels Don't Support Centralized State Authority.”

CEI Planet: What are some of the more interesting moments you’ve encountered in your activist travels?

JA$ON: Crashers have a good ability to sniff out hypocrisy. For example we noticed a “solar powered” ark that was a publicity stunt at a climate change conference by Greenpeace to scare people into supporting state controls to stop global warming. We exposed that the solar panels in front were a prop and that it was actually powered by a fossil fuel-burning generator.

It was also fun to notice the shopping habits of hundreds of union workers who protested the Free Trade Area of the Americas because they feared losing their jobs to foreign competition. Earlier in the day we busted them buying tacky foreign-made merchandise at the local Hard Rock Cafe.

CEI Planet: Where have you found people to be the most receptive, and the least receptive, to Bureaucrash’s message?

JA$ON: Well, the most receptive would be when we preach to the choir—self-identified classical liberals. Many of them have joined Bureaucrash and have become “crashers.” They are our core, but in order to create the cultural change we want we realize that we need to reach out to the 70 percent of people that don't have a political ideology. I'm thrilled to report that we get a fantastic response from these people when we attend rock concerts and other events where our generation spends its free time.

CEI Planet: Could you tell us about some of the more creative ways you have found to get out your message?

JA$ON: We've sponsored a billboard that told people that “politics hurt.”

We released hundreds of balloons at a climate change conference with free market environmental messages.

We sponsored a “fair trade” soda stand that sold cold beverages to sweaty protesters for either a free trade (cheaper) price or a fair trade (more expensive) price. I'll let you guess which was more popular.

We attended the Green Party convention and had their delegates sign various phony petitions including one that called on the government to “ban corporate farming” to help solve the obesity problem in America.

I think that the best way to get our pro-freedom message out there is to put our ideological adversaries in front of the camera. We attend a lot of protests and interview protesters to record them saying some very revealing things. My favorite subject is dumpster diving or “freeganism.” If this is “the other world that is possible,” then give me the status quo.

CEI Planet: What do you think is currently the most important issue for young people interested in public policy?

JA$ON: Taxes and Social Security. When you spend nearly half the day working to pay the government you are only half free. I should note that I'd rather that young people get interested in individual policy rather that public policy.

CEI Planet: What’s the most important thing young people can do to stand up for the ideals of liberty?

Question authority.

CEI Planet: What do you see as the biggest threat to liberty in the world today?

JA$ON: Bad ideas—especially the idea that the state can solve all of your problems. This is why Bureaucrash focuses on the culture. We don't care about voting, getting people elected, or passing legislation. We want to to spread the idea of liberty from one person to another like a virus until everyone is infected.

CEI Planet: Tell us about some of Bureacrash’s successes—any moments you’re particularly proud of?

JA$ON: There are tons. I'm proud when people defect from statism and actively work within the Bureaucrash Activist Network to promote freedom. I'm proud when we take to the streets and provide a counterpoint to the louder, larger and smellier proponents of the state. On many occasions we steal their thunder despite the fact that they have better funding and fewer ethical concerns. There is nothing that makes me happier than a making a hippie cry.

One particular moment speaks volumes about Bureaucrash and those that we oppose. Thirty crashers promoted free market capitalism at an anti-World Bank/International Monetary Fund protest. We staged various forms of subversive activism while we all wore our bright red “Enjoy Capitalism” t-shirts. Throughout the protest anti-capitalists expressed interest in buying our extra shirts. Well, being good capitalists we sold out of them. So about 50 anti-capitalists paid us for the privilege to walk around in t-shirts that read “bureaucrash.com” on the sleeve and “Enjoy Capitalism” on the front. On a side note why would you bring your wallet to an anti-capitalist protest?

CEI Planet: What do you see in the future for Bureaucrash?

JA$ON: Our network is getting larger and more active as more and more people realize that they, and not some bureaucrat in a cubicle, are in control of their lives.

We want to continue our growth internationally and have more of a presence on college campuses, which are a target-rich environment to battle the notion of the supremacy of the state.

We also hope to create more web campaigns that focus on the hot issues of the day that our target audience cares about. The nice thing about Bureaucrash is that we are a very agile organization. We will do whatever works to spread our ideas.

Look for us on the front lines of the culture war.

UPDATE: CEI published the interview here.  read more »

Last night I had the privilege of being interviewed by Brian Doherty for his upcoming book with the working title of "Radicals for Capitalism: A History of the American Libertarian Movement. "We discussed the history of Bureaucrash and I recalled some of my favorite crashes. Look for it in bookstores on around Chrismukkahwanzadaan 2006 February 2007. Available for pre-order at Amazon now and better bookstores everywhere.

Marc Morano of CNSNews.com writes the following about Operation Crash Cancun:

Cancun, Mexico (CNSNews.com) - After days of anti-free trade protests at the WTO conference, including a protest featuring nude activists and another involving a suicide, free market advocates responded in kind on Thursday.

They staged several counter demonstrations and street-theater stunts, drawing the ire of anti-globalization protestors and environmentalists.

At a mock awards ceremony sponsored by a coalition of free market groups, actors playing the grim reaper handed out "awards" to environmental groups and other organizations that they accuse of promoting "poverty, misery, disease and premature death to billions of people in developing countries."

The awards ceremony was led by the conservative Congress Of Racial Equality (CORE), an African-American civil rights group.

Billed as "Green Power-Black Death," the ceremony included participants carrying signs that read, "Sustainable Development = Sustainable Poverty" and "Save the Children."

Niger Innis, CORE's national spokesman, presented the first of three awards to Greenpeace for what he called its "million-dollar campaigns against any technology and economic development that could improve or save the lives of poor people."

"For far too long, a lot of the left-leaning [nongovernmental organizations] have had a global monopoly on the debate and discussion involving these important issues," Innis told CNSNews.com.

CORE also gave an award to the European Union for "using its vast monolithic powers to impose self-serving laws, rules, tariffs and subsidies that stifle trade from developing countries."

The third award - named the "Uncle Tom" award - went to the Malaysia-based Pesticide Action Network for "selling out its own people." According to Innis, the group opposes pesticides and biotechnology in exchange for funding from wealthy foundations.

Innis called the three award winners advocates of "lethal eco-imperialism."

"Their opposition to genetically engineered foods, pesticides and energy development devastates families and communities and kills millions every year," Innis said.

The mock awards ceremony drew hisses from onlookers. Two environmental activists attempted to disrupt the proceedings with repeated heckling.

Innis, however, was not deterred. "The extremist elements that tried to disrupt the proceedings were unsuccessful," he said.

Cyril Boynes Jr., the director of international affairs for CORE, said the awards ceremony was important "to draw attention to the destructive and murderous policies of these eco-terrorists, as we like to call them."

But an environmentalist fired back at CORE's contention that sustainable development is harming the world's poor residents.

"That's mistaken. Sustainability is something that contributes to effective development, said Paul Joffe, the director of international affairs for the National Wildlife Federation in an interview with CNSNews.com.

"When development [in poor nations] goes forward in a way that is slash and burn, it results in undercutting itself, so [the premise of the mock awards event] is something that is mistaken," Joffe explained.

Sustainable development is the key to helping the world's poor, according to Joffe.

"It is the poor who ultimately suffer from a lack of attention to sustainability. It is the poor who are suffering and will suffer from the neglect of the U.S. administration on the subject of global warming, and we could go down the list on those issues," Joffe said.

Poor countries don't have to emulate the wealthy industrialized nations, according to Joffe.

"To say that developing countries should not follow the model of the U.S. and of Europe isn't to say that there isn't a way of doing it that would bring the benefits to a wider spectrum of the public but also in a way that is not destructive and undercutting the environment," Joffe said.

'Marxists go home'

Free market advocates engaged in several other demonstrations on Thursday.

The free-trade advocacy group Bureaucrash.com placed fliers on hotel doorknobs of a German environmentalist group to illustrate what it calls the hypocrisy of anti-free-trade groups.

The fliers featured a photo of a housekeeper and noted that hotel maids only make $6 U.S. dollars a day cleaning their rooms.

"While you march against poverty, inequality and the exploitation of workers, your maid is cleaning your room for 25 cents. You benefit from 'exploited' labor," read the flier. The flier then asks rhetorically 'Are you practicing fair trade in your hotel room?'"

"There is a lot of hypocrisy within the statist forces here...during the day they talk about fair trade but [the Heinrich Boll Foundation members] are staying at the Best Western downtown where the maids are paid 25 cents every time they clean a hotel room, so they are not practicing fair trade," Jason Talley told CNSNews.com.

The fliers demanded, "Marxists go home! Stop exploiting our workers!!"

"We just wanted them to wake up and get ready to push their agenda of big government and then see that on the door and hopefully demoralize them," Talley said.

'They deserve the freedom'

Another free-market counter protest included a group of U.S. college students demonstrating for free trade and against environmental restrictions on development.

"EU countries and NGOs are using environmental policies to impose their beliefs on other developing nations. We are here to say that is wrong and that they deserve the freedom, the choice to trade like rest of world," said Gregory Pejic, a student at Tulane University in New Orleans.

The Washington, D.C.-based free market environmental group Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) sponsored the outdoor protest.

"We want to get out to the people that free trade is not a bad thing; it can prevent poverty," said Monica Gonzalez, a student at the University of New Mexico.

"The greens are trying to keep the people oppressed," Gonzalez added.

The free market groups are planning more events to counter the thousands of anti-free trade and WTO protesters.

Bureaucrash.com is planning to sell soft drinks to protesters on Saturday that will feature two prices for the same drink - a cheaper 'Free trade' price and a more expensive 'fair trade' price.

"The socially conscious might like that [the higher fair trade price] provides union dues and environmental impact studies and things like that but if [the protesters] want to save some money they can pay the free trade price and get the exact same product," Talley explained.

"It's a good way to demoralize the enemy," he added.