Hey folks… it’s time to play…

POLITEED CALL AND RESPONSE!

Thanks very much to the local Good Day Sacramento TV program for getting this new virally marketed product to my attention. Politeed is a new company started by some Dallas area lady who got sick of working for Verizon and invested her buyout offer from Mr. “Can You Hear Me Now?” and his entourage into a novelty T-shirt enterprise.

Ah but not just any ol’ tees. These are slogan-smeared girths of cotton meant to provoke you and make you generate discussion and shit like that. (You know, like, if you’re old enough to remember, those two toned bold printed “CHOOSE LIFE” and “RELAX” shirts from the ‘80s, but with like, more words.)

At first glance, when CW31’s “Good Day” was shilling / reporting on these things Friday morning, I was a wee bit perplexed at the questions that were printed across the tit zones of these shirts. Questions like, “WHAT WOULD DR. KING THINK OF AFFIRMATIVE ACTION?” and “IS AMERICA THE REAL SOURCE OF THE WORLD’S PROBLEMS?” made me wonder why anyone would want to go out in public seemingly dressing up for Halloween as a typical topic for discussion on “The O’Reilly Factor.” While one Politeed online blurb claims, “We don’t tell you which side of the issue should be ‘right’ or ‘wrong,” this viewer couldn’t help but conclude that practically all of the Politeed tees observed on the TV screen had rhetorical queries that swung pretty fuckin’ hard to the right.

But, y’know, perhaps I’m falling hook line and sinker for the bait, or perhaps I already think and discuss things on my own already and don’t need a 28-dollars-and-change T shirt to trendmonger me into thinking it’s cool to do so. And besides, they’re giving 10% of every shirt sold to the National Resources Defense Council to like, save polar bears and shit. Although, as much as I love polar bears and don’t own a car and have an elf- sized carbon footprint and all that, why would a company claiming to not take a stand on any topic be so gung ho in favor of stopping global warming or even acknowledge that global warming is even going on in the first place?

Anyway, you KNOW that for at least a little while, fate will arrange an unholy alliance, in that, the way that these shirts are being promoted AND the typical American consumer’s sheep-like gullibility will combine to ensure that some significant number of trendoids will be showing up around town thinking that rocking a Politeed on their bod is somehow going to get them laid.

That said, you’d better be ready. And that’s what I’m here for right now, Pilgrim. To guide you on your path. To give you the ammunition to answer back to these folks who think that they are just TOO muthafuckin’ clever to get a legitimate response. Well, naturally, anyone could figure out that the best way to kill a rhetorical question is by responding with another rhetorical question.

So here we go… time to play…

POLITEED CALL AND RESPONSE!

Politeed will now present their questions in italics and I will respond following.

Here we go…

Are gay rights civil rights?

Was the murder of Matthew Shepard a hate crime?

DING! Psycho 1, Politeed 0

Does terrorism require America to rethink free speech?

Did terrorists write, vote on or ratify the First Amendment?

DING! Psycho 2, Politeed 0

Is radical Christianity just as threatening as radical Islam?

Is Arthur Miller’s play, “The Crucible,” based on real events?

DING! Psycho 3, Politeed 0

Is America the real source of the world’s problems?

If America could patent “problems”, would it find a way to make laborers in the Third World produce it for 1/64th what they’d have to pay a legal resident in the U.S.?

DING! Psycho 4, Politeed 0

Okay this is getting boring. One more round just for sport…

What would Dr. King say about Affirmative Action?

Ever heard of Operation Breadbasket?

DING! Psycho 5, Politeed 0. The ref has called the match!

God, that was TOO easy.