Civil Disobedience

Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil.

— Exodus 23:2

Every day I run into someone so turned off by Trump she's dropped out.

Her diversion of choice varies—job, kids, pets, prayer, TV, travel, sports, shopping, art, literature, Facebook, food, alcohol, pills, joints—but not the feeling: "I can't take any more."

No news here.

The vast majority of Frenchmen also did nothing to resist the German Occupiers in 1940. They played instead the apolitical attentisme—the “waiting game."

Not to sound self-righteous, but I was raised by teachers who made us read.

Not only the Bible, but the Constitution. And not only those things, but Paine's "Common Sense" and Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" (the 1849 essay that inspired Gandhi and King).

Thoreau, you'll recall, "raged against the machine," which in his day had invaded Mexico to protect the property rights of Southern slaveholders.

He spent a night in the county jail for resisting (by refusing to pay taxes).

"All machines have their friction," he wrote after his parole. "But when the friction comes to have its machine, and oppression and robbery are organized, I say, let us not have such a machine any longer."

Thoreau's message was clear: don't lend yourself to the wrongs you condemn.

Resist. Rebel. Revolutionize.

"If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth—certainly the machine will wear out. If the injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank, exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider whether the remedy will not be worse than the evil; but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine."

What's your plan for civil disobedience?

You need not copy Thoreau; French Resistors provide many models:

• Heiress Comtesse Lily Pastré hid Jewish musicians in her chateau.
  
  
• Gallery owner Jeanne Bucher held shows of the Jewish artists most despised by Hitler.
  
  
• Mother Cécile Rol-Tanguy delivered secret messages hidden in her baby's carriage.
  
  
• Teenager Jacqueline Marié smuggled political leaflets in her ankle socks.
  
  
• Musician Vivou Chevrillon played her violin every day outside the fence of a Nazi concentration camp.

Did You Know Rachel Carson was Once a Copywriter?

Armed with a bachelors in English and a masters in biology, Rachel Carson landed a temp job in 1935 at the US Bureau of Fisheries, where she earned $19.25 a week writing scripts for a 52-week radio series, Romance under the Waters.

Her boss, Elmer Higgins, and his all-male staff called her scripts "seven-minute fish tales."

But a year later, Higgins promoted Carson to junior biologist, one of only two women in full-time professional jobs at the Bureau in 1936; within 10 years, she became editor-in-chief of all agency publications.

Carson, however, wasn't content only to shill for the government.

Through books and magazine articles published on the side, Carson also gained a large public following. Her 1952 book, The Sea Around Us, stayed on The New York Times' best-seller list for 81 weeks, cementing her reputation for making scientific research vivid.

Her 1962 book, Silent Spring, became a classic.

Hoodwinked

On the comeback trail, disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker hawks high-priced “survival buckets," each one filled with freeze-dried nibblies guaranteed to come in handy at the Rapture.

You have to wonder where Bakker―who fleeces his flock of shut-ins for millions annually―got his gift for hoodwinking.

To hoodwink means, of course, to pull the wool over someone's eyes. But the word comes from falconry, not shepherdry.

To calm a falcon―with eyesight 10 times sharper than a human's―until it reaches the hunting spot, a falconer covers the bird's head with a leather hood.

In a word, the hunter hoodwinks the falcon.

The term is redundant: both of its roots mean to blindfold.

In the 16th century, hood meant to scarf; wink meant to close both eyes.

A 1610 translation of St. Augustine’s City of God included the sentence, "Let not the faithless therefore hoodwink themselves in the knowledge of nature."

Hoodwink came into popular use thanks not to St. Augustine's translator, but to an amateur falconer named William Shakespeare, who used the word over 50 times in his plays.

HAT TIP: Thanks to Ann Ramsey for inspiring this post. Falconry has given us many common words and expressions, including under my thumb and wrapped around my little finger―expressions Jim Bakker no doubt uses daily.

On Labor and Genius

A map of the world that does not include Utopia
is not worth even glancing at.

— Oscar Wilde

Not only will it drive innovation and equality, a universal basic income will spark genius. Or so thought Oscar Wilde.

In his 1891 essay, "The Soul of Man under Socialism," Wilde envisioned a world where automation relieves everyone from work; and a guaranteed income, from competition, "that sordid necessity of living for others."

Spared work and competition, everyone is free "to realize the perfection of what was in him, to his own incomparable gain, and to the incomparable and lasting gain of the whole world."

In a world without work and competition, everyone "is perfectly and absolutely himself"—free to be, Wilde says, an ingenious individual. Poet or scientist, student or shepherd, playwright or theologian, fisherman or child, "it does not matter what he is," Wilde says, "as long as he realizes the perfection of the soul that is within him."

We'd call it authenticity.

Wilde also thought accumulated wealth to be a "nuisance," because its possession "involves endless claims upon one, endless attention to business, endless bother."

Accumulated wealth drags down the wealthy, because "the true perfection of man lies, not in what man has, but in what man is," Wilde says.

"In the interest of the rich we must get rid of it."

How to Build Your E-list

Serious B2B marketers know e-lists are the way to sway an audience (only face-to-face and telemarketing are better).

But how do you build an e-list?

Pratik Dholakiya, co-founder of E2M, recommends these six steps:

Find your keyword. This step separates the winners and losers. Winners choose a keyword that attracts their prospects; losers don't. Winners chose an intentional keyword, knowing it's probably the one most prospects search with, when shopping on line (mine is "copywriter"). Then, they lace their content with it (copywriter, copywriter, copywriter).

Plan unique content. Prospects will part with their email addresses if you offer content competitors don't. Here, substance always trumps form. Prospects want to learn from you, and don't care much whether you provide an e-book, white paper, video, podcast, webinar, template, spreadsheet, calculator, or quiz. Just be different.

Construct your landing page. Think "tiny house." Short and sweet landing pages work best. Focus on prospects' pain-points and the grievances they harbor about your competitors' me-too content. Be sure to split-test your page, to be certain you've chosen the right pain-points and grievances. (Tip: develop your landing page before you develop your content. You'll discover what you're really selling people.)

Blog, blog, blog. Blogging's pure Google juice. You'll not only drive traffic to your landing page, but entice prospects to request your content. (Tip: write posts that explain why your content differs from competitors', but don't crow about it.)

Hammer your audience. Don't sit back and wait for inbound traffic; send emails, early and often. Keep them brief and include "influencers," as well as prospects, on your list. People like to share good stuff, so you'll accelerate your list-building effort.

Rinse, repeat. This step, again, separates the winners and losers. Winners work at list-building, again and again; losers think "one and done." Pick another keyword and repeat the whole process.

BONUS TIP: Kick-start your list-building effort by renting good prospect lists. We can help you.