An idea that has finally gained international traction following its adoption and promotion by the most excellent artist Joe Skaggs (see link at end)

I promised its return and here it is as before but now as an actual live event that anyone can join.

There are 34 million adults living in Ukraine, adults defined as being over 18 years of age.

My idea is to present each of them with a replica mask of Russian leader Putin. The masks would fit over the entire head; composed of a flexible latex type material, and be highly realistic.

Once a week, The Million Putins march would take place in Kiev, and other cities would be invited to organise their own similar events to generate a global response to Putin's mad antics. (this is now about to go live)

Participants would be encouraged to carry out a variety of choreographed, mass participant performance acts in the guise of Putin, such as:
Bad Juggling With Furniture
Getting Stuck Under The Pole Limbo Dancing
Bucket Feet Ballet
Burning Bagpipes Orchestra
and of course The Toast Scraping 5k Race

A tiktok channel with the hashtag Root'n-Toot'n-Putin will naturally be unleashed to record, entertain and encourage even more nonsense and ridicule.

And finally it's over to you to join in by following the link and downloading your own Putin mask.
-- xenzag, Mar 23 2022

Download Your Own Putin Mask https://joeyskaggs....he-spread-of-putin/
join the protest against Putin's genocide in Ukraine [xenzag, Mar 23 2022]

Call for global protest https://www.washing...al-protest-ukraine/
[xenzag, Mar 24 2022]

the edgy comedy of Sunflower seeds https://www.theguar...sian-soldiers-video
[Sgt Teacup, Mar 24 2022]

Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK for posting ‘offensive’ tweet https://www.theverg...-moore-joseph-kelly
[Voice, Apr 02 2022]

Can you explain the toast scraping thing? Try as I might, I cannot work out what you might mean by that.
-- 21 Quest, Mar 23 2022


Scraping toast is what you do when you've burnt your bread but can still save the remains if you scrape off the burnt bits. It makes a great noise and when many people do it together it becomes another act of inexplicable non-sense to confound those (like Putin) who are incapable of understanding creativity or humour or humanity (in spite of a certain someone describing his invasion as a genius act) Putin is in actual fact a total moron who will go down in history as one of the biggest idiots to ever get into a position of power. Every time you scrape the burnt black stuff off your toast, think of Putin's idiocy.
-- xenzag, Mar 23 2022


Putin clearly doesn't give a shit. Do something useful instead.
-- Loris, Mar 23 2022


I always thought that halfbaked ideas were the opposite of being "useful" so I think I'll stick with generating nonsense in the face of a psycho war criminal. It just seems like a natural reaction to me. I'm actually hugely complimented that a real genius (Joey Skaggs) is in complete agreement. It's just a little bit sad how sensible, predictable, domesticated, humourless and negative the halfbakery has become.
-- xenzag, Mar 23 2022


One minute you're calling it genocide- the next, treating it as something to be silly about.
I've got to admit I don't see the fun in an active, bloody and worsening war.

You once complained a great deal in an idea I had because someone had been murdered a couple of years previously under entirely unrelated circumstances. Since this is a) vastly higher in death-toll, b) much closer in time, and c) actually related, why don't you explain to me why this isn't about a billion times worse?
-- Loris, Mar 23 2022


You do realize, of course, that Putin will ban all toasters outright once he realizes that they're being used as a tool of sedition? [+]
-- 21 Quest, Mar 23 2022


See last link
Zelensky, who has become a venerated figure inside Ukraine and out, called for a global protest on Thursday, urging people everywhere to take to the streets and denounce Russian aggression. “Make yourself visible and heard,” he said in English during the multilingual video address. “Say that people matter, freedom matters. Peace matters. Ukraine matters.”
-- xenzag, Mar 24 2022


I was missing the metaphor, but now I see it as a way to scrape way the vision people are seeing of Putin instead of Jesus.
-- 4and20, Mar 24 2022


//One minute you're calling it genocide- the next, treating it as something to be silly about.// There is no greater weapon than humour and ridicule as there is no defence against it. Putin is a caricature; an idiot drilling a hole in the bottom of his own boat because he wants to have a fountain to watch.
-- xenzag, Mar 24 2022


censorship, via deleting and reposting ideas [-]
-- Voice, Mar 24 2022


//There is no greater weapon than humour and ridicule as there is no defence against it.//

You mean, apart from not allowing the population to see or hear it? Because that's a pretty good defence.
-- Loris, Mar 24 2022


In the modern era of Starlink and VPNs is it really? Even in the old times there's that joke about the man who asked for a Pravda three times.
-- Voice, Mar 24 2022


[+]

The only effective cultural* response to bullies and tyrants is true comedy, the kind that exposes the bratty-child belligerence of the bully's actions.

This is why the only folks who can tell the balanced, all-3-sides** of truth these days are the satirists and comedians, and it is why they are our way forward.

Insanity: Bashing people over the head, blowing up stuff, and sanctioning the common people hasn't worked so far, let's do it again.

Sanity: Let's employ our international powers to stop crime*** while simultaneously using healthy humour and smart satire to take the intellectual legs out from under the bully.

*Yes, violence, guns etc. are used by 'cultures', but in this case 'cultural' means the thinking/believing part of a group of people.

**Points of view: 1. yours, 2. mine, and 3. what really happened.

***A combination of 007-type subterfuge, cyber-hacking, power grid tomfoolery, freezing oligarchs' assets, and similar. TNT may be required for some of these actions, but didn't a 75 year old woman with a shovel disrupt Internet in 2 nations? So, shovels are a powerful tool, just like sunflower seeds (see link).
-- Sgt Teacup, Mar 24 2022


How much do your flexible latex "highly realistic" putin heads cost?
Let's suppose £10 each, which seems to be on the low side of low-end consumer-grade full-head masks on Amazon.

This means your scheme costs 3 Billion (for 300 million masks, distribution, etc).

I propose we take this money, and instead do something which might actually make a difference.

Russia is apparently paying Syrians $7,000 each to join Russian troops in the war. That's pretty cheap. How about we start a bidding war, and hire Syrians at $7,500 to join the humanitarian effort and other support roles in Ukraine.

Syrians should prefer this offer - more money for less risk.

Russia says it has signed up 16,000 recruits... well we can afford over 500,000 with your 3 billion quid, at these prices.

So the Russians would have to raise their prices. But if they do- so do we!
-- Loris, Mar 31 2022


// This is why the only folks who can tell the balanced, all-3-sides** of truth these days are the satirists and comedians, and it is why they are our way forward.//

Which is one reason freedom of speech must not be constrained. Looking at you, dear ol' England.
-- Voice, Mar 31 2022


//Which is one reason freedom of speech must not be constrained. Looking at you, dear ol' England.//

what?
-- Loris, Mar 31 2022


re. Voice's link (Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK for posting ‘offensive’ tweet):

Yeah, that does look concerning. I guess I have a few contradictory feelings about that. While the punishment given isn't life-changing (it's unpaid work arranged outside your work hours if employed, so perhaps one day a week for 20 weeks) - it's still pretty significant. and for a tweet in poor taste deleted within 20 minutes I'd say it was extremely harsh. I'd say the issue isn't so much the law as perhaps the tendency to give punitive punishments 'as deterrent', essentially at random from the point of view of the recipient.
I can't say I'm completely happy with the situation, but it's not completely Orwellian.

Regardless, I'm not convinced the UK is actually less free with respect to speech than the USA in practice. "Free speech" is only a thing in the US for your interactions with the government, and it has much more of a problem with cancel culture.
Furthermore, America's obsession with the embodiment of free speech seems to have quite a few deleterious consequences.

If you look at, say, the human freedom index 2022, you'll see that the UK is just above the USA. If you look at the constituents of that metric, the UK does rather better on personal freedoms, and worse on economic freedoms. I think to some extent these two are in conflict - if you introduce a law regulating how businesses can interact with people, the former is increased and the latter decreased.
I think the take-away from that is the UK (and the USA) are both pretty free by current standards. I wouldn't worry too much hearing about one single aberrant judgement, I'd worry if there were reports of lots - or none.
-- Loris, Apr 04 2022



random, halfbakery