An iconic feature of the PNW scenery is up for sale. It’s a fascinating piece of history, but this particular story about it is embarrassingly shallow and both sides-y. www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news... - ThreadSky

sethcotlar.bsky.social • 7 days ago

An iconic feature of the PNW scenery is up for sale. It’s a fascinating piece of history, but this particular story about it is embarrassingly shallow and both sides-y. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/uncle-sam-billboard-property-is-for-sale-future-messaging-uncertain/

Comments

pnwcoffeeswiller.bsky.social•7 days ago

Oh no...drove by it hundreds of times.

mrsolsen.bsky.social•7 days ago

I could never get worked up about that billboard. It looked like the work of an eccentric old crank. Whether or not you thought it spoke well of Chehalis probably depended on how far you lived apart from the Portland/Seattle axis.

pnwcoffeeswiller.bsky.social•7 days ago

Me too

debookie.bsky.social•7 days ago

I’d just as soon they tore the sign down and salted the earth beneath it.

hahnyock.bsky.social•7 days ago

That guy was an asshole. The sign should have been burned to the ground decades ago.

zoecorgi.bsky.social•7 days ago

Jefferson Davis Park is located just off I-5 near Ridgefield, WA.

cldek.bsky.social•7 days ago

@colleenfrakes.bsky.social WE HAVE TO BUY THE BILLBOARD. I NEED IT FOR. projects

colleenfrakes.bsky.social•7 days ago

Yeaaaah. Yeah we do. We could turn that weird old hate sign into some ART. Should we start a GoFundMe or something?

cldek.bsky.social•7 days ago

Probably!! It's for the greater good

colleenfrakes.bsky.social•7 days ago

Any idea how much it's going for? I couldn't find this listing, and I'll be damned if I'm giving the Seattle Times a dollar to read that article.

cldek.bsky.social•7 days ago

My dad shares his subscription with me (I know!) so I might be able to get in. 🦃

cldek.bsky.social•7 days ago

Ugh I can’t get in. 😾 Will require further recon.

sisterartemis.bsky.social•7 days ago

The billboard was a feature of my growing up in Olympia. My strongly Democratic dad enjoyed picking apart the logical fallacies and factual errors with each and every new message - taught me a lot abt critical thinking.
I'll note that Al Hamilton was at least clever in his language; his son is not.

sethcotlar.bsky.social•7 days ago

My understanding is that most of Al Hamilton's writing was just borrowed directly from the John Birch Society material he read. They were indeed skilled propagandists for plutocracy...which made it even worse.

sisterartemis.bsky.social•7 days ago

I knew about the John Birch connection (probably how I first learned about them) but not that they were the source for the billboards. That does make sense.
From that area down to Vancouver, it's a John Birch world. I don't know if it's as intense now as it was when I was a kid, but it was bad.

j1975m.bsky.social•7 days ago

Good riddance I say.

reganorwegian.bsky.social•7 days ago

Every time I see it from I-5 I flip it off with both hands.

sethcotlar.bsky.social•7 days ago

That sign pumped lying, John Birch Society propaganda into the bloodstream of the PNW from 1967 on. There's nothing cute about that. Imagine if that sign had displayed the propaganda of the Communist Party or the Weather Underground. Would it still be written about as a cute piece of Americana?

sethcotlar.bsky.social•7 days ago

A reactionary white rich dude decided he was going to use the land he owned next to I-5 to erect a big sign to broadcast right wing propaganda...it's like a precursor to Musk buying Twitter. I'm not saying it should have been torn down, but that sign normalized anti-democratic batshittery.

sethcotlar.bsky.social•7 days ago

If a Black person owned that land and put up signs promoting Black Panther messaging in the late 1960s, that person would've almost certainly been driven out of the community (or worse) within weeks. Enough of rich white dudes filling the air with their batshittery while we're supposed to chuckle.

aldercheems.bsky.social•7 days ago

That billboard has always been a little window into Lewis County's politics. Hate to paint with a broad brush but it's not the most welcoming place in western WA.

sethcotlar.bsky.social•7 days ago

This is indeed a great piece offering some context on that sign. https://bsky.app/profile/lestatdelc.bsky.social/post/3llpznwcd4c2n

sethcotlar.bsky.social•7 days ago

The US right gained power from the 1960s on not so much via persuasion, but by getting the mainstream media and other institutions to allow it to set the agenda....to make it feel like a requirement to take seriously entirely made up, but emotionally activating shit like the shit on that billboard.

sethcotlar.bsky.social•7 days ago

When I say that billboard posted right wing batshittery, this is what I mean. How many low information voters saw that sign day in and day out and took it for granted that Americans were dying in Ukraine? That sign was not just innocuous "good fun." It was propaganda. https://bsky.app/profile/sethcotlar.bsky.social/post/3kcjvwzsbgp2e

pennywise.bsky.social•7 days ago

You might not, but I will. That sign should have been vandalized so often, dude would have had to hire security. He's a terrible guy, with terrible opinions.

welcome2absurdia.bsky.social•7 days ago

FOR DECADES

thefascistquestion.bsky.social•7 days ago

I’m nearly 50 and have hated that sign since childhood.

jessaquack.bsky.social•7 days ago

Same and same

billstewart.bsky.social•7 days ago

Wobbly recruiting, maybe, given they were active locally in the 30s/40s.

rainsurname.bsky.social•7 days ago

We know the answer to that.

erikgunderson.bsky.social•7 days ago

OMG we should buy it.

Liberals from Seattle to Portland should form a nonprofit, pool a bunch of money, and buy it to post liberal messages.

sethcotlar.bsky.social•7 days ago

I think there's already a sale pending

erikgunderson.bsky.social•7 days ago

Drat.

erikgunderson.bsky.social•7 days ago

Just imagine what could have been.

tvnred.bsky.social•7 days ago

What’s stopping the anti Trump folks from messaging on billboards?

trustedreveler.bsky.social•7 days ago

They are. This story is about this *particular* sign.

montemerrick.bsky.social•7 days ago

I dont care to read the Times on it, but ive been hating that billboard since i moved to the pnw in ‘93 - ive always hated myself for not lighting it up a la Doc and Bonnie

donhundt.bsky.social•7 days ago

I always love a Monkey Wrench Gang shoutout!

folkefire.bsky.social•7 days ago

That sign’s been pissing me off for decades

justharris.bsky.social•7 days ago

Pissed me off in the 80’s.

amwclark.bsky.social•7 days ago

I had family in Tacoma. We drove I-5 many times.

"That crackpot isn't dead yet?"
"Guess not."

erikgunderson.bsky.social•7 days ago

Turns out he was, and that was one of the reasons we've been reading wild-eyed lies about the American dead in Ukraine (actual count: zero) for what, two and a half years now?

davewithturbos.bsky.social•7 days ago

I just hope it lands in some normie persons hands, I wouldn't be sad to see that thing go...

amwclark.bsky.social•7 days ago

When I was seeing it as a kid was a long time ago. One of the relatives we had visited up there was born in 1876. That billboard's been up a long time.

amwclark.bsky.social•7 days ago

She died in 1979.

stephanie-can-fly.bsky.social•7 days ago

I loathe that sign, but I’m not signing up with the times to read the article.

pejoka.bsky.social•7 days ago

I agree, Seth. The Times article is cowardly pablum, meant to be inoffensive to both the Birchers and to the "libs". Its chalky insipid lack of content pissed me off, but only about a tenth as much as ol' Hamilton himself. I do think that his motivation was mostly to irritate the libs; harkening ...

lestatdelc.bsky.social•7 days ago

There's a really fascinating piece by @leahsottile.bsky.social that intersects with that billboard (which all if use in the OPNW that have driven up/down I-5 know of) but puts it in a very illuminating, and deep context.