Woody Guthrie pencils

These Woody Guthrie-themed pencils are emblazoned "This Machine Kills Fascists," the motto Guthrie famously inscribed upon his guitar. Not sure how they compare to Blackwings, though!

These machines kill fascists (Thanks, Sara the Teacher!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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ill lich

No Pete Seeger “this machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender” pencils?
- Cazmonster
  
  Testify – I would by dozens of them.
marccc

http://www.marccocchio.com/2010/05/this-machine-kills-fascists.html

Very related: not spamming.
Michael

I felt like a dumbass after opening the package. I bought these as a gift for someone. I opened the package and the wood was not a rich as it seemed in the photo. That is not made me feel bad. I thought I was buying this from a mom and pop kind of place. “Three guys in Brooklyn who come up with ideas and make them happen……..” I guess that is true if they make everything in China. The bottom of the wood box has a sticker that says “Made in China”. I bummed me out especially since it cost so much for me to buy and cost so little for them to make. Buyer beware I know but I feel taken advantage of. That said, I am happy to have them but am waiting for the day I run into once of these guys on the street in Williamsburg fixing a flat on a fixed gear bike :)
travtastic

I think it would be more accurate if they read “These things kill trees.” Or maybe “This slogan makes you pay $22 for $.50 worth of pencils.”

Short of being used to stab actual fascists in the eye sockets, they’re writing implements. And being analog, they don’t even disperse useful or radical ideas very efficiently.
Anonymous

And here’s Pete Seeger’s banjo, lettered “This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender”: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joeholmes/2895822637/
huntsu

The link is bad. I would buy a million. Or a dozen.
knijon

http://www.youandmetheroyalwe.com/prod-facistpencils.html
braininavat

So are these pencils so tough that a sharpened one will pierce bullet proof Kevlar? Will they be confiscated from protesters at the next G20 meet-up? I guess they would last a long time under normal usage, rarely need to be sharpened.
Cory Doctorow

@huntsu: thanks — my typo. Stupid jetlag!
ret3

Is it ironic that it’s basically a bundle of sticks?
- Anonymous
  
  Double applause!
- mdh
  
  in, ahem, little boxes made of…
- soubriquet
  
  Applause!
- Anonymous
  
  Yeah, even more so if they came with a little ax for sharpening.
Anonymous

If only it were true.
Brainspore

I guess you could just use them to stab fascists in the neck, but it might be more effective to use a tactical pen.
Flying_Monkey

They’d kill fascists if you stabbed them really hard in the right place with one. The eye maybe. And it’s certainly cheaper than wrecking your gee-tar smashing it over the bonce of one of those boneheads.
soubriquet

Of course, Woody Guthrie’s guitar notably killed the grand total of …. not so much as one single fascist.
It’s a pointless slogan.

If we take it as… “Woody Guthrie’s guitar recruits socialists to a war in which they try to kill fascists”, then we must also assume that the slogan “This machine kills socialists, who were recruited to a war in which they were killed by fascists”, would have been equally apt.

“This pencil makes for smug poseurs”?
- mdh
  
  I think Woody’s guitar slayed many little fascists, and his guitar definitely never tried to make you feel bad.
  - princeminski
    
    Good for you!
balexander667

$10 for shipping from NY to IN. I call BS.
- Graham
  
  I’m with you.
blueelm

Gah! Stop thinking like corporate consumers. You like the slogan? Write it on your damned pencil! That’s what Woody would have done.
Louis A.

The fascists who made those pencils want you to think that. However, those pencils are part and parcel of the very fascism they claim to kill.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Each man scribbles on the thing he loves.
Anonymous

Can you also get a pre-Operation Barbarossa version that says “no war but the class war” or something like that?
Anonymous

Hello
Nottingham Contemporary sell them. They are Â£15.
http://www.nottinghamcontemporary.org/shop
Anonymous

While a guitar by itself probably could have a kill ratio of about 2 or 3 fascists to one guitar, I think a pencil, or, rather, what a pencil symbolizes, can kill any number of fascists-before they even become them. I like it.

Bravo!
cosmicautumn

The Oklahoma Center for Community and Justice recently used the “this machine” idea for a great campaign with local musicians: http://www.occjrocks.com/
james4765

I think this is awesome. We really should have had that on the computers at the Indymedia office we ran.

It’s really no different than the bumper sticker / button / t-shirt vendors you see at protests, and this is a fair bit more apt, and clever, than the trite sayings you get in a lot of them.

If only there was some way to fit that slogan onto my camera…