http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1399359I was bored tonight, and so wandered around aimlessly until I found this, from 2004:
Atman (1000+ posts) Tue Nov-30-04 11:00 AM
Original message
Forget RIBBONS...wear PAPER CLIPS!
What a great idea! I am watching a story on CNN wherein a high school gathered six million paper clips to illustrate just how many six million is. Six million as in six million Jews murdered by Hitler. But that is not the story...the story is why PAPER CLIPS.
Apparently, the Norwegians wore paper clips on their lapels during the war as a show of solidarity and a silent protest against the fascists/nazis. What a perfect symbol for us, too, since ribbons have been co-opted by the righties to the point of meaningless cliches.
I'm am sorry for not having all the details on this CNN report...it only caught my eye after it was half over. Maybe another DUer could expand upon it, but I think the paper clip campaign could be a stirring way to protest the rise of fascism in the United States.
Thoughts?
Now, I recall this, and I also recall being amazed that Pedro Picasso, now nearing the sixth decade of his life, was so ignorant of history.....and artifacts.
Pedro Picasso later created a "piece of art" featuring a paper-clip, and in the only message transmitted from Pedro Picasso to franksolich, vehemently "demanded" that I remove his "piece of art" as my then-avatar.
Oh. Okay.
Anyway, in his "piece of art," Pedro Picasso had depicted a modern paper-clip; the long oval type we see all over the place.
HOWEVER, in 1940, and for a couple of decades thereafter, paper-clips were not the long oval type we see all over the place nowadays; paper-clips then were all sorts of sizes and styles, ranging from square to round.
(For those interested in the subject of paper-clips, a Google search of "images" of paper-clips is highly illuminating.)
Also, in 1940, Norway was for all practical purposes a third-world country, a backwater in Europe. Lots and lots of backwardness, meaning paper-clips were a rare luxury item.
Norwegians, like those further east of them in the gigantic socialist paradise of the workers and peasants, tended to "clip" multi-page documents together by stitching them, sewing them, in one corner.
I know, because I've dealt with these things in real life.
It's true that the Norwegians used paper-clips as a silent defiance against the left-wing Nazi occupiers, but such were hard to get, and when one found one, it wasn't a long oval one.
Anyway. I guess all the comment above is superfluous, given that we all know Pedro Picasso has the intelligence of a comatose pigmy cretin.
This ended up being a rather large bonfire--now long ago extinguished, but as most of the comments were the usual standard customary primitive comments, no need to bring any of those over here.