Let the Great Democrat Fart-In rip!

PHILADELPHIA — Rules for Radicals author Saul Alinsky would be proud of today’s Democratic Party.

Bernie Sanders supporters angry at how their candidate was railroaded by the Hillary Clinton disciples who run the Democratic National Committee are planning a fart-in to embarrass Clinton at her coronation.

“To carry out the protest, Sanders’ convention delegates are preparing to consume as many beans as they can before entering the convention hall in order send a strong-smelling message to the former secretary of state and the party,” reports the New York Post.

Cheri Honkala, national coordinator for the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign, is identified as the organizer of the action. Dry beans and canned beans have been arriving in Philadelphia from across the fruited plain. “It shows the level of absolute disgust that we’re at — we think we’re going to remember 2016 as the year we begin to bury the two corporate political parties,” Honkala said.

“The fart-in is to raise attention about things that really stink in our society,” said  Walter Tsou of Physicians for Social Responsibility,

If he were still alive Alinsky would be positively delighted to have inspired the upcoming flatulence fest.

Alinsky, the father of modern community organizing, planned a fart-in in Rochester, New York, that was aimed at Eastman Kodak.

In 1972, not long before he died of a heart attack, Alinsky told Playboy all about his malodorous activism.

Rochester, he said, was “a Southern plantation transplanted to the North, and Kodak’s self-righteous paternalism makes benevolent feudalism look like participatory democracy. I call it Smugtown, U.S.A.”

The fart-in he was considering doing never actually took place but Alinsky delighted in telling reporters about his mischief. Citing rules from his opus, Alinsky explained how the completely lawful gas attack would work.

As far as being frivolous is concerned, I say if a tactic works, it’s not frivolous. Let’s take a closer look at this particular tactic and see what purposes it serves — apart from being fun. First of all, the fart-in would be completely outside the city fathers’ experience. Demonstrations, confrontations and picketings they’d learned to cope with, but never in their wildest dreams could they envision a flatulent blitzkrieg on their sacred symphony orchestra. It would throw them into complete disarray. Second, the action would make a mockery of the law, because although you could be arrested for throwing a stink bomb, there’s no law on the books against natural bodily functions. Can you imagine a guy being tried in court on charges of first-degree farting? The cops would be paralyzed. Third, when the news got around, everybody who heard it would break out laughing, and the Rochester Philharmonic and the establishment it represents would be rendered totally ridiculous. A fourth benefit of the tactic is that it’s psychically as well as physically satisfying to the participants. What oppressed person doesn’t want, literally or figuratively, to shit on his oppressors? Here was the closest chance they’d have. Such tactics aren’t just cute; they can be useful in driving your opponent up the wall. Very often the most ridiculous tactic can prove the most effective.

As wacky and icky as all of this may sound at first, Alinsky was no fool.

This human-powered mass stink-bombing just might accomplish something — but exactly what, I have no idea.

It’ll be fun observing this action on the floor of the Democratic National Convention but I don’t think I will seek a highly-coveted media floor pass to be there for it. I’ll stay up in the rafters of the Wells Fargo Center, perhaps with a gas mask at the ready.