Hi, I'm Scott Johnson. I'm a state organizer for Indiana 50501 and I'm sorry and now let me explain.
I went to bed last night wondering how long it would be before I put my foot in my mouth and the answer is less than three hours.
Let me explain
50501 -- both National and particularly Indiana are not political professionals
We are as I like to say just folk.
And if you think that's a firefly reference you are right.
Mal is one of my favorite characters in all of fiction but I digress.
Now as I was saying, we are just folk.
And that means we -- PARTICULARLY ME -- will get things wrong.
As I apparently did when I had a flyer put out that said:
NO DAMN SPEAKERS
Yes. Those were my words. I'll admit it.
And I'll say it again
I'm sorry
50501 Indiana -- we are just folk -- we have no advisers.
We have no image consultants
We have no word smiths
We are just doing our best
And, last night, I put my foot in my mouth.
And now here's the explanation
Last night we found out that 50501 National is only promoting 1 event in May:
May Day
And our reaction was one of shock, dismay and betrayal
Our honest reaction was F that
And we honestly responded with defiance
We are now doing three events this month:
5 / 1 -- This is a full on protest with speakers and the whole 9 years
5 / 17 -- This is something new -- we have called it internally "The Social"
5 / 25 -- Another full on protest
And here is why I'm saying I'm sorry
We needed to make a flier to promote 5/17 quickly and I am the idjit -- and yes that's a Supernatural reference --
that said to use the phrase "No Damn Speakers"
And why would I say that?
Why would the guy who is the damn MC AND a speaker himself say that?
Humor people
It was tongue in cheek humor
The 50501 brand is basically irreverence
Come on -- we are a bunch of media nerds
We say we are the resistance
We proudly style ourselves that
The only reason we don't call ourselves the rebels instead of the resistance is it would probably land all of us in jail more quickly
Now, today, that irreverence has bitten me hard The only point I was trying to make was that this was a DIFFERENT TYPE OF EVENT That's it.
It wasn't a slam at speakers IN ANY WAY
We were simply trying to say that this event was DIFFERENT
Now personally I wanted to call it a picnic but people were afraid that a thousand plus of our closest friends would show up and expect to be fed
And we can't afford to do that
Flat out. We can't afford that
Then I wanted to call it a social (which is what we are calling it) but that was a bit ambiguous So I said those fateful words "No Damn Speakers".
It was tongue in cheek
And, on reflection, I was stupid and I was wrong to say it that way and I'm sorry.
That was the very last decision that was made in a 1 hour and 22 standup meeting -- the second standup meeting of the evening by the way
I gave the words, Tori made the flier, I put it out
Others put it out
And I moved on to write a small bit of code before the next crisis arrived
(Which actually had arrived 2 hours earlier in a message I just didn't read until 1 hour and 11 minutes after my call ended)
That next crisis will be the topic of a different speech -- perhaps.
So the end result here is I tried to be on brand and funny and I offended people
And I apologize
Let me close with some words that I wrote in our Indiana 50501 main chat
If you are on our Signal group chat, that's the one with the Corn Emoji and the Race Car Emoji:
And if I can suggest one general thing to
EVERYONE ONLINE
If we could start with the underlying assumption that everyone here
is an ally and of good faith that might make things go more smoothly.
I personally like to believe that people have good hearts but are basically
busy and self interested / sometimes lazy.
If you take that approach to life it tend to make things easier because you tend to
not take things as strongly.
That's my last Dad moment for today. I love all of you. Let's get this done.
11:18 AM
Another way to say this never assume malice when incompetence will explain it
I made a mistake people. I love our speakers. I tried to be funny and I failed.
And I'm sorry