The "He Doesn't Own You" Project
Welcome! If you're here, you likely found a postcard or sticker with our site address on it. Some of these are floating around the congressional office buildings in Washington, DC. We hope you find our anecdotes helpful in these weird, weird times.
Our first postcard campaign contained a simple message of empowerment mailed to every member of the US Senate and US House of Representatives, with a peel-off waterproof sticker in case they're moved to put the message on a car bumper, water bottle, or hide it in their notebook. I mean, who doesn't love a good sticker? They're popular at rallies and protests, we're finding. Scroll down to see other campaigns and anecdotes.
Campaign 7: He Will ALWAYS Betray You. There are NO Exceptions.
This campaign is a retread of Campaign 4, with a bit more emphasis and a more alarming color. It's noteworthy that we've resorted to using all caps here and there, and also that we tried everything from bad haiku to tasteless jokes over beers before we dusted off a previous message that we hope gets through to anyone in government who thinks their loyalty will render them somehow immune to betrayal from the highest level. It won't. Reputable news reports indicate that more and more members of Congress are realizing this.
We again racked our brains, and the brains of better-informed friends, to find an example of any government-adjacent individual who hasn't seen the underside of the bus, so to speak. We still couldn't find any, except three of the president's five children who have distanced themselves from politics in general.
So most of our elected officials, we believe, would be better off following the ideals that got them into public service in the first place, and that starts with the ironic act of simply accepting that they will be betrayed by this current president. No exceptions.
October 2025 He will ALWAYS betray you. There are NO Exceptions. Printable 2x2 Sticker page pdf for Avery 64510, Printable 1.5x1.5 Sticker page pdf for Avery 22805
Campaign 6: If it can Happen to THEM, It can happen to YOU.
I was born a few years after the end of World War 2 in Germany. My dad was stationed as a transport pilot at the Air Force base and my mom, brother and sister lived there, too. I was born just a few months before our family was sent back to the states.
When I was in college my dad and I were going through the contents of the safe, and I found a fat envelope with my name on the front in my dad's handwriting. In it was a stack of birth certificates, translations of the birth certificates emphasizing my parents' US citizenship, my own passport where I looked pretty much like every other potato-esque infant, and a US Naturalization document with a picture of me at the age of six.
I asked Dad why he collected this stuff. How many ways did he feel he had to prove I was American? He told me about a time when he was a boy in Montana, where the neighbor, a German-born US citizen, received a summons to report back to Germany before the War. This man was a 40-something baker with two young adult sons who were born in the US. His wife suggested he take the boys with him. (I'm never sure why he was compelled to return to Germany at all, though it's possible he still had family there and there was an implied threat to them.) They went, all three of these US citizens were put into German uniforms, and were soon killed on the Front.
"If it can happen to them," Dad said, "It can happen to YOU."
We are seeing similar abductions happening now, today, in our very own country. Nobody is immune to this. Nobody.
April 2025 If it can Happen to THEM, It can happen to YOU. Printable 2x2 Sticker page pdf for Avery 64510, Printable 1.5x1.5 Sticker page pdf for Avery 22805
Campaign 5: Eat Fake Bait and You Get Rubber Worm Guts.
rise to the bait: To respond to someone's provoking actions or words in the way that they intended. Likened to a fish attempting to eat the bait on a hook.
Bullies love to bait. Why? Because it totally works. The remedy is simple: Ignore it.
That juicy worm dangling on the hook is actually made of rubber. Don't fall for the juicy-looking rubber worm, even if everyone else seems to. It's not even juicy, and it will just clog up your guts if you eat it. And you don't want your classmates to call you "Rubber Worm Guts." You'd never live it down.
April 2025 Ignore the Bait. That Juicy Rubber Worm is Fake. Printable 1.5x1.5 Sticker page pdf for Avery 22805
Campaign 4: He Will Always Betray You. Count on it.
We started this whole sticker and postcard project to lend a little encouragement to our members of congress, and try to leave named leaders out of it. We know our Congressfolk are stressed and likely struggling with ethical and administrative concerns and, really, nobody needs scolding or being yelled at or loathing the people who put them in office. But one thing that's purely consistent (and maddenly simple) in the current president's actions is that everybody gets betrayed, and we honestly pity those who wistfully believe their loyalty gives them immunity. It's a one-way deal. And it's really just a matter of time. We racked our brains, and the brains of better-informed friends, to find an example of any individual who hasn't seen the underside of the bus, so to speak. We couldn't find any, except three of his five children.
So most of our elected officials, we believe, would be better off following the ideals that got them into public service in the first place, and that starts with the ironic act of simply accepting that they will be betrayed by this current president.
April 2025 He will always betray you. Count on it. Printable 2x2 Sticker page pdf for Avery 64510, Printable 1.5x1.5 Sticker page pdf for Avery 22805
Campaign 3: Nettles, Slug slime and Biology
an·ti·dote /ˈan(t)əˌdōt/ noun
a medicine taken or given to counteract a particular poison.
This particular sticker is a bit mysterious on its face. I was plodding around at night on a remote private island in the Pacific Northwest with a bunch of biology students and teachers. A student fell into deep nettles and came out with stings all over her legs. We offered water and other useless remedies. One teacher said, "In nature, the antidote is found next to the poison." In this particular situation, she suggested that slug slime would neutralize the nettle stings. We found a large slug, rubbed it with a stick so it gave up some slime, rubbed the slime on the student's legs and the result was immediate relief. We did have to round up more slugs, an easy thing to do in this part of the world, thanked each one for its unwilling sacrifice, and the lesson was profound. The Antidote Grows Next to the Poison, indeed.
In the man-made world, I leave it to you to find the poison/antidote pairings around you. Leave out the slugs; they've given enough to science for a while.
March 2025. The Antidote grows next to the Poison Printable 2x2 Sticker page pdf for Avery 64510,
Campaign 2: Advice from Crows
Saw the most wonderful thing the morning after the election. Came to the local lake to walk around it at sunrise. A cloud of crows flew over my head and several were chasing a large hawk. One of the crows actually tussled with it, flying upside down, all talons. It was silent, with none of that hollering crows like to do sometimes. The hawk flew off high into a tree and the crows flew on. Business as usual. The hawk likely will try it again. He'll get the same treatment.
Nice example for the weeks and months to come. Take on the bullies, don’t crow about it too loudly, and carry on. Then do it again as needed.
January 2025. See that Predator? We can take him. We do it all the time. Printable 2x2 Sticker page pdf for Avery 64510,
Campaign 1: Don't Buy the Rhetoric
Our first postcard campaign contained a simple message of empowerment mailed to every member of the US Senate and US House of Representatives, with a peel-off waterproof sticker in case they like the message enough to stick it on a car bumper or water bottle. I mean, who doesn't love a good sticker?
We were mystified, as political outsiders, that fear, obedience and speculation seemed to be ruling the day in DC. We know it's a waste of of stamp to send a card to any of the tone-deaf White House occupants. So we created a nice postcard to remind our elected representatives that whatever self-proclaimed authority figure they/you/we find looming about in a domineering way does not own us and never will.
November 2024. He Doesn't Own You. He Never Will. Printable 2x2 Sticker page pdf for Avery 64510
Start your own sticky protest.
Each campaign involves 550 postcards which each get an address label, a stamp, and a peel-off sticker glue-sticked on to the card. This last component is messy and time-consuming so we thought a smaller sticker might go faster. We started to offer pdfs of both 2x2 and 1.5x1.5 inch stickers. We do hand out the 2x2 stickers at protest demonstrations.
Avery 2x2 inch waterproof greaseproof label forms, here seen on Amazon, can survive on car bumpers, street posts, and pretty much anywhere else. They resist wept tears, eternal rain, donut grease, and they have gone through the car wash without fading. I uploaded the artwork (in this example, an Adobe Photoshop file) into the Avery website which created a pdf for printing the sheets of labels, which I then had laser-printed by uploading to Office Depot's copy and print portal. I brought the Avery label sheet blanks to the store (make sure you bring a copy of the pdf files with you on your phone, a drive, or this web page) and they printed the pdf onto my label blanks. Each entry above has a link to the pdf you can print.