Here are emails I, John Spritzler, have sent to people at the Brighton CVS who said they agreed with the sticker and want to stay in touch (from earliest to most recent):
July 21, 2025
Hi neighbors,
I am sending this email (blind cc) to everybody whom I met at the Brighton Center CVS drugstore who said they agreed with my sticker and wanted to stay in touch.
As you know, I enjoy conversing with people about what I call the egalitarian revolutionary aim expressed in the sticker: “Let’s remove the rich from power: have real, not fake, democracy with no rich and no poor.” As of July 21, 2025 I have handed out a bit more than 2000 stickers since I started doing it in April, all at the CVS drugstore location where I met eleven of the twelve people receiving this email (the twelfth is a personal friend of mine who also lives in Brighton.) I only began asking people to sign up to stay in touch on July 19. Probably I should have started doing that earlier. Live and learn.
As you probably have seen for yourself, the response to the sticker is overwhelmingly positive. Many people have taken extra stickers to share with friends, and as a result lots of people* are now visiting my website that is on the sticker: PDRBoston.org . (This is just my personal website; there is no “People for Democratic Revolution” organization.)
The conversations I’ve had with you on the street have been excellent, but of course too brief to properly address all the questions and concerns that I assume you have about what I’m doing and why I’m doing it and why I want to be in touch with you. Let me here briefly introduce myself and start what I hope will be an ongoing conversation.
You can click here to read about me personally, where I’m from, what I did for a living before I retired, and so forth.
Just to be clear, I am indeed very serious about wanting to build an egalitarian revolutionary movement that really can do what the sticker says, not just locally but on a very large scale. I encourage you to read here about why this goal is truly possible, despite the great military power that the billionaire class currently has.
The reason I am handing out the stickers is to meet people like you who, I hope, will want to get together on a regular basis to discuss the goal expressed in the sticker:
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whether it is possible to accomplish,
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what it would actually mean in practice, such as how would the economy work,
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whether it could truly work given how people really are,
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whether genuine democracy is really possible and, if so, how,
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whether it would be a desirable alternative to the status quo or just make things terrible like Communism,
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whether it would—or could—prevent the abuse of power,
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whether it would ensure personal freedom,
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whether it has ever happened anywhere before,
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whether it is sensible or foolish to try to make it happen,
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whether it can be accomplished nonviolently, perhaps by voting, or not,
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whether building a movement for it could win important reforms even if it fails to win the egalitarian goal itself,
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whether it is safe or just too dangerous to try to build a movement for it,
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whether we can do things locally in an organized way to help people learn that they are the vast majority in wanting it,
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whether we can do things to spread our deeper discussion and understanding of it to the larger public,
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whether we should form an explicitly egalitarian revolutionary organization (I hope we do),
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and all of the many other questions and concerns you may have.
An important example of people getting together to have this kind of ongoing discussion—about how the world OUGHT to be—happened in Spain in the decades preceding the 1936 Spanish Revolution; I invite you to read about this here because it gives a sense of what I am trying to make happen today, starting in our own neck of the woods and, I hope, spreading far and wide. Additionally, I hope you will read some of my website articles where I address the above concerns and questions.
To those of you who do wish to get together to have this kind of discussion, the question is How can we do it? My preference is that we meet face-to-face (as opposed to on zoom) at places and times that are mutually convenient for at least some of us on any given occasion. We could get a table at a Brighton Center cafe or restaurant or a room at the Presentation School Community Center in Oak Square, for example. I am open to suggestions. Please email me your thoughts on this.
To those of you who just want to communicate by email, please feel free to do that. I look forward to hearing from you, hearing your comments and suggestions and questions.
I blind cc’d all of you because I didn’t know if you wanted to be in the non-blinded cc list. Please let me know if you wish to be in the non-blinded cc list in future emails so that you and others on that cc list can read what each other say.
Lastly, I write a daily Substack post online that I invite you to read. It’s free to subscribe to but you can read my posts even if you don’t subscribe. One of my Substack posts (click here to see it) is a copy of this email from me to you, because I want my Substack subscribers (many of whom do not live in Massachusetts or even in the United States) to know what I’m doing and to consider doing something similar where they live.
All the best to you,
—John
* I can tell that the “sticker-ing” has had a big effect by comparing the number of people visiting the website who live in Massachusetts versus who live in California, which is the state with the second highest number. In the last 30 days there were 82 unique visitors to the website who lived in Massachusetts and they made 779 different page views. In California during the same period there were only 24 unique visitors and they made only 38 different page views. While it is possible that some of the Massachusetts visitors were not people who received the sticker, the only explanation for the much larger Massachusetts numbers than any other state is the sticker-ing at the Brighton CVS drugstore.
July 25, 2025
Hi Neighbors,
I recently wrote a Substack article about how we can stop the attack on Medicaid. It is here, and also on my website here.
A group I have never heard of put up posters (visible on my Substack article) up and down Washington St. in Brighton advertising a meeting about the attack on Medicaid, 3-5 pm tomorrow (Saturday, the 26th) at the Congregational Church at 404 Washington St., Brighton. I plan to attend this meeting with my usual stickers and sign. Maybe I'll run into one of you there.
On Monday this week I sent some of you an email with an introduction to why I am doing what I'm doing at the CVS where I met you. That email is also copied as a Substack post here. I hope you will give it a read.
All the best to you,
--John
August 2, 2025
Hi Neighbors,
As I was sticker-ing today at the CVS I ran into one of you (I'm not sharing his name to respect his privacy) whom I've run into several times before while sticker-ing (he lives near the CVS) and who has frequently taken extra stickers to give to friends.
Today it occurred to me to ask him if he would like to help me do the sticker-ing at the CVS and he said, "Sure." He joined me in passing out the stickers and did it very enthusiastically and successfully. In one case he told a friend of his who came by all about my website and made sure his friend used his smart-phone to scan the QR code on my sign to get to the website. This person sticker-ed with me for a half hour. Before he took off he took a handful of stickers and said he may sticker at the CVS independently of me. He also said he'd like to have a sign of his own like mine to wear, and that he would join me in the future for more sticker-ing. I will make three more such signs, one for him and--who knows?--maybe one or two of you too. :)
I consider this event to be extremely significant. It may seem like a small thing but it is a step towards us residents of Brighton changing in this important respect. Today we are unconnected anonymous individuals who, while personally wanting an egalitarian revolution (like most people!), don't know who else feels that way in our neighborhood and are not connected with others in any organized way to build the egalitarian revolutionary movement. What happened today is a small but very significant step towards us becoming something very different: people who not only want an egalitarian revolution but who also personally know--face-to-face--others in our neighborhood who feel the same way and are doing things in an organized way together to build the egalitarian revolutionary movement.
By building the egalitarian revolutionary movement I mean doing things--like sticker-ing--that implement the key strategy for building that movement: things that help the vast majority of people who would love an egalitarian revolution KNOW that they are the vast majority and not the hopelessly tiny and powerless minority that the rich try to make us think we are by censoring all expressions of wanting to remove the rich from power in the mainstream and alternative media.
Many people at the CVS laugh a bit when they see my "Let's remove the rich from power..." sign. From conversations I've had with such people I know that the reason they laugh is not because they think it's a bad idea (they'd love it!) but because they think it's impossible, and hence funny that somebody (like me) is acting as if it were possible. They think it is impossible because they think too few other people want it to happen. And they think this because of the censorship of the egalitarian revolutionary aspiration. The rich count of this hopelessness to stay in power. But we can change this hopelessness to hopefulness.
When people at the CVS see just one person wearing a "Let's remove the rich from power..." sign and handing out stickers it is one thing. But when they see two people doing it, or better yet, many people doing it, it is something else altogether. It tells people that the goal of removing the rich from power to have real, not fake, democracy with no rich and no poor is gaining steam, has more adherents than just one person, and is something they should take far more seriously than formerly. This builds the egalitarian revolutionary movement. Doing things like this can build the movement large enough one day to make it possible to REALLY remove the rich from power as discussed in "How We CAN Remove the Rich from Power."
There is, of course, no guarantee that we can remove the rich from power in the lifetime of any of us. But so what? If we only build the egalitarian revolutionary movement a little bit, it means we have done something with our life that is immensely valuable. To see just how valuable, read here about the catastrophe that happens when there is not a movement to remove the rich from power.
What we do in Brighton can inspire people elsewhere--even outside of the United States--to do the same kind of thing. A woman in New Zealand told me she was inspired by reading on Substack about my sticker-ing to do the same thing there! This is how movements grow large. We CAN make a difference!
Please let me know if you got this email if you haven't yet replied to an earlier one. This is so I can tell if emailing is a good way to communicate with you or if I have to figure out a better way.
All the best,
--John
August 7, 2025
Hi neighbors,
I hope you will make time to read my essay (online here as a Substack post) about why it is both possible and necessary to remove the rich from power even though it is difficult and may not happen in our own lifetimes. And I would love to hear your thoughts about this. Here is the title:
Yes! It Is Difficult to Remove the Rich from Power and It Will Likely Take a Long Time. No! That Is Not a Persuasive Reason for Only Doing Things that CANNOT EVER Remove the Rich from Power.
Let's think carefully about what moral people today should do, given the reality of the world we live in.
Also, if you have not yet read my first introductory email to my neighbors sent July 21, 2025, please go here to read it online.
Thanks.
Fare thee well,
--John
August 14, 2025
Hi Neighbors,
I've been handing out the stickers ("Let's remove the rich from power: have real, not fake, democracy with no rich and no poor") at the CVS since mid April of this year and have now handed out approximately 2,300 stickers.
On July 21 I began asking people I met at the CVS who agreed with the sticker if they wanted to stay in touch by providing me their email address. So far 34 of you have done that. I want you to know that you are not alone in having done this. Lately it seems that in every hour I spend sticker-ing, about two more people give me their email address to stay in touch.
Many, perhaps all of you, have helped distribute the stickers by taking extra ones to give to friends, relatives and/or co-workers. This is WONDERFUL! I consider this to be a form of egalitarian revolutionary activism. I encourage you to keep doing it--ask me for more stickers whenever you wish. I also invite you to stand with me with a sign just like mine and help hand out stickers whenever you wish, or even to do it by yourself if that suits you. The more people who do sticker-ing, the bigger the effect it has making people take the idea of the sticker more seriously.
By the way, the stickers cost me about 8 cents each when I buy a thousand. I pay for them out of my own pocket. I can afford to do that because I'm retired from Harvard with enough of a pension to do it. I tell you this in case you're wondering who funds me. Don't worry, I'm not funded by Big $. If we end up handing out a LOT more stickers then I'll gladly accept donations to help pay for them. Of note, people I've met while sticker-ing at the CVS have given me a total of $27 completely unsolicited, just in appreciation for what I'm doing there.
Here's some more information about YOU.
When I ask you what you think of my website (I think you've all gone there to read some of it) you all tell me you liked it a lot. (Other people I meet at the CVS invariably tell me this also.) But I haven't heard anybody yet tell me what they thought about a particular article on the website. I'd really like to know what you think about a specific article. Did you agree with most but not all of it, or what, exactly?
Many of you enjoy conversing with me at the CVS about all the big issues related to what the sticker is about. I enjoy these conversations very much. I believe that in order to remove the rich from power we need to make these kind of conversations involve--eventually, even if, as I discuss here, it is many years in the future--literally hundreds of millions of people. This is what it will take to create the kind of massive movement for egalitarian revolution that can actually remove the rich from power. This is what happened in Spain leading up to the revolution there in 1936 as I discuss here.
Virtually all of you are, when it comes to responding to my emails with anything more than "got it" (which I appreciate knowing!), very shy. Conversing by email about a topic like removing the rich from power just doesn't seem to be your "cup of tea."
You are also, apparently, shy about something else. Here's what I mean. As you know from my first email to you (it's online here; please read it if you haven't already), I hope to persuade you to meet each other face-to-face and get to know each other and converse with each other about the many questions that arise in connection with the idea of removing the rich from power. I think we need this kind of face-to-face connection in order to accomplish anything of significance. But so far none of you have said you want to do this or have responded to my questions to you about how to do it, even though I've asked you for your ideas about it in earlier emails. Is it that you're just shy? Or something else? Will the people who want to remove the rich from power--YOU--remain forever unknown to each other and unable to act together in an organized way? I hope not. I need at least one of you to tell me what I'm doing wrong. It must be something, right?
I'm guessing that some of you gave me your email address ("to stay in touch") thinking that it was like subscribing to a newsletter or something. Am I right? If that is what you had in mind then I suggest you subscribe to my free daily Substack by clicking here and then clicking on the "subscribe" button. But please know that the REASON I write my daily Substack posts is to inspire people to get involved one way or another in building the egalitarian revolutionary movement, which requires finding and then getting together with other similarly inclined people in one's own neighborhood.
In case you are wondering, I intend to keep sticker-ing at the CVS as long as my health and the weather permit. I am focusing on the Brighton CVS (as opposed to sticker-ing in lots of different neighborhoods) not just because I live in Brighton but in the expectation and hope that eventually so many people in this neighborhood will have received a sticker from me or from a friend or relative or co-worker that they will come to see that they are surrounded by neighbors who agree with them that we should remove the rich from power to have real, not fake, democracy with no rich and no poor. I believe that when people discover they are the vast majority, not a tiny hopelessly weak minority, in having this egalitarian revolutionary aspiration, then they will have the confidence to begin to do the things required to build the egalitarian revolutionary movement, things that they would consider crazy when they think hardly anybody else agrees with them about this aspiration.
I look forward to running into you at the CVS and continuing this conversation.
All the best,
--John
August 19, 2025
Hi Neighbors,
Would any of you like to help hold up this banner (see the attached photo, and possibly also below) on the sidewalk at the CVS at some convenient time? It would take two people to hold it and a third to take pictures of it being viewed by passers-by.
The banner contains 500 photos of people (see them online here), all in Brighton, holding the sign you see in the poster, which says "We the People want affordable housing for ALL. To get it we aim to remove the rich from power to have real, not fake, democracy with no rich and no poor."
The attached photo shows the banner being displayed several years ago at the Faneuil branch library in Brighton. People loved it.
This is one way to let people see that they are not alone in wanting to remove the rich from power, but are actually the large majority. And this in turn helps people become confident enough to start acting like the great majority to remove the rich from power (like this), instead of thinking that that goal is impossible because hardly anybody else wants to do it (which is what the rich want us to believe, and why they censor in the media all expressions of wanting to remove the rich from power.)
Any volunteers?
--John
