Pete Wagner - Activist Career

Activist Career

Wagner described himself in the 1970s and 1980s as "an activist who also happens to be a cartoonist," a "professional radical" and a "cultural revolutionary." Wagner frequently utilized guerrilla theater as a way of responding to controversies and criticisms of his cartoons, as well as on its own apart from cartooning, in the capacity of a political activist and organizer protesting events staged in Minneapolis by the New Right, specifically appearances by Anita Bryant in 1978, President Ronald Reagan in 1981, and Rev. Jerry Falwell in 1982, among others. Mentored directly by Paul Krassner and Abbie Hoffman, founders of the Yippies or Youth International Party, Wagner used creative nonviolent and comical costumes, narrative, memes and surprise tactics to make political statements which tended to attract attention from mass media. For example, after being elected as a Student Senator in 1972 at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, he mocked the impotency of student governments at universities by running for student vice president in 1973 at and in 1976 he ran for student president of the University of Minnesota on the "Tupperware Party" ticket, in both cases promising to leave town if elected, and in both cases following through with a move out of town. The comedic application of the "Tupperware Party" name to a student political party was the brainchild of UWM students James Rubin and Donnie Goetz. Wagner won the primary at the University of Minnesota in 1976 defeating all other candidates, and his campaign garnered the attention of national news media including United Press International and NBC News. In 1982, after tiring of trying to persuade leftist steering committees he found stodgy, humorless and politically correct to incorporate more theater and humor into protests they were organizing in Minneapolis, Wagner conceived, designed and organized a demonstration at which the public was encouraged to demonstrate "for or against anything you want." The "All-Purpose (Generic) Demonstration" capitalized on the new cultural and marketing phenomenon of generic brand packaging and attracted more than 5,000 participants, was copied by students at a college in Denver, and received intense media coverage including a front-page article and photo on the St. Paul Pioneer Press and Dispatch and a story on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered." The Generic Demonstration was the final action in which the "street theater gang" organized by Wagner in 1981, the 1985 Brain Trust, was involved. The Brain Trust was a collective of mostly University of Minnesota students who formed a cult-like group with Wagner that created and performed numerous myth-making actions and publications between May 1981 and June 1982. The Brain Trust resembled a highly politicized version of Andy Warhol's "The Factory" in its relationship to Wagner and collaborated with The Church of the Subgenius, publishing some of its earliest works. A history of the group is detailed in Wagner's second book, "Buy This Too". The Brain Trust's original core participants or instigators (the group denied having "members," declaring "We have no members, only leaders") were Tom Pettersen, who became a popular blues musician in Germany, Jim Hobson, whose performance and environmental art has been installed at numerous Burning Man events, Aaron Helfman, a successful Chicago designer and businessman, Theresa Blanchard, who later worked with various theaters in Minneapolis, and others. Wagner first encountered Pettersen and Helfman while hawking copies of "Buy This Book" at a newsstand in Dinkytown, a business district adjoining the University of Minnesota campus, in the spring of 1981. While organizing and performing theatrics that launched the Brain Trust in response to the annual appearance on campus by Brother Jed and his traveling ministry, "the Destroyers," Wagner met Hobson and Hobson's housemates at the University of Minnesota Student Co-op, who conceived and performed as the "God Squad" and "C.R.A.P." (Christians for the Revival of Ancient Precepts) alongside the Brain Trust.

Wagner worked with more traditional methods of activism earlier in his career, for example when he organized ECO, the Environmental Cleanup Organization, as a junior at Bay View High School in 1969. ECO initiated recycling programs, conducted roadside litter cleanups and successfully fought the test-marketing of a non-biodegradable container by the Morton Salt company through the Milwaukee City Council between 1969 and 1972. Wagner continued working as an environmental activist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he worked with Mike Walker to oppose energy waste. Wagner was a speaker for Zero Population Growth, Inc. from 1973 through 1975 in Milwaukee and Minneapolis. He served as co-chair of the Benjamin Spock for President campaign in 1972, when the famous pediatrician ran for U.S. president on a socialist platform which called for socialized medicine and a ceiling on personal annual income of $50,000. In 1974, Wagner was elected chairman of the University of Minnesota Irish Northern Aid chapter, and became a regular contributor of articles and cartoons opposing British imperialism for the Republican News in Belfast, Northern Ireland. In more recent years, Wagner has worked with Minneapolis environmental activist Leslie Davis, joining Davis as his running mate in Davis' bid for governor of Minnesota in 2002.