[Peace-presence] UPDATE FOR APRIL 28th NAT'L IMPEACH DAY

[richard]

hi folks,



more people are joining the April 28th movement - getting more emails than i expected - seems lotsa people really want impeachment!



this is from Jacob, a28.org, nyc.



Hi everybody,



Things are about to start moving quite quickly, so get ready. I debated breaking this up into a few short messages, but in the end decided to just send one long message. Please read the whole thing. There's some important stuff for everybody in here.



***MEDIA***



Yesterday the Vermont state senate voted to call for the impeachment of Bush and Cheney, the first state chamber in the country to pass such a resolution. And on Monday Dennis Kucinich is going to announce his intention to file articles of impeachment against Cheney. Two days later he will file the articles and hold a major press event in D.C., accompanied by dozens of prominent supporters. I will be there to talk to reporters about A28.



Although it's a bit of an open secret, Dennis has asked us not to

publicize any of this until his announcement on Monday. But then we

should publicize the hell out of it. I am preparing a press release to

send out to the national media as soon as Dennis makes his announcement. In it, I will say that what Dennis is doing is the will

of the American people, and that the A28 actions (now more than

100-strong and growing) are going to demonstrate how widespread

support for impeachment is. If done right, A28 should be able to surf

whatever wave Dennis is able to make in the media, and also reinforce it.



I'd like to suggest that A28 local organizers prepare their own press

release to be ready to send out to local media on Monday morning as soon as Dennis makes his announcement. I will send you my own release sometime tomorrow that you can use for ideas. I will also try to send each one of you a database of news and political media contacts in your state. I would also advise you to scour your local media now and see what reporters (not including the wire services like AP) are covering the story of the Vermont impeachment vote. Those are journalists whom you will want to reach out to on Monday and you should try to get an e-mail address for them now if possible. We should then also send out a quick media alert on Friday morning to journalists and broadcast media to give them a final reminder about Saturday.



I've also started doing some radio interviews and you should contact

your local progressive radio stations asap to see whether you can get on the air to at least make an announcement about next Saturday. If you have the means, you can look into making a PSA, like Deanna has done for the A28 rally in Salt Lake City (you can listen to it at http://www.utahpeace.org/impeach07rallymix.wav)



***OUTREACH***



Those of you who are working with organizations probably have this

covered, but for the rest of you here are some ideas. First, everybody

should make flyers. We've added a special flyer maker to the A28

website in the Resources section that you can use to easily customize your own flyers. You can post these wherever you can both out on the street and also inside, e.g. on bulletin boards in cafes and

bookstores. You can also hand these out on the street, esp. at busy

spots like the entrance to a train station. And check to see whether

there are events scheduled near you (e.g. for Earth Day tomorrow —Sunday) over the next week that are likely to draw a sympathetic crowd.



Try to reach out to other activist groups in your area if they're not

already involved. One place to start is the list of member

organizations in United for Peace and Justice:

http://www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?list=type&type=27   You can also check with local chapters of national organizations like Code Pink, Progressive Democrats of America, World Can't Wait, and the Green Party (all of which are founding members of A28). If you're doing a human mural, see if you can get a group to "sponsor" a letter (i.e. agree to take care of finding the people needed for it).



On the Internet, investigate posting to online event calendars, blogs,

and other websites that are relevant to your area. There are two

places that I would like to ask everybody to post their actions. One

is the online calendar for United for Peace and Justice, which you can find at http://www.unitedforpeace.org/modinput4.php?modin=50  UFPJ is an important coalition of groups in the antiwar movement and they are slowly starting to come around to support impeachment. Last week, after repeated requests from some of the founding members of A28, they finally endorsed impeachment (see

http://www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?id=3569) but stopped short of calling on all their 1200 member groups to organize for A28. I have asked them to do this and they are considering it (though time is getting very short). UFPJ has organized some of the biggest protests in U.S. history, and if we can get them solidly on board with the impeachment movement that will be a huge boost. Right now there are two A28 events listed in their calendar. Let's make it 200.



The other places is Democrats.org, the official website of the

Democratic party. The Democrats were thoughtful enough to set up a

system where literally anybody can post an event. To do so, just go to

http://www.democrat s.org/page/ event/create. You can all add your

events in the "rally" category. But there's one other thing: the

Democrats recently announced that April 28 would be their "50 State

Canvassing" day, when they would encourage grassroots activists to get out and spread the word about how great the Democrats are. Well, Dennis Kucinich is a Democrat, after all, and so why not promote his agenda of impeachment on their canvassing day? There are now about 350 events posted in the "50 State Canvassing" category, and several of them are from A28 organizers. Take a look at the one for Philly as an example: 

http://www.democrats.org/page/event/detail/200750statecanvass/4v82k



It starts off innocuously enough but ends with "April 28 has been

designated by Progressive Democrats of America and dozens of other groups as a nationwide day of action to push for impeachment (see www.A28.org) . We will meet at Love Park at 1:00 for the festive

impeachment rally and then spend the afternoon canvassing Philadelphia and talking to our neighbors about how we can work together to realize this vision." And you know what? 46 people have signed up for the event, making it one of the most popular ones on there! So let's infiltrate the "impeachment is off the table" party's own website to spread the word about impeachment.



Last but definitely not least: talk to your friends and family. In my

experience an individual e-mail is probably 25 times more likely than

a mass e-mail to actually get somebody involved, and a phone call is

probably 100 times more effective. So call the people you think will

be most receptive and don't take `no' for an answer. Whether they can participate or not, e-mail them your flyer and ask them to pass it along.



When doing outreach and media work, be sure to highlight that your

local action is one of more than a hundred going on nationwide. And

please consider contacting your friends in other states and telling

them to find out what's going on near them and get involved.



***A FEW OTHER THINGS***



A28 represents another step forward for the rapidly growing

impeachment movement. In and of itself it's not going to make

impeachment happen. The main goals for it are 1) to get impeachment into the media conversation, particularly through the use of creative actions, 2) energize people across the country by showing them that this movement is real and growing, and 3) add a ton of new people to the movement who will encounter it for the first time next Saturday.



One thing that everybody should do is get as much photographic and

video documentation of your actions as possible. In addition to

submitting it to the media, we can all post and share it on

ImpeachSpace (www.impeachspace. com if any of you aren't already there), we will try to make a film about impeachment incorporating the footage, AND we will try to make a commercial from it and then raise funds to broadcast this. So make sure to reach out to local photographers and videographers and get them to your action!



You should also create signup sheets to have on hand for your action, so that people who want to get involved can leave their contact info. Hopefully we can brings tens of thousands of new people into the movement that way, which will make our next actions that much bigger!



If you're looking for speakers for your event, check the list of

speakers at: http://www.afterdow ningstreet. org/speakers, which

provides contact info for the leading impeachment advocates around the country.



And please keep an eye on the weather forecast and come up with a rain date if necessary, e.g. the following Saturday. Hopefully this won't be necessary for any of us, but this is an unpredictable time of year weatherwise.



Okay, that's it for now. If you want to join a discussion with other

A28 organizers please join the discussion group at

http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/a28organiz ers-d. Otherwise you will just receive announcements from me, via this list.



Thanks!

Jacob

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