I've been trying to figure out the specifics for a Social Security-related event in conjunction with April Fools Day. Here's my draft description of the event as it might be advertised.
Description (sample invitations):
Don't let politicians fool with Social Security. On Friday, April 1, join your neighbors for a party as we remember who wants to privatize Social Security, playing a cruel joke on all of us. We'll meet at [location] from [start-time] to [finish-time] to organize and kick off our local "Don't Fool With Social Security" (or "Don't Fool With Our Future"?) drive. Questions? Email or call [contact person] or check out [www.DontFoolWithSocialSecurity.com or whatever the final website is].
More below the fold, including a draft letter to President Bush to be publicly endorsed at this event. I'd like feedback, so please make some comments. Maybe this could be a national event?
Goals:
#1) Provide something tangible that the media can cover, thereby raising the public profile of the Social Security debate in the community;
#2) Provide something tangible that local Democratic Party organizations can use to raise their profile in the community and develop their grassroots.
Media Events:
* Pre-event phone-bank of volunteers who will call invitees (ideally, this should be scheduled in the morning in order to make the noon local news).
* The party (or parties if there is county-wide/national interest) where an open letter to President Bush will be read, and volunteers will sign up to participate in a campaign calling the White House, Senators, and local Representatives the following Monday. (Ideally, volunteers should sign up for specific times, ensuring that offices will get phone calls and faxes at least every five minutes.)
* Monday phone bank of volunteers making their phone calls. (Again, while calls will be scheduled all day, the media should be invited to a morning kick-off phone bank so that the story will make the local news.
Draft Letter/Pledge:
President Bush:
Today, April 1st is a day for celebrating practical jokes and foolish pranks. But starting tomorrow, the jokes have to stop. Privatizing Social Security is not a laughing mattter.
It's foolish to destroy the most successful social program in the last seventy years of American history. [Documentary citation provided in a footnote.]
It's foolish to use Enron accounting to claim that privatizing Social Security isn't going to cost trillions of dollars. [citation footnote]
It's foolish to blow saddle our children and grandchildren with a "birth tax" of $360,000 apiece in order to pay the cost of privatizing Social Security.
It's foolish to propose a "fix" for Social Security that doesn't even solve the real problems that Social Security is going to face in the future.
It's foolish to gamble folks' futures in the stock market casino.
And it's really foolish to think that we are going to sit back and let you do it. As you said yourself: "Fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again."
Well, we aren't going to be fooled again. We pledge today to stop you from turning Social Security into a joke. And we pledge to raise money, raise awareness, and actively campaign against any politician--Republican or Democrat--who doesn't sign the pledge below [still to be written.]
Signed
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"Don't Fool With Social Security"
[Insert pledge here.]