At Occupy camps everywhere, people hold up signs that reflect what we want America to become or return to. But there's only one way to get there: the SUPREME GOAL for ANY progressive change must be achieving a SUPER MAJORITY IN HOUSE AND SENATE with Obama still in the White House.
How do we get this in the face of corporate billions ready to pour into campaigns nationwide thanks to the Citizens United decision?
WE MUST COUNTERACT lying advertising with a MILLION MINIPROTESTS on street corners, OCCUPYING COMMUTE ROUTES with TRUTH TROOPS.
Miniprotests are made up of three small groups of four spread out over three consecutive street corners. Each group within this "protest string" has someone in its center holding a 30" x 40" main sign at waist level. The three folks around each central miniprotester hold traditional signs overhead. That way the focus of passing motorists will be on the three main signs at eye level which provide a running message like the old Berma Shave rural roadside ads. This format allows a few seconds (or minutes if traffic is really bad which is ideal) for folks to digest each part of the message before they see the next.
See more details on miniprotesting at:
http://miniprotests.com
Here's a sample main sign inscription set:
Corner #1: Seen Many Jobs Created by Billionaire Tax Breaks?
Corner #2: GOP “Job Creators” Myth Just Empty Rhetoric, Slogan to Justify Inequity
Corner #3: See Through the Republican Facade. GOP = Greedy One Percent
Most Occupations have dozens of signs that can support these main signs, or other miniprotesting main sign sets rendered in the future. What's important here is the METHOD, which can fit any MESSAGE one wants to convey.
THIS IDEA NEEDS TO BE A FOUNDATION FOR ANY MESSAGING GOALS THAT THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT, and progressive groups in general, WANT TO TAKE TO THE STREETS.
Miniprotesting delivers the most message from the fewest people. With 60 folks in a given city, that makes five separate miniprotests in different outbound commute routes. With 600 people, not unlikely when you see the numbers that Occupy generates, then that makes 50 miniprotests. More importantly, that could also make ten miniprotests five days a week, each with a different GOP travesty to expose. We can and must put all the dots so close together that Donny Dittohead can't help but connect them. The signs at the ten different sites can be rotated by messaging theme to save the cost of reprinting.
And if miniprotesting becomes the tactic, then this will we the strategy:
1) Expose lies, hypocrisy, and corporate ties of each state's GOP candidates. This must be in state as well as federal offices because GOP control of state legislations is out to cripple unions, cement their control through redistricting, and stifle the vote. And since all a miniprotest needs is the creation of a main sign inscription set and a FedEx Office nearby to email it to (to print on their 36"-wide paper) then response time can be almost immediate. If people are at the ready, the truth can be on the streets in an hour.
2) Make sure no politician can escape their pasts. Their votes for the Ryan Budget, jobs overseas outsourcing, the Grover Norquist pledge, as well as votes against the jobs bill and financial consumer protection agency funding, need to remain an anchor around their political necks. Here's an example of that:
Corner #1: Senator ___ Thinks GOP = FFH: Freedom From History
Corner #2: ___ Backed Ryan Budget and Medicare Vouchers, Sticks With Norquist “No New Revenue” Pledge
Corner #3: The Evidence is Clear, ___ Votes for the 1% and Gloats Over the 99%
3) Continue to taint the GOP brand as a whole, showing how all the GOP legislation and deregulation created much of our debt and most of our economic troubles. This includes debunking Rush and Beck lies, providing instant evidence to shoot holes in their claims. Creating doubt of the GOP's favorite mouthpieces is where we start the conservative part of the 99% to think independently.
4) Target state officials in charge of the voting process to DEMAND that they tell how many voting machines will be at each precinct 60 days in advance to prevent the long lines we've seen in Florida and Ohio. Make sure these officials can't implement any bias in dispersal of voting machines.
5) In states where new voter ID laws have been enacted, make sure everyone is aware of what they need to have on them when they vote. This will also serve as an indictment of GOP voter disenfranchisement.
6) Remind Democratic voters that withholding votes for Obama, or worse just staying home, is just SELFISH. Personal indignation or dissatisfaction with Obama’s performance CANNOT INTERFERE WITH THE SUCCESS OF ALL DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES. Every Democratic vote is needed, from state assembly down to every city council.
7) To give true conservatives a means to identify with the 99% mantra, differentiate between them and the CORPservatives who harness tea party indignation as fuel against Democratic leadership. Their 1% agenda is easy to see, so we will expose every proposal they make linked to who makes out best. We will harpoon their only weapon: unquestioned flawed rhetoric. Here's a sample sign set for that:
Corner #1: True Conservatives Should Be Appalled by Today’s CORPservative 1% Agenda
Corner #2: GOP Willing to Sacrifice Medicare to Preserve Oil Subsidies, Offshore Tax Havens
Corner #3: Republicans, Take Back Your Party From the Pious With a Corporate Bias or Go Independent
Note that I didn't say "...or Vote Democratic." We can't always expect conservatives to make that giant leap to adopting progressive values, but we can harness their sense of pride and honor to inspire them to try to restore the GOP to more of the Barry Goldwater model. Imagine if they could take out some of the worst corporatist politicians in the primaries.
The miniprotesting concept earned me an American Dream Scholarship to the Take Back the American Dream Conference. While there I heard Van Jones speak of the cross-polination of 24 smaller progressive groups all coming under the American Dream banner. I want to see if we can take that notion a step further, linking all the big players together as well. That can happen through the concept and implementation of miniprotesting, even though the messaging can and will be different depending on each organization's goals. But if MoveOn, DFA, PDA, PCCC, Common Cause, unions, Nurses United, Code Pink, and Veterans for Peace ALL used the same miniprotesting format, they provide a united front fueled by logic, the antithesis of the tea party movement. And through nationwide miniprotests, this could be an option that Occupations all over America will latch onto. We can start it, and perhaps this time they follow us.
And the miniprotesting concept is a perfect fit for the Occupation movement. Let's examine how the miniprotesting tactic could be employed by any Occupy camp. First, a Miniprotesting Committee is formed during the nightly assembly. Members of this committee will contact other committee heads to see what issues they'd like to highlight in future miniprotests. These can also preview and drum up support for their scheduled Occupy events. The Miniprotesting Committee would be responsible for the messaging, locations and timing of miniprotests, and organizing signups either onsite or through Google Groups or Docs.
Then members of the MC can create the miniprotesting main sign inscription sets for each cause among the other committees. The fonts need to be as large possible, in Arial spaced 1.5 apart, three or four lines per sign. Have the margins expanded out to the full width possible. Then email them to a FedEx Kinko's and have them print them out on their 36"-wide roll paper to the full width of the paper, generally about 400% of the original. The 30" x 40" foam core, 1/4-inch thick white signs are available at Staples in convenient packs of three. Costs can come from the Occupy general fund or by $2 donations from each participant the first time the signs are used, then a buck thereafter in new inscriptions have been printed. Save all inscriptions for future use; roll them up and keep them dry. You can rotate through different messages on different days, swapping signs throughout locations.
Now comes one of the biggest advantages of miniprotests: With groups of about four per corner no permits or other special arrangements need to be made. There can be no justification for police intervention of any kind. Cops can't play their hand if you don't deal them any cards.
I feel that miniprotesting HAS TO BE A PART OF HOW WE ACCELERATE THE DISSATISFACTION WITH THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. How many times can they paint themselves into a corner and get away with it through clever rhetoric and Fox News spin? With truth on the streets in this manner, that number will shrink visibly. The avalanche of truth that we provide will bury the GOP for decades.
Please adopt miniprotesting to make that happen. Whether you represent an Occupy group or a national progressive organization, I can help in any fashion, including:
-Create messaging
-Doing online or video instruction on how to set up miniprotests
-Set up the infrastructure models
-Further develop the strategies that miniprotests can be utilized for
-Create and maintain a Miniprotesting HQ for your national organization, connecting with your members in each state to create pinpoint messaging. There could even be a group of people to react to media content with messaging. Imagine 50,000 miniprotests shooting down Rush lies by that evening's commute, and highlighting revelations that Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann unearth by the following afternoon? The Miniprotesting HQ could also coordinate with other progressive organizations, trading topics and supporting each other.
This is how our power of numbers will literally change our political course, save our planet, and lay the foundation for a new prosperity beyond the traditional realm of capitalism. All it takes is the will to implement it. There are a lot of clever people out there, who, using the miniprotesting model, can bring ANY IDEA to prominence.
Ideas, catchy phrases based on truth, and millions ready to hit the streets must combine to preserve our future. If you've got the juice to make this happen, then let's change the world.