[Peace] From Leslie Cagan: Gearing up for October 27th!!

[Robert Naiman]

>From Leslie Cagan, National Coordinator, United for Peace and Justice

Dear UFPJ Member Groups,

The idea of organizing regional actions against the war all on the
same day has turned into reality! On Saturday, October 27th, there
will be a major national protest against the war in Iraq, as
demonstrations are held in 11 regional centers spread around the
country. Momentum is certainly building and excitement is growing. At
the same time, there is still a tremendous amount of work to do!

We know many of your groups and organizations are already deeply
involved either in your regional organizing or in moving your national
membership to participate in an event on 10/27. But some of you
getting this memo are with groups that have not yet taken this up. Not
to worry, there is still time to get involved. Here are a few things
that we hope all of the UFPJ member groups will do:

 1) Be sure to include a link to the October 27th website on the home
page of your own website. In addition, if you can include it in any
email alerts you send out between now and 10/27, that would be very
helpful. Click here for "buttons" that you can put on your sites and
in your emails: http://www.oct27.org/web_buttons  If you are not sure
how to embed this into your site, please contact Susan Chenelle, our
internet coordinator. She can be reached at susan at unitedforpeace.org

 2) Later today you should be receiving a national email blast with an
overview of what's happening in all 11 regions. Please circulate that
widely to lists you might have. In addition to people finding out
what's happening in their own regions, we think it's exciting and
motivating for people to get a feel for what's happening around the
coountry. October 27th will be a unique day in our movement's history
-- 11 major antiwar demonstrations all on the same day!

 3) Each of the regional events has a page on the October 27th
website: www.oct27.org  Please be sure to download the leaflet for
your region -- and then help circulate it as widely as possible. You
can also find out about organizing meetings in the various regions.

 4) One of the important and valuable aspects of doing a major
mobilization -- in this case 11 mobilizations -- is the opportunity it
gives us all to be more engaged with our communities, the opportunity
to tap into that 70% of the population that not only opposes the war
but now also wants to see the money for the war cut. Let's use these
next 2 weeks to expand our outreach:


The movie In the Valley of Elah is a powerful antiwar film showing
around the country. Organize a team to leaflet people leaving the
theatres; they should be quite receptive.

Set up a literature table at a busy area of your town. Sign up new
members, give out educational information and make sure people know
about the closest regional action on October 27th.

Friday, October 19th, is the 2nd Iraq Moratorium Day, a campaign that
UFPJ is supporting. We encourage you to use that day for an extra
outreach effort for the 10/27 regional demonstration near you. Set up
teams to catch people at public transportation hubs on their way to or
from work, have folks outside busy shopping centers, ask people to
leaflet at events they might be going to anyway that evening ... you
get the idea!

Make calls to local radio talk shows. People talk about all sorts of
things on these shows; there's no reason not to discuss why you oppose
the war and why you are going to the regional demonstration on October
27th. There are probably lots of other ways to help build for the
October 27th regional actions. (If you have other ideas, please post
them in the Forums on www.oct27.org !) What's most important is that
we use these next few weeks to reach the largest numbers of people
possible. We know the public sentiment is against the war -- let's
help turn that sentiment into public protest on October 27th.

 peace,
 Leslie Cagan,
 National Coordinator, UFPJ

-- 
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org

Just Foreign Policy's current estimate of Iraqi deaths due to violence
since the U.S. invasion - now more than a million:
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html