[Peace] Let's demonstrate when Afghanistan plan is announced! 5pm on the day, campus or Urbana Vets Memorial depending on the date

[Stuart Levy]

There's been some discussion of what to do when the Afghanistan 'surge'
announcement washes up.  As Bob Naiman suggested last week, that will be a 
good time to take some public action, and make a point of our opposition
to this increasingly unpopular "good" war.  

But we don't know when the news will break, so need to be ready
to mobilize on the day it does.  We're thinking about a late afternoon
demonstration -- see below.

The local groups of Iraq Veterans Against the War and of Campus Anti-War
network are in, and so is AWARE.  I'm sending this also to people from
the Mosque, and from the Mennonite Church, Friends meeting,
and Channing-Murray -- would any of you like to be involved,
either as an organization (could list you on a flyer/press release),
or just by spreading the word to your members?  Are there other groups
who might want to be part of this?

[Replies set to peace-discuss at anti-war.net by default -- please
keep discussions off the 'peace' list, but copy whoever's appropriate...]

Current suggestion is ...

   - Hold a demonstration at *5:00 PM* on the day, and invite the media.
	(This is a convenient time for TV news people,
	and might work for demonstrators with day jobs.)

   - If the announcement-of-Presidential-speech is on a day
	when the UofI students are in town, we should demonstrate on campus --
	say at the Alma Mater / Green&Wright.  That'll be a fairly busy
	corner, and we can hope to get a fair number of students participating.

	Those on-campus days would be today through Friday Nov. 20th, and
	from Monday Nov. 30th through Friday Dec. 18th (end of finals week).

   - If the announcement comes while the students are away,
	we demonstrate at the Veterans' Memorial in downtown Urbana.

	That would be during Nov. 21st-29th, or from Dec. 19th onward.


   - We haven't set in detail what to do.  We can certainly
	stand there with signs and maybe a banner.  At 5pm, it'll
	be dark, so we *could* try to hold candles.  But standing under
	streetlamps with signs will work better if it's windy.

   - Press release:  We need to let the media know in advance
	in the hope they'll show up and watch/interview us.
	Bob Naiman may be able to help with this depending on when
	the news breaks.  I've reluctantly agreed to compose a
	press release, but if someone else is less reluctant, please say so.

	This *is* part of a widespread effort.  See for example this
	group in Chicago (who like AWARE is a member of IL Coalition
	for Justice, Peace and the Environment):

 	  http://icjpe.org/actions/index.php?id=3413

   - Flyers: it would be good to make one and spread it around,
	saying briefly what and why.


   - Martin Smith mentioned a recently-returned veteran of Afghanistan,
	who strongly opposes the war, and might be available to come --
	if so, he'd be interesting to listen to, and he could speak
	at least to fellow demonstrators.

   - Do we need a phone tree?

   - We certainly need a facebook group...

   - A sign-making party would be a good thing.  AWARE has signs,
	but new ones would be better.  Anyone interested?
	Maybe Sunday afternoon from some fraction of 2-5pm do?
	If anyone writes back about this I'll book the Family Room.