So. Besides letter-writing and peaceful protests...

[tuvor]

...what can be done to bring this to the attention of 300 million Americans?



http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/iraq/abughraib/151108.pdf

(FWIW, I've just emailed my flimsy excuse of an MP to have Canada move to officially condemn it.)

[noamnety]

1. Like anything else you want to bring to the masses

print it off and shove it into the pockets of clothes on display at walmart.

[electron_blue]

2. Well that would bring it to the masses

Abu Ghraib torture brought to a halt by angry Wal-mart shoppers. Somehow I can't picture this.

What else can we do? I had a very demoralizing with a friend with long history in politics tonight (not a politician, just someone who works with the media) and he claims even this is not bad enough to get the American Public into enough outrage to stop this. How could we prove him wrong?

[tuvor]

4. Must be nice for your friend to know everything.

Start by telling him that he's part of the problem.

[electron_blue]

5. I agree

He is a know-it-all.

So - stuffing pockets in Wal-mart is one idea. What are some others? Writing letters to the editor? Writing our Senators? Holding up signs over the Phoenix parkways? Boycott something?

[tuvor]

7. Well, maybe your friend has some ideas.

And there are surely more to discover from other DUers.

Welcome to DU, by the way! :hi:

[tuvor]

3. Excellent! Keep this kicked, please!

I would die if it were my nephew being fucked by any soldier.

[drm604]

12. I like this idea.

It could be used for all kinds of under-reported news. Have you done this or do you know someone who has? Is there some trick to it? How does one walk into Walmart with a stack of printouts and start shoving them into pockets without being escorted out of the store? Those aren't snide rhetorical questions. I'm really curious about how someone would go about doing this.

[noamnety]

13. I know someone who has

They went in with fliers (a third of a sheet of paper) in their pockets. They haven't perfected that last part yet: without being escorted out of the store. :)

[Dragonfli]

6. I wish I Knew The Answer

I hope somebody provides one.

I try, I write, I rant to people I meet.
Some days I think I am talking to myself.
I will keep trying, and I thank you for the letter you wrote, one of countless I am sure.

Perhaps someday if we keep trying we will be able to reach more than "just the choir".

Keep searching for the answer, if you find it, let me know.

Many people think that this new batch of pictures, and other documentation will make the difference, I hope it does. The truth is there has already been enough evidence, it has simply been ignored while folks like myself are branded as "far left terrorist sympathizers" for mentioning it at the local bar or grocery store.

[Dragonfli]

8. Kick - NT

[tuvor]

10. Thanks, Dragonfli n/t

[deadparrot]

9. Moveon.org, maybe?

If they could make an ad incorporating it somehow...

The thing that makes this hard to bring to the masses is the sheer vulgarity of the contents. MSM would probably water it down substantially, and that's how most Americans get their news. But it's the vulgarity of it all that makes it so shocking and so sickening. So you lose something either way. :shrug:

[Tigress DEM]

11. We HAVE to get those VIDEOs out in MSM and play them like...

a Michael Jackson telethon - NON Stop!

People can look at these words and suspect the source and they don't hear the pain of the screams of children being raped.

Those videos MUST be played on MSM and the government held accountable for allowing it to happen.

[EFerrari]

14. Take heart, guys. People ARE waking up. My mother

called me this weekend, very excited. She told me she had seen a man standing with a "bring them home" sign at rush hour every day for the last week.

And, she said she was going to make a sign and find an intersection.

She's 73.

:hi:

[drm604]

15. Some brainstorming.

I'll brainstorm and start a list here. Please critique and add to it.

Slip flyers into magazines and newspapers. Slip them into books at bookstores.

Place them under windshield wipers.

Slip them between the pages of returned library books. A possible problem with this is that the library might shake them out before returning them to the shelves. Also, if someone complains, the library has records showing you as the last person to check that book out.

Leave them in hotel room bibles.

When you purchase a newspaper from a newspaper vending machine stuff one into each of the remaining newspapers.

If you're a postal carrier you could distribute them along with the mail. You would definitely be risking your job (and for all I know some kind of criminal charges) so you have to decide for yourself if it's worth it.

Someone who delivers newspapers could stuff them into the papers. You could also do this if you work in a newspaper printing or distribution plant.

Leave them in the pockets on the backs of seats in planes, trains, and buses.

Leave them in shopping carts.

Somehow rig some helium balloons or kites to release a large number of flyers over crowds of people.

Dump flyers form the windows of tall buildings over crowds.

Stand on a street corner with sandwich boards and bullhorn talking to people and handing out flyers.

Hand them out at your church. Apologize to people for the graphic language and descriptions but explain that it's necessary to spread the word about evil that's occurring.

Ask your clergy to talk about it in church, temple, etc.

Create a short URL (maybe a tinyurl) which links to a website containing the PDF from the OP. The URL doesn't have to have meaning, it just has to be short and easy to remember. Using stamp and ink pad, stamp it in lurid, dripping, blood red letters on every piece of paper money that passes through your hands.

Sky write the same URL.

Put the URL on bumper stickers. Attract people's curiosity by printing it with lurid, dripping, blood red letters.

If you have access to the windows of a tall building, unfurl a banner from the windows during midday with the same lurid red URL.

Freeway blog the URL.

Make stickers with the URL. Stick them in public places where they are likely to be seen by many people.

Wear a t-shirt with the URL.

With any of the above you could also include along with the URL a short phrase such as "Child Rape".


Call rightwing talk shows and act like a ditto-head. Tell them about a website that gives the truth about Iraq instead of the lies they're hearing from the liberal media. Give the URL! :evilgrin:

[EFerrari]

16. Talk to people.

Talk to your family, your landlord, your neighbors, your local merchants. Learn how to talk to anyone.

Look them right in the eye, and smile, and let them know what people of conscience are doing. Weave it into your daily activities. It works. It really, really, really works.

[drm604]

20. I'm really liking the URL ideas in my previous post.

I'll register a short URL if someone can create and host some sort of page that can potentially handle a lot of traffic. Is there already a good site about this that's not likely to go away soon? I don't want to depend on that washington post link. They could move it or take it down. I can probably make things like bumper stickers etc. available also.

[libertypirate]

17. Make it concise and hard to deny

http://miawmdwtfw.blogspot.com/

[Sapphire Blue]

18. Go right into the nest...to a RW church service... and when the minister

... asks the congregation to announce requests for prayers, do just that... make your announcement. I am completely serious about this. Go to every RW church in your area.

[EFerrari]

19. Oh man. This is a good idea. I just hate it. lol n/t

[drm604]

21. This is a REALLY good idea!

Have you actually done this? What do you say and what is the response? Do you know a good method for searching out specifically RW churches? Are they all on certain mailing lists or something?
One method I can think of is to cruise churches on a Sunday morning looking for ones with a preponderance of "W" stickers.

[Sapphire Blue]

24. I've asked for prayers for our brothers & sisters... the troops who have

been sent to fight an illegal & unjust war... for our brothers & sisters in Iraq... citizen victims of this illegal war... for our brothers & sisters throughout the country & thoroughout the world, victims of profiling & bigoted attacks because of this illegal war.... for our brothers & sisters, victims of rendering, torture, & abuse in this illegal war.... ending with "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' - Matthew 25:40

Reactions have been anything from grumbling to gasps to 'Amens' to applause. Many churches have websites... you can tell which way they lean by the info posted. You can also call & talk to the pastor.

I'm trying to get up enough courage to hit one of the BIG churches in the area... one of the evangelical TV churches.

[EFerrari]

26. Hats off, Sapphire Blue.

Now that you've suggested it, I don't think I can not do it.

Damn. I'm going to just hate that. :hi:

[drm604]

22. Definitely do this in person in real churches,

but also check this out: Google of "Prayer Requests"
Check out some of the links. I think there are some good places to submit prayer requests that will be seen by a lot of people.

[nofurylike]

27. what a great idea! thank you for this, and later description of how! eom

[nofurylike]

23. you mean without missing a day of work, risking arrest or getting hurt,

chipping a frickin fingernail...?


gee, how'd those germans ever let that happen over there?

resistance takes courage and risks.

over on another thread, while discussing this same question, someone protested that this is not "our shame" but "their shame."

when confronted by not doing enough to stop it, that person replied with something to the effect of: well i'm not going to storm... get myself arrested....

you know what i mean.

my goddess, we are 1930s germany and we damn well better decide if we're a resistance.


solidarity

[nofurylike]

25. btw, thank you for writing to have Canada condemn it. and for this thread.

and for the clip from the testimony.



solidarity

[Dragonfli]

28. Kick - NT

[Peace Patriot]

29. We have to seize back control of our election system. That is the

problem. Americans are neither stupid, nor asleep, nor lazy, nor uninformed--most of us.

Example: 58% of Americans opposed the Iraq war BEFORE the invasion. I will never forget that stat. Feb. '03. BEFORE all the lies were exposed. To me, that reveals a peaceful majority whose views were not heard.

Example: 63% of Americans oppose torture UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. May '04. This is a people that is not easily scared, and that sticks to its sense of justice and ethics and lawfulness, despite relentless fearmongering.

I could go on and on, with stats. Believe me. The majority of Americans are progressive in their views and hate the Bush Cartel, and threw them out of office on Nov. 2, 2004, by--my estimate from all election evidence--a big majority, 10% to 15%. Americans are DISENFRANCHISED. That is the problem. And they furthermore have 24/7 news monopoly propaganda to contend with, so it TAKES TIME to get word of mouth around on what's really happening. Most Americans DON'T KNOW that two Bushite voting machine companies--Diebold and ES&S--control the vote tabulation with secret, proprietary programming code.

It is problem that is fixable at the state/local level, where power over election systems still resides, and where ordinary people still have some influence. It is a practical problem. Americans do like practical problems. I think we will solve it. We had better, because it may be the one and only chance we have to save our democracy. But it is a race with time. What will the Bush Cartel do next, to extend their power and crush dissent? (Federalize elections? Nuke Iran?) Let's hope that the Gods of Earth and Sky protect us until we can straighten this out.

Then we will have the War Crimes Tribunal.

I have avoided the pictures and testimony of torture--after the first round of pictures got circulated--as I have avoided news of the Iraq war except to glance at headlines. I went through the Vietnam war, at a time when we still had the right to vote, and such images helped motivate the antiwar movement (and were much more readily available in the news and more well known), and resulted in LBJ essentially resigning as President because it was very clear that he could not get re-elected due to huge disgust at his terrible war. But that is not the case now. We cannot oust the warmongers. They have a lock on our election system. One hundred thousand, or a million, people in the streets won't make the slightest difference to them. I would love to see it! Don't get me wrong. And I would surely lend a hand organizing it. But I don't think outrage will stop the killing and the torture.

Also, I don't need to increase my anger at the Bush Cartel and my hatred for their genocidal war. I am maxed out on anger and outrage. I'm concentrating on a SOLUTION.

Keep this in mind, in spreading information about torture and death. Think about the issue of peoples' powerlessness and helplessness--or their feeling that they are. Add something on about the mechanisms of power, and how they can GET power, and enforce the will of the MAJORITY, and achieve "consent of the governed." It doesn't have to be election reform--although that, to me, is the fundamental and essential condition for change. It can be public education work, radical media, yelling at Congresspeople (always worth doing), forming neighborhood discussion groups (to help de-isolate people), or other alternatives. Aim at empowerment!

And thank you for publishing this. We DO need to know these things, as human witnesses, and in order to grasp the full wickedness and lawlessness of this criminal gang that is running our country. Sometimes I think they are out to deliberately destroy our sense of nationhood. How could anyone be loyal to this? It makes you want to spit at the flag because THEY wave it. But, of course, what we must do is seize it back. The Bushites are no more patriotic than they are religious.

[anarch]

32. if we don't fix the electoral process: 100% disenfranchised. n/t

[nashville_brook]

30. email 391 mainstream media contacts:

http://www.independentmediasource.com/voteintegrity2_12.htm


this link is wayback from the vote integrity campaign -- but the email addresses are valid.

[nashville_brook]

31. Group W -- something i did in college along the lines of

pamphlet leaving in walmarts -- just reproduce this in POSTER SIZE. letter size for personal printers -- whatever -- and plaster it where ever you go.

anyone know BANDS who plaster posters on a regular basis? anyone here in a band that plasters on a regular basis?

anyone here in college? Group W started in college. just reproduce this and pin up around the school, especially around history, poly sci, phil departement. places where it will spark discussion.

[drm604]

33. Kick

:kick:

[drm604]

34. Kick

:kick: