Posted on 02/19/2003 11:09:17 AM PST by areafiftyone
A coalition of groups opposed to a U.S.-led war in Iraq will have supporters call, fax and e-mail the White House and Congress next week in an effort to overwhelm switchboards and catch the attention of political leaders.
"Last weekend, we marched in the streets," former Rep. Tom Andrews, D-Maine, national director of Win Without War, told a news conference Wednesday. "Next week, we're taking it to the suites of official Washington."
Organizers of the "virtual march" on Washington are calling on supporters to call, fax or e-mail their two U.S. senators and the White House during business hours on Feb. 26.
The group also unveiled a new television ad featuring actor Martin Sheen, who plays the fictional President Josiah Bartlet on NBC's "The West Wing." In the ad, which begins airing Thursday, Sheen urges Americans to take part in the call-in effort.
"Our message to Washington will be clear," Sheen says in the ad. "Don't invade Iraq. We can contain Saddam Hussein without killing innocent people, diverting us from the war on terrorism and putting us all at risk."
Participants who register for the call-in campaign at the group's Web site will be directed to make their phone calls at specific times, Andrews said. The goal is to record one call per minute in every Senate office and at the White House.
"We're hoping there will be thousands and thousands of phone calls," he said.
Sheen, along with other West Wing cast members and actress Janeane Garofalo, was appearing later Wednesday at a press conference in Los Angeles to discuss the new ad and the campaign.
The ad, produced by Win Without War, will air initially on CNN and other cable networks in Washington and Los Angeles at a cost of $30,000.
Win Without War is a coalition of more than 30 organizations opposed to war with Iraq, including the National Council of Churches, National Organization for Women, NAACP and the Sierra Club.
Adding to the irony that forcible removal of Saddam is widely unpopular with Muslims, even though Saddam has murdered more Muslims than any other modern political leader, here we have the Sierra Club defending from justice the greatest environmental criminal in modern history.
Are the envidiots unaware of the following crimes of Saddam, all committed quite intentionally?
1) Pumping crude oil into the Persian Gulf, creating the largest oil slick in human history, equivalent to 15 or 20 Exxon Valdez spills? (It would have been even more if the American military had not been able to stop it.)
2) Torching of the Kuwaiti oil fields, poisoning millions of inhabitants of the region, and releasing tons of hydrocarbons into the atmosphere.
3) The complete and systematic destruction, with the draining of the marshes at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, of the most ecologically diverse and productive biome in the entire region (done to remove hiding places and refuges for the Marsh Arabs, who were then slaughtered in tens to hundreds of thousands, and more internally exiled). These marshes were home to hundreds upon hundreds of species of birds alone, not to mention plants and fishes. There is widespread agreement among Iraqi dissidents and expats that a project to reconstitute and restore the marshes should be undertaken, but this will never occur with Saddam in power.
HERE IS SOME INFO ON THE PEOPLE'S RIGHTS FUND:
The People's Rights Fund, inc., which was established in 1986, is a not-for-profit foundation. As a 50l(c)(3) foundation, donations to it are tax-deductible. The fund provides an alternative to the mainstream charities. It provides funding for educational progams on peace, civil rights, civil liberties, economic inequality, anti-repression and social justice issues. To that end, it allocates grants which fund conferences, meetings, seminars, classes, national speaking tours and other activities around the country which fulfill its goal of educating the public about important international and local issues. It also seeks to provide funding for the dissemination of information not found in the daily print or electronic media. To that end, it donates funds to organizations for the purposes of publishing books, pamphlets, fact sheets, and other literature and for producing videos which educate the public about the above issues.
But I thought going after Saddam is part of the war on terrorism. Guess I was wrong. Thanks for clarifying, Mr. Sheen. You should be the real president. /heavy sarcasm/
The Win Without War committee consists of a council of representatives from participating organizations and a small professional staff. To join, organizations must have national scope, be nonpartisan, multipartisan, or bipartisan, and must agree to our mission and political statements. The full committee is supported by a small steering committee and two co-chairs, Susan Shaer, Women's Action for New Directions, and Robert Edgar, National Council of Churches.
Click on each member listed below to visit their Web site.
American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)
Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities
Campaign for UN Reform
Council for a Livable World
Conference of Major Superiors of Men
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Fourth Freedom Forum
Global Exchange
Greenpeace
Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR)
MoveOn
NAACP
National Council of Churches
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
National Organization for Women (NOW)
NETWORK A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby
Oxfam America
Pax Christi USA
Peace Action
Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR)
Rainbow/Push Coalition
Sierra Club
Sojourners
Soulforce
The Tikkun Community
TrueMajority
Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations
United Methodist Church General Board of Church and Society
Us Foundation
Veterans for Common Sense
Women's Action for New Directions (WAND)
Working Assets
We Wislike W
Witless Wimpy Winguts
Wetting our widdle Wundies
Weasels, weasels, weasels!
-archy-/-
I think I'll go visit the enemy camp.
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