[sklyarov-chicago] Advice from an Expert

[Larry Garfield]

I just got off the phone with a friend of mine who is more politically
connected than anyone else I know.  She's worked several campaigns
before, so  had some very good advice to offer.

First, and most importantly, does anyone here who was/will be at a
protest live in Skokie?  Can we get anyone who lives in Skokie?  I'm
from Evanston, and I'm hoping to get some other Evanston people.  The
Skokie Review and Evanston Review may both be convinced that it's a
story worth covering if they have a local angle.  I'm going to call them
Friday afternoon, so if I can mention any local people who will be
there, that's a good thing.

Both she and I are going to try and follow up on some contacts with
local politicians that we have.  More on that if it pans out.

Another important item:  Yes, snail mail does carry more weight in
Senatorial and Congressional offices than e-mail or phone.  In fact,
according to Greenpeace, most Reps now ignore e-mail completely.  So
start buying stamps, you'll need 'em.

In terms of getting a letter writing campaign going, start with people
you know.  Talk to them in person, or send them a hard copy mail.
Explain to them the situation, why it's important, why it's important to
them, why it's important to us as a nation.  Above all, be polite.
Provide them with a sample letter if they want an idea of what to write,
or even for them to just sign and send.  Form letters are better than
nothing.  If you can, get them to talk to their friends as well and get
them to send letters.  Or, if they tell you to talk to the people they
know, make sure that you mention to that other person who directed you
to them.

Don't use a phone.  That takes up a person's valuable time (esp. if it's
during dinner), and is easily forgotten afterwards.  That's true for
talking to other people, and to legislature types.

She also said that we may want to go as far as considering lawn signs
for people.  If we can make a decent sign (with URL), we can certainly
try and get a couple of people to put signs out.

She also said that form letters or sample letters are fine.  So, over
the next week or so Nate and I will be drawing up sample letters to
congresspersons, maybe 3 different flavors, that we can pass around.
When you talk to someone, encourage them to write their own letter using
the sample as a guide, but if they want to just take the sample, add a
name, and put a stamp on it, that's good too.  (That's why we have
multiple versions, it gives variety.)  Letters should be a page or less,
otherwise busy senators' staffs get bored.  Stay tuned.

Another thing Nate and I discussed earlier was more ever-present
visibility.  After the protest last Monday, I had my sign with me on the
train on the way up to Evanston.  I had several people looking at it,
and one or two ask about it.  Now I'm not advocating that we carry signs
around all the time, but Nate and I came up with ribbons.  Blue ribbons
are the traditional color for free speech.  On their own, though,
ribbons don't say anything other than "I'm protesting for the heck of
it!"  So, we should design a blue ribbon with a card behind it that has
"DMCA is Unconstitutional" or something with "DMCA" in it very visible.
We should then ALL take to wearing them regularly, in order to get
random people on the train talking to us.  The more people talk to us,
the more people hear about the DMCA, and the more people realize what a
bad idea it is.  Nate also suggested attaching ribbons to the fliers we
hand out, in the hopes that some people will put them on.  That's again
more grassroots visibility, which is good stuff.

So does anyone have access to a shit load of blue ribbon? :-)

We've got some momentum, let's take advantage of it.

--
Larry Garfield
lgarfiel@students.depaul.edu

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