[sklyarov-chicago] July 30th Protest

[Peter A. Peterson II]

Quoting Steve Stearns:
> Might I suggest a petition as a more useful way to do this?  If you give
> people a letter to send in they might forget about it and get lazy.  If
> you just have them sign their names and give their address, then you can
> send that to a congressman or senator and have a far greater impact.

This is an excellent idea. I've been muellering over (ha ha) the last
two protests, and I have a few ideas for the next time around.

FIrst of all, we're going to wait at least two weeks -- skip the next
Monday at the very least, but not more than 3 weeks. We want to stay
current if possible. This will give more people a chance to get time
off, or get psyched up to protest again.

Secondly, I'd like to have more of a coherent demonstration along with
the flyer passing out -- by that I mean having everyone with nice,
readable, similar-looking signs. This grabs people's attention. These
people are say, marching back and forth IN FRONT of the federal
building. THen there are people just inside from them, with stacks of
the papers, or moving up and down the sidewalk distributing flyers.
Maybe they have a flyer taped to their shirt, or a large-font text on a
piece of paper taped to the shirt, like some have done already. THese
people are just disseminating information. THen, we have two people,
maybe at either end, with a clipboard and a sign saying PETITION or
something like that, inviting people to sign the petition, which we can
then deliver to Dick Durbin or whomever.

Someone mentioned having a bullhorn or some kind of mini pa. This
requires a particular kind of permit, but I'm willing to look into that
for the sake of higher visibility. This might not get as many flyers
handed out, but people will see a more cohesive unit, in FRONT of the
federal building. (Which is actually around the corner from the Calder
statue). 

      .-----------------------------------.
          P  P   P  P   P   P    P   P 
        p  L     L    L    L     L  L p

It would also be very important that we had a great turnout -- the more
the better. And this kind of organized protest would garner more media
attention than random people on the street.

THe other idea I had was to put people on opposite corners all through
the loop, for maximum, regular corner coverage -- so that people walking
through the loop would constantly be greeted by another person with a
sign. You could do this like so:

  [].'[].'[].'[]. [] 
  [].'[].'[].'[].'[]  
  [].'[].'[].'[].'[]

Where the points are right on the corners of the curbs -- and they can
rotate and face the pedestrians from the direction they're coming from.
It could be a cool thing for people to witness though, mobilization on a
broad scale.

Anyway, both of these ideas, particularly the picket line-petition thing
are more of a media-friendly thing than what we have been doing. And the
couple of weeks ahead will make it easier to try and mobilize that
media.

Thoughts?

pedro