1. Upcoming Events
2. Carol for Congress
3. Protest
4. Event Ideas
5. 9/11 Truth Meetings
9. Self-Criticism
Dear 9/11 Truth Activists,
Here are the notes/ideas taken down during our 911 Strategy Conference on Sunday, December 4th.
If there are any you have to add, send them.
If there are comments you want to make on any, send them.
Also, some people have already written me reports on the conference, including criticisms/suggestions. I have weaved in those comments to this list. If you write one, I will do the same with you suggestions.
Frank has the list of email contacts- we need to get them from him- in order to send them out to everyone.
This is the rough draft of the whole report on the conference, so get in changes/additions before we send it to the big list.
Best Wishes, Christian
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UPCOMING EVENTS
Upcoming National 911 Conference in Chicago
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CAROL FOR CONGRESS
Carol will run with the Green Party.
Carol still needs to decide if she will run.
FUNDRAISING
Create donations campaign, with Deception Dollars/Behind Every Terrorist There is a Bush.
PROGRAM
Carol wants to run a campaign critical of the whole National Security State.
Last election, there were Greens asking Carol for talking points.
OTHER ELECTORAL CAMPAIGNS
Christian turns 25 on December 22, making him eligible to run in the Democratic primary against Nancy Pelosi.
Gabriel Day is considering running for Congress in Santa Cruz.
Starchild is running for SF Supervisor, and said that he is willing to speak up publicly on 911 being an inside job.
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PROTEST
Bring the anti-war and 911 movements even closer together.
When? We decided to have it right after the upcoming anti-war protest on March 18.
Frame our protest as an Impeach Bush protest, and then give 9/11 as the biggest reason, to bring in more of the anti-war movement.
We will piggy back on the fliers for the March 18 protest.
We will pass out many invitations to our protest at the March 18 protest.
Create an Impeach Bush Group, the model of the grassroots campaign that brought about Watergate.
Frank warned Carol to stay away from suggesting we start a new party. There are too many progressive parties already fighting over the 6% of votes.
The black masses know that 911 is an inside job. Our activism does not mobilize their knowledge, however.
The protest is not the best idea. We should act now to avoid martial law.
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EVENT IDEAS
Have a speaker series.
Every Sunday in New York, NY911Truth fills a church with 150-200 people to watch movies. It's a great opportunity to bring in friends, build community.
National Citizens Union.
Work with the World Democracy Movement, and the World Democracy Party
Take back control of our own grand jurys. Grand Jury Teach-In.
Trick: Invite some pro-choice and pro-lifers, then toss 9-11 at them.
Let's have a 911 Tour around the United States. Gabriel suggested the idea, and Frank Runninghorse volunteered a bus as long as Gabriel finds the bio-diesel engine.
Make noise at the State of the Union address. World Can't Wait.
Need people in Moussaui trial to be visible.
Start membership group of progressives.
Call another Constitutional Congress.
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9/11 TRUTH ALLIANCE MEETINGS
More frequent meetings.
Once a month brainstorming and strategy session.
Long term strategy sessions.
9/11 TRUTH ALLIANCE IS NOT A PARTY, YET We need a political party, rather than an activist group.
Frank agrees with Christian that commitment to showing up at meetings and helping organize is key to our being able to make all these ideas real.
ATTITUDE OF GROUP
Identify the Achilles Heel of the Bush Administration (on 9-11) and attack mercilessly!
FUNDRAISING IDEAS
We need an angel. One person who will donate us $1,000,000. The millionaire who likes why it matters.
Steve Hirsch (Kersch?) gave $600,000 to denouce Bush's education policies.
Frank said that 1,000,000 people giving $1 would be better. Nods of agreement.
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MEDIA STRATEGY
Find the Cindy Sheehan of the 911 Movement.
Use the tactics of the Bush bullies against them.
We are looking to form a 911 Media Working Group.
Peace Resources Project and Gabriel Day working at the national level.
Everyone should keep their eyes and ears open for opportunities to call into radio shows, add comments to online stories, and ask questions at political events on 9-11 topics.
Sister cities sharing information.
Reach out to the Muslim community.
Reach out to minorities.
Hace materiales sobre Nueve Once en Espanol. Make 911 Materials in Spanish.
Find a 911 contact in each language.
Gabriel is trying to have contacts of 9-11 activists in each state.
Use the tactics of the bullies against them.
Present a United Front. They'd like to divide us. We have a common, international problem.
MEDIA DEBATE
We can get more precise. What percentages do you think?
Quietly educate people from below, by the 100s, 100,000s.
Grassroots education is too slow.
Pressure from ABOVE and BELOW at once. Pincers.
The tipping point is determined by the ruling class.
The media is the CIA.
or
The tipping point is determined by the people.
Michael Moore shoes that a guy with a video camera can have so much power.
GOAL OF OUR MEDIA
Make covert action a commonly understood concept.
Building 7 should be exposed more.
Make it appear safe to know and learn about the truth.
Seeding Packet: Now that you know, what can you do?
Add more humor.
Make politicians afraid that the people will come asking them questions about 911.
Create cognitive dissonace on moral issues about 9/11.
MEDIA DISTRIBUTION STRATEGY
Focus on one city. Saturate them with info in a calm and non-threatening way. Best packaging. Get one city to agree.
We no longer have a democracy - stolen elections. How many people know?
Lean from that movement. Media is controlled. Be smart in outreach.
Give away DVDs cheaply produced.
Get a laptop and have the clip of Building 7 falling playing over and over again at the table along with all the other materials. Then you don't have to say, "Go look at this website." You can just show them.
Create resource lists.
MEDIA PRODUCTION STRATEGY
Make accessible, attractive outreach materials.
Purchase a $1000 DVD burning tower to increase volume and ease of DVD production. Make it faster and less expensive to create media and get it into print, right away.
MEDIA CREATION IDEAS
Make a 'report card' just like the 911 Commission.
Make Cynthia McKinney's hearings into MP3s.
Record Books on Tape.
Put out our own history of the progressive movement, along with more histories and analysis of covert actions. Create materials in a variety of different media (documentary film, novels, comic book, pamphlet), in a variety of languages.
Make masks.
Make props.
911 Rock Opera.
Theater work with local groups (SF Mime Troupe)
Theater/911
Bush/Cheney
Make postcards.
Link to postcard flier.
Make flag with the Bill of Rights.
Make a Yellow Ribbon with "Support 911 Truth", intstead of "Support Our Troops"
Have 911 Petitions on clipboards at the table.
Have 911 Petitions online.
Take the 911 Truth Quiz. Opens up the mind to the info. Which one's the real Bin Laden?
Billboard: 911 Truth
Bush Vaccuum. It sucks.
We have the two 911 towers that can we worn.
Get Info to the Insurance Companies who had to pay for 9/11. Several people murmured that they were in on the scam.
New York City Fireman on Tape - Could be the Cindy Sheehan of 911.
Make a statement that people can sign on to publicly.
PRINT MEDIA STRATEGY
Get progressive magazines to write a story.
Mother Jones.
Z Magazine.
Socialism and Liberation.
Left Turn.
Covert Action Quarterly
Letters to the editor.
Coordinate many letters to the editor.
(Same idea as the Homeland Security 'professor' of 'mathematics' at Stanford, whom we met a Berkeley)
Sunday inserts
Pirate ship in guerilla marketing
INTERNET STRATEGY
Roger suggested that we create 911 spam emails.
Internet Radio.
Get a 911 page on SF Indymedia, like the Portland Indymedia.
Freeway bloggers.
Use the Internet More - Get Support from Other Countries - Big Brothers and Sisters
Narrowcasting.
Podcasting.
RADIO STRATEGY
Radio is our best medium.
KPFA - Needs to be targeted. Specifically target each program and administrator.
Everyone should keep their eyes and ears open for opportunities to call into to radio shows.
Sneak people onto talk radio with a concerted campaign.
Try Hard Knock Radio
Youth Radio
Jody is interested in doing radio, Enemy Combatant Radio with Indymedia.
Bait and Switch when getting on the radio.
Bonnie Faulkner and Guns and Butter.
Produce a weekly radio show.
TELEVISION STRATEGY
Public Access, TV Network Blitz them at the same time.
Ken said that 911 TV has been on the air for just that purpose. Our problem is not only that we don't have it, it's that all the activists don't know and watch what is already there.
More people on Cable TV. Bob Damron. Willing to Travel.
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FRAMING, MESSAGING, SLOGANS
Be attentive to language (framing).
Framing language is collaborative tweaking. Anticipate that it takes time.
SUSAN'S FACILITATION
Crucible of criticism important for rarified product.
911 goes first in the sentence, with people who are "down". For people who aren't "down", we put the topic last, 911.
Here are the ideas that were tossed out to help us convey our message (minus the ones that really wouldn't work. NW means Needs more Work). In bold are the ones that the group liked...
(Some of these are graphics)
9-11 was a lie
Real Patriots Demand to Know the Whole Truth
The Quest for 9-11 Truth is a Spiitual Path
Explore the unanswered 9-11 Questions NW
IMAGE- (Dominoes labeled) - 2000, rigged elections, 9-11, PATRIOT ACT, Homeland Security, War on Iraq, Abu Graib...
9 (Image of towers) Truth will make you free
Maybe setting up 9-11 had something to do with Iraq after all.
Why was the the war on Iraq planned before 9-11? NW
9-11 the only issue
Truth is Patriotic
Patriots tell the Truth
Bush's Reichstag Fire
9-11 = Reichstag
9-11 caused by rot at the top
Truth and freedom- you can't have one without the other
Remember Building #7
(Image)Bush's Truth (image of skull and bones), 9-11 truth (bomb/explosives...)
9-11 Bush's Gulf of Tonkin
Don't be fooled again
You've been lyin when you out to have been truthin
The 9-11 truth will Upset You Free
9-11 = High treason/Mass Murder
The Emperor has no clue (conscience) (evidence)...
(IMAGE)Stop Sign symbol with STOP SECRET Yield sign symbol with Yield to 9-11 truth
Made in USA, Murder Incorporated- 9-11 NW
9-11 Truth or Consequences?
Stop the Next 9-11
President Bush, I can't be with you, your lies terrify me! NW
9-11Gate
9-11 Neo-Con Job (I think it might work also with- Neo-Con Jobs- Iraq, 9-11)
You're Either for Peace or You're a Terrorist
9-11 Truth is Scary,
Ignorance is Scarier
9-11 The Buck stops Here (IMAGE of Bush)
The 9-11 Buck Starts Here (Image of the Deception Dollar)
9-11 Self Attack NW
Would you hear Paul Revere?
9-11 Truth Patriots
9-11 = Controlled Demolition
The Awficial 9-11 Report is a Fraud (scam) (lie)
9-11 Auto-Immune Disease
9-11 was Impossible
Get the 411 on 9-11
REASONS TO PANIC
Bird-Flu.
It's not just money that want to control. MKULTRA, Vaccinations,
Microchips, all used to threaten and harm us.
Act on local level. Inform them. Mayors have had secret meetings on vaccinations - people are being brainwashed/programmed to listen to 'authority figures'.
Gabriel mentioned that we have the pharmacology, bird flu, 9/11, drug war, corporations, and more to deal with.
Corporate control attacks social programs.
How can we realize our goals within the corporate / non-profit world?
REASONS NOT TO PANIC
Read Bill Moyer's Practical Strategist (always available for free at Carol's table) Doing Democracy- The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements.
SELF-CRITICISM
We should have focused more on regional strategy, while everyone was together.
We should have spent less time on specifically Northern CA 9/11 Truth Alliance meeting times.
Mike Hagerty also wrote up an account of our meeting and posted some photos at- http://www.yayacanada.com/9-11-3.html.
Swami Beyondananda sent me these notes about our strategy meeting:
Here are some thoughts -- in no particular order, taken from notes of the day -- on how we can move from the “turning point” to the “tipping point.”
2. I also like “from the bottom up” and “top down” simultaneously. I reiterate that we need a visible and audible presence in the form of celebrities and notables who confront the current regime on at least three of these counts:
This might be able to be done, as Barbara suggested, through grand juries. At the very least, each local community should have it’s truth committee showing the interrelationship between all of the above. The groundswell needs to rise in order to give support and courage to those risking their necks and reputation up above. Perhaps Adam Werbach’s organization for progressive film could put some of the 9/11 pieces into the hopper. Ditto podcasts on the net. Do you know anyone in that organization? They should have the Griffin / C-Span piece and Barry Zwicker’s “News Special” at the very least.
3. I was intrigued with Barbara Honegger’s notion of “popcorn popping” and making it safe to talk about 9/11 and other dark truth issues. I’m thinking back to when Michael Moore “broke through the soundless barrier” two and a half years ago at the Oscars at a time when no one else would publically dare speak the truth about Bush and the war. Now the same needs to happen -- and quickly -- about 9/11 and election fraud. We need a Cindy Sheehan for this movement, a firefighter perhaps. Someone who cannot be dismissed or dispensed with. I like the slogan: “Make America safe for the truth.”
4. Since Ken Jenkins didn’t do his presentation, I think there needs to be a careful inquiry on how best to present these threatening issues psychologically to get in under the radar. Any experts on board? I’m not necessarily talking about communicating diplomatically -- in fact, that might be the exact wrong approach. I’m not talking about laying another manipulation on top of the brainwashing. I’m talking about cutting right through the fog and waking people up. Seems like this should be a fruitful area of inquiry ... (Swami’s idea is a group called the Jefferson’s Witnesses who went door-to-door awakening people to war them about the attack on liberty: “The brutish are coming! The brutish are coming!”)
5. I think the idea of sandwich boards is intriguing. Just recently in Ohio, the billboard company refused to run an ad against Rep. Schmidt for her intemperate comments to Rep. Murtha. So they got trucks and are draping the message in a huge banner over the side of the truck. Since the mainstream media won’t take our “truth money,” we’ll take our truth money elsewhere where it can truly do some good.
6. The grand jury idea is intriguing, although I need to find out more about it. Instead of playing defense and trying to respond to every outrageous assault, let’s move forward and take charge of the conversation. A national grassroots truth organization -- simply bringing up the questions in the light of the proven lies -- will in turn empower those to form a committee from the top down. If indeed the grand jury idea is viable, the same global evidence can be used locally -- to take back local control, once and for all. And the legal procedures can be used to delegitimize the regime at the top. I like the idea -- I think Barbara said it -- that it’s time for us to “make” the official truths from the bottom up. In fact, one of the biggest issues that reaches across issue lines is the “privatization of truth” so that free speech applies differently on private property, and it’s all private property.
7. Another great idea: Make the information accessible to Middle Eastern, Latino and Asian citizens through their publications, radio stations, and language.
8. I also like the idea of progressive churches ringing the bell of liberty. (The interesting thing is that the media shut down of the truth movement is forcing us to communicate in much more creative ways. Think Otpor.) This is very very powerful. Make it a national message: Let freedom ring! Let truth ring! Let justice ring! Prove and remove. Prove the Administration acted illegally on as many fronts as possible. We might call the campaign: “Let’s Bring Democracy Home.”
9. Another idea for concerted actions involves radio call-in shows, particularly if we picked one national show per week (Rush Limbaugh, etc.) and called in, perhaps masking the real question until we got on the air. This could be a way of breaking through the soundless barrier big time and mainstream -- send people to the truth website, both left wing and right wing. At least get the question out there. Might be easier for a rightwing sympathizer to see of hear a critique coming from the right.
10. Someone mentioned a membership group for progressives, and I agree -- as long as “truth” is number one. Once the truth is free to flow, there will be no problem promoting a progressive agenda. As RFK, Jr. has said, “80% of Republicans are Democrats and don’t know it.” I like the non-partisan united front for truth that specifically invokes the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and calls for transparency as the foundation of a free people.
11. Someone else mentioned city council meetings and mayoral declarations. This could work very effectively if the city council time was used as a “teach in” on the issue. And because it is happening locally, two things can occur:
a. There is a greater likelihood of it being reported in the local section of the paper, particularly if it creates a lot of buzz at the meetings, perhaps an expansion of the anti-Patriot Act resolutions that have been passed. This is the next level of protecting ourselves from our own government.
b. The follow up can be a public showing of one or more of the 9/11 videos, followed by a public discussion.
13. The current skepticism about Bush can be used to create an opening around the 9/11 issue. Keep in mind that while the 9/11 issue is perhaps the most profound and fundamental betrayal, the real issues are abuse of power, use of criminal activities and deadly force against civilian populations, and the erosion of liberties and increase in Big Brother mind-manipulation at home. Whatever creates critical mass ... is critical.
14. Teach-Ins, particularly geared to anti-war activists. That way, people can do with the issue what they wish. But once people see the flaws in the foundation for the war on terror, we could create critical mass this way. Shining the light on the 9/11 issue -- and forcing the press to cover it, particularly through a Cindy Sheehan-type fire fighter or family member -- is the shortest distance between here and regime change.
15. How about showing the David Ray Griffin or Barrie Zwicker videos in high school and college classrooms? Even if the videos never get shown, it will create once again enough controversy to get press coverage. People will start asking, “What exactly is this video they won’t let us see?”
16. As Byron brought up, the biggest flaw with any of these truth, justice and peace movements is answering the very valid question, what would WE do instead? The world democracy movement is a step in the right direction: The rule of law and transparency worldwide. While we may sometimes get discouraged by the sheer power and finances the bad guys have, something to keep in mind is that 80% or 90% of the people in the world want to live and let live in peace. Just knowing that -- without falling into ideological and cultural camps -- the vast majority of the people in the world want the same thing should count for something.
17. For the next local 9/11 event, I would like to be part of planning a demonstration at the Chronicle -- and other playful and peaceful actions -- to press the press into covering the story.
18. Another untapped resource which Jim Marrs has used successfully: Christian talk radio. We have allies in this issue everywhere. Let’s bring them together!
19. Finally, everything we do to continue speaking the truth -- from blogs to letters to speaking to individuals to posting on anti-war and progressive websites to even toastmasters -- will continue to speak the truth forward and create a “field” of expanding possibilities. Out of this field I am confident our own “Cindy Sheehan” will come.
It will take time to allow this huge toxin in the body politic to get “digested.” I suggest that we make a big deal of creating our own Truth, Reconciliation and Forgiveness Committee in anticipation of people being on the fence about speaking out. If we continue to repeat our mantra (just like George repeats his) that “the truth will inevitably come out. Which side of the truth will YOU be on when it does?” then first of all we will get regular people used to the idea that there’s been a huge betrayal, and secondly we will encourage well-known people and whistleblowers to get on board.
Re your campaign, I most definitely support you and your work and anything that gets it out there. If you decide this is the best use of energy and resources, I have no doubt it will have an impact and I am here to help you.
Steve Bhaerman