A story and a plan.
Some of my friends took their Dean signs to protest Bush when he made a speech at a local high school about 2 weeks ago. First, they weren't allowed anywhere near the school. Worse, the presidential caravan then came from the opposite direction. Worst, a reporter asked them to wave Kerry signs instead of their Dean signs for the cameras. (They said they didn't have any; they were Dean supporters. There were no Kerry supporters, at least not with signs or buttons, in a very large protest crowd.)
Another message proposes a plan:
Arguably, there is no other issue more important than
"taking back" control of the media.
One place we can take that battle is with an organized effort to
ensure that Bush's orders to keep protesters "a country mile" from
him is given wide publicity. Not only will help galvanize growing
numbers of protesters, it will prick the media into revealing the
depth of White House cowardice.
As important, it will give wide coverage to this question:
Should we re-elect a president so reviled
abroad that he cannot travel overseas?
The hardest part is not finding protesters. These will come — have
already come — in the many thousands. Neither is it hard to link
them with each other and help them with the local media. The Internet
can see to that. Nor is it hard to bombard newspapers with photos and
documents of a kind they need in order to run the story; and that the
ACLU needs in order to challenge Bush in court.
What's hard is finding courageous reporters who will help dig out the
Bush travel schedule; and then to get his story widely circulated.
What this calls for is an Easter egg hunt that can be successful only
if there are lots and lots of egg hunters. We need to turn over every
rock in our garden. We need people of a kind reading this message.