Add to the scope of your messaging by OCCUPYING COMMUTE ROUTES with miniprotests that are TOO SMALL for any legal justification for POLICE INTERVENTION. Miniprotesting's three-part messaging allows you to combine facts with the Socratic method to add the POWER to CONVINCE to your slogans.
If your Occupy event is ongoing, create a Miniprotesting Committee by vote within your General Assemblies, then connect with other Committee Chairs to decide which issues to take to your local, clogged commute arteries.
FOR WISCONSIN
Less that three weeks until the June 5
Recall election to replace
Gov. Scott Walker
with
Tom Barrett
Announcing Two New Sites For
Miniprotesting HQ in WI:
http://www.meetup.com/Wisconsin-Miniprotesters/
http://www.facebook.com/WisconsinMiniprotesters
We need to go "all in" for Wisconsin, using miniprotests to overcome the Koch brothers/RNC/SuperPAC millions, as well as the Rove/Luntz-crafted lies.
There are hundreds of thousands of progressive voices in Wisconsin ready to take to the streets. Collectively they could cover every single outbound commute artery in the state. This is what their three-block-long protest string should convey:
Corner #1: There’s Video Proof that Gov. Walker’s Union Busting Legislation was for Political NOT Fiscal Reasons
This main sign is held waist-high by the central miniprotester. The three folks around her hold traditional overhead signs that say: "Walker Paid Puppet of the 1%" and "Get Wise to All the Walker Lies" and "Walker = Corporate Power. Barrett = People Power." A driver reading this while bogged down in traffic may shrug this new information off due to prior pummeling of right-wing talking points. But he'll read the next main sign a block later.
Corner #2: Walker CREATED Budget Shortfall to Go After Unions with $137 Million in Corporate Tax Giveaways
Every voter in Wisconsin is aware of last year's flood of support of unions up to and within the State Capitol. Even Republicans know Gov. Walker's excuse for the legislation he championed to shatter public worker unions was an alleged fiscal shortfall. After corner #2 the Socratic method is kicking in. A tangible fact is injected into the conservative mindset. Support signs say: "Walker GAVE AWAY Balanced Budget to Corporate Pals" and "Ask Yourself: Who is Walker Looking Out For, Me or the 1%?" and "Union Busting is Job CREMATION."
When he reaches the third corner, the evidence has been well supported.
Corner #3: Walker Says to Future $500K Donor: Anti-Union Legislation Will “Divide and Conquer”
The three others at the end of the "protest string" show these signs: "See Video at [provide URL of local media or other in-state respected news outlet]" and "Recognize the Walker Lies in TV Ads" and "Bring Integrity Back, Vote for Tom Barrett"
Massive numbers, drawn from progressive organizations with membership blanketing the state, will be the TRUTH TROOPS, connecting all the dots that connect Walker to his 1% puppet masters.
But each week new lies will surface, as SuperPAC money floods in. And miniprotesting is the perfect way to not only provide immediate responses to those attack ads possible, but also the concise, developed messaging of miniprotests can shoot down every lie AND explain the reasoning behind them.
We can show the GOP's evil underbelly, and make their strategies more concrete. And with victory in Wisconsin, the Blue Blitz over America will be seen as well underway.
Why the Occupy movements should consider adopting miniprotesting:
1) Millions are ready to act but don't have the means or opportunity to travel to scheduled Occupy events - People don't have to leave town for miniprotests.
2) Media attention has maintained that the Occupy protests have little direction - Miniprotests pinpoint issues and support them with stats and facts.
3) Aggressive police actions are scaring people away from Occupy events - With only four people per corner, no permits are required and police have no grounds to stop miniprotests.
4) Occupy events and other protests only get attention if there is confrontation - Each protest string is guaranteed the attention of at least 100 motorists per hour if done where traffic bogs down like freeway and bridge onramps, or multiple stop signs in a row.
5) Large groups can't convey evidence of hypocrisy or strings of stats to support conclusions - The three-part messaging of miniprotests can present evidence with the cumulative power to convince over time if witnessed regularly. Also, they can spurn or support specific candidates with quotes, votes, and corporate ties.
6) Large groups don't change their influence in proportion to their numbers - For each dozen miniprotesters you have a different geographic site. 120 people can blanket all inbound routes to an event with ten miniprotests, or be dispersed in different districts throughout a town or the county.
7) The Occupy movement may have a limited shelf life - Miniprotesting can only become more popular over time. People will like doing it, other smaller and locally based groups will adopt it, and it has the potential to be a mainstay on Main Street through November 2012.
8) The progressive movement has hundreds of factions with varying degrees of perceived legitimacy - If miniprotesting is adopted by all, it will provide tangible branding of the progressive movement, spreading legitimacy through uniformity.
To add the power of miniprotesting to your occupation, propose this idea to the Occupy event’s on-site assembly (often happening several nights a week) and ask that a committee be formed on site to handle the logistics. When the Miniprotesting Committee meets, either volunteer to be its spokesperson or aid the person who is voted into that role.
You can then create your own miniprotesting main sign inscription sets based on the specifics your on-site committees bring up. Connect with the heads of those committees and start applying miniprotesting to their messaging goals. Then at each night's assembly you can announce the miniprotests for the following day.
Occupiers Support the Fair America Platform
Tax Fairness: Restore Fair Taxation of Millionaires
End Tax Free Offshore Loopholes for B of A, Exxon/Mobil
Job Fairness: Restore Unions, Eliminate Tax Breaks for Offshoring
Corner #2:
Occupiers Support the Fair America Platform
Fair Elections: Paper Ballots Hand Counted, Public Campaign Funding Only
Fair Representation: Overturn Citizen’s United, Curb Lobbying Excesses
Fair Business Practices: Restore Oversight Over Industry and Wall St.
Corner #3:
What’s Un-American About
Asking for a Fair America?
Those That Fight a Fair America
Are Pandering to Corporate Titans, Billionaires
You'll notice that there is much more text on these signs than the usual main signs, so you must choose a location and time of day that sees traffic moving at glacial pace.
Today's Hot Topic:
Exposing the freshest GOP lies or hypocrisy
or championing the latest progressive battle cry
Corner #1: Isn't it BLUE BLOOD WELFARE When the Ryan Budget Drops the Top Tax Tier Rate by 14%?
Corner #2: Ryan Budget Gives Every Millionaire $140,000 For Each Million He Makes Every Year
Corner #3: [GOP incumbent]'s Support for Ryan Budget Proves He’s on the 1% Privilege Posse
Miniprotesting in a nutshell:
The concept:
- A protest string of 12 people, split into three groups of four, position themselves on three consecutive street corners along a one-way street in the outbound commute
- In each group there is a main 30"x40" sign held at waist level by the central miniprotester. The other three miniprotesters hold traditional overhead signs
- The three main signs in this protest string of three groups make a running message. For example:
Corner #3: The Verdict: GOP Only Cares for Millionaires
- Unlike regular protests that look like an unruly mob at a glance, miniprotests focus attention to your messages
- With 120 people you can make ten distinct miniprotests all around town
-And if you have 120,000 folks within a state ready to hit the streets, that makes 10,000 miniprotests.
-Save the inscriptions and make more. Rotate themes by location to save on printing costs.
Here's what our "No More Tax Favoritism for the 1%!" miniprotest showed bogged down motorists in Santa Rosa, CA on tax day, April 17:
Corners 1 through 3 in sequence:
The messages:
You can get a lot of information out there with three main signs. If you combine information, the Socratic method, and a catchy slogan, then you've got a wedge into Donny Dittohead's lockstep, pride-reinforced perspective. This is the kind of message Donny should see in miniprotests while waiting to get on a freeway onramp in his evening commute:
Corner #2: $11 Trillion of $14T Deficit Comes From Reagan, Bushes 1 & 2
Corner #3: Get Wise to the GOP's Fiscal Hypocrisy
For the nine participants not holding main signs within the protest string, their overhead signs can read things like "Bush Never Put Iraq War on the Budget" or "Bush's Private Contractors Got $30 for Each Soldier's Breakfast."
There is more than a decade's worth of GOP legislation, currently choking the middle class as intended, to choose from. There are hundreds of lies and mountains of traceable hypocrisy to expose. But tying them all into now is critical, and miniprotesting should continually beat the drum that GOP legislation gave corporations tax breaks for sending jobs overseas last decade and that is why almost 50,000 factories have closed since the Bush era began. If Donny Dittohead is exposed to more and more GOP atrocities every week, we can put the dots so close together he can't help but connect them. Occupy events don't have the capacity to do that.
The strategies:
So how do we best change Donny Dittohead's mind?
1) Expose all lies, misrepresentations, corporate bias, and policy ramifications immediately. While Donny is practicing his new talking points, show him just how wrong they are.
2) Show him how far today's CORPservatism is from the conservatism he grew up with.
3) Tear down his GOP idols using terms that he clings to. Portray lies as breaches of integrity, corporate bias in terms of lost job opportunities, and corrupt banking foreclosure practices in terms of fairness.
4) Do not insult or berate Donny. Attack the politicians and corporate allies only. Once Donny is comfortable with the truth, we'd like him to understand former Republicans will be more than welcome in the Democratic party. They'll get applauded for their wisdom, strength of character to recognize what is right for their families despite all the media
propaganda for GOP policies.
5) Despite #4, it is possible to show Donny that he has been duped without calling him stupid. Show him that the GOP thinks he's stupid, using his blind faith in them to stifle his future.
How to use miniprotesting locally:
What's great about miniprotesting is that anyone can put it together in an hour or two if they've got a dozen people, an idea of what to say, and a good place for your curbside activism to have maximum impact such as one-way surface streets leading to a bridge or freeway on-ramp. You can create a set of main sign inscriptions around local or state politics, what nonsense Rush Limbaugh just uttered, or specific national issues. If you have 60 people then you can have five miniprotests spread around town with each reaching a few hundred commuters in a two-hour period.
You can coordinate with other progressive groups in your town. If you have multiple protest strings hitting the streets, you can have each with different themes. If you have weekly miniprotests, then you can rotate the themes without paying for more messages being printed up.
How to use miniprotesting nationally:
This is where the stunning power of miniprotesting can be used to change public opinion, put pressure on corporate tax dodgers, and scare Republicans into adjusting their platforms if they want to have any hope for the survival of their political careers. Both statewide and national progressive organizations can employ miniprotesting strategies in these Direct Target actions:
1) React to and lobby for/against pending legislation by blanketing all inbound or outbound arteries to STATE CAPITOLS and ON THE STREETS LEADING TO THE US CAPITOL in DC. This is our chance to give Republicans the foreboding notion that their actions will make them FTRs: Final Term Republicans. We can refer to bills by name, politicians by name and lie, and provide a spine to wavering Democrats.
2) Protest strings can be dispatched to streets leading to town hall meetings, tea party rallies, and political fund raisers. Focused truth will diffuse every upcoming talking point.
3) Groups can hit the streets leading to home offices of media liars, defense contractors, offshore tax dodgers, and corporate masters of the GOP. They'll all know they can no longer operate in the shadows unchecked.
These Direct Target curbside actions are conceived to reach the very eyeballs of decision makers and those that directly support them.
For statewide or national General Target actions the goal is to connect with every Donny Dittohead possible.
Miniprotesting messaging can be used to:
1) Taint the GOP brand through exposing all the lies, hypocrisy, corporate ties, and destructive policies.
2) Shedding light on statewide or national candidates well before the 2012 elections. This can be organized nationally but executed locally.
3) Proving to Donny that what he thinks is conservatism is not reflected at all in the GOP CORPservative agenda.
What national use of miniprotesting will look like:
If major national progressive organizations utilized miniprotesting, this might be how the process would flow from idea to curbside action of hundreds of thousands just like you:
1) Topic ideas come in. They can be in-house or by suggestion. They can come from GOP lies, critical legislation, or topics heard on progressive media such as the Thom Hartmann radio show or Rachel Maddow's show on MSNBC.
2) Quick fact checking. With the Randi Rhodes radio show she provides a "homework" section with links to her sources. With Glenn Beck or Rush this would require finding the facts that they are bending. The clearly made up stuff would be easiest.
3) Create several main sign inscription sets. Using previous themes such as "GOP = FFF: Freedom From Facts" could be employed.
4) Convert inscriptions to pdf files and send these out to ALL regional heads. Tweet the text content nationwide as well so all potential protesters know something is pending and what the theme is for their supporting signs that go with the main signs.
5) From this point the regional heads take control. They determine timing and locations and tweet that info and a request for confirmations.
6) The regional heads tally the confirmations, determine how many protest strings will be manned. They'll email in the pdf files sent from national or some of their own to FedEx Kinko's. They'll take off the main sign inscriptions from the last time, store them flat, and take the bare signs to Kinko's where they'll affix the new messages.
7) They drive the signs to the locations. Printing costs can be covered by each participant chipping in a dollar.
8) Perplexed Dittoheads see their world unravel.
National groups can take this a step further, by coordinating with other groups as to what days they'll be in what locations. MoveOn can take Tuesdays, the PCCC Thursdays, etc.
That's the world we need to create. The Great Republican Overreach of 2011 deserves to bring out the complete obliteration of the Republican Party as it stands now. Let's make that happen, and rejoice at every tangible step along the way.
