Reply #39: The idea expands -- two conferences instead of just one [View All]

[Fly by night]

Understandinglife PMed me this morning with support for the conference concept but with a suggestion that we change its location from Nashville to somewhere else (more on that later). His idea has caused me to expand my idea quite a bit.

I still want us to have a conference in Nashville within 60 days and -- through it -- to keep the issues alive and greatly expand the exposure and the dialogue about the problems with the 2004 election. And I want to tie our conference to the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act and to bridge our current experiences with that of the successful civil rights pioneers. I want our Nashville conference also to shine a spotlight on the depth, the weight and the breadth of the FACTS that our researchers, activists and fellow citizens can bring to the table (actually, have made abundantly available to a previously empty public awareness table for some months now) so that our conference furthers expands that awareness and understanding of the election theft throughout the country.

But Understandinglife's suggestion of a venue change brought on a new idea. He suggested that we hold the conference at Independence Hall in Philadelphia so that we would be closer to the current U.S. Congress and so we could frame our discussion within that storied setting. UL's idea got me thinking -- why not two conferences? We can hold ours in Nashville in late March or early April, and we can hold another, larger and even more visible conference at Independence Hall as close to July 4th as we could get it. We could draw from the Nashville experience to assist others in developing and implementing an even larger and more visible conference on the birthplace and birthday of this democracy. I think it is a wonderful idea. Any thoughts, anyone?

Plus, the other idea I had today was to work to obtain enough support for the conference so that we could offer scholarships to have at least one person attending from every state in the nation. For the July 4 conference, we could invite representatives from all democracies on the planet. Talk about national and global impact -- I think both ideas for maximizing the broad representativeness of the conference attendees will expand our impact considerably. Particularly with the kinds of skilled communicators who are here on DU, who are signing up with VOTE and Velvet Revolution and four-score more groups, etc.; and the homegrown communicators we have here in Tennessee working together to make this happen.

Please comment on the idea of a second July 4th conference in Philadelphia. I think it is a superb idea. In 60 days, we have our first major push to congregate in Music City and 90 days later, we re-import democracy (and hopefully reinvent a perfectly good wheel) in the birthplace of this successful way of governing -- until now.

Weigh in, DUers. And if you want to offer some of your skills to the successful accomplishment of these conference dreams, including running with the Philly idea yourselves, serving on one of the panels or facilitating one of the discussion groups in Nashville, suggesting other topics for discussion and presentation, etc., please post or PM me to that effect. Thanks.