Call for Participation: Deliver a Spine to DNC Headquarters

[roguevalley]

http://www.backbonecampaign.org/page.cfm?ID=72

DC, Press Release/Call to Action, 01/13/05

January 13, 2005
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For more information contact:
Bill Moyer, Executive Director, Backbone Campaign
[phone]/[e-mail] or
Amy Morrison, Managing Director
[e-mail]


Call for Participation: Deliver a Spine to DNC Headquarters

(Seattle, WA) The Backbone Campaign is asking progressives to join an action at the Democratic National Committee Headquarters, Friday, January 21 starting at 11:30 AM at Folger Park, 2nd and D Streets SE in Washington DC. From there they will process to DNC Headquarters and make three demands of the Democratic Party: new progressive leadership, a bold grassroots strategy and a clear progressive agenda.

To symbolize these three demands the Backbone Campaign will bring its 70 foot puppet of a human spine, with progressive agenda planks written on each vertebra. As the puppet undulates through the streets, festival artists with the Backbone Campaign will lead citizens singing, dancing, and calling for a bold new direction. Specifically, they will be urging voting DNC members to honor their values and vision and and elect former Vermont Governor and Presidential Candidate Howard Dean to DNC Chair, to amend the Democratic Party Platform to include the Voter's Bill of Rights, and for Congressional Democrats to vehemently oppose privatizing of social security and dangerous cabinet and judicial appointments.

"Progressives need to seize this opportunity to say, 'We will not be taken for granted!'" says Bill Moyer, Executive Director of the Backbone Campaign. "The DNC has relied on progressives to swell its ranks, while we hold our noses and sacrifice our values to provide a united stand for the sake of elections. Enough is enough. Progressives are not a threat to the Democratic Party. We are its only future. Without the support of the progressive grassroots, the Democratic Party is doomed to irrelevance."

"Members of the Backbone Campaign will be amongst those protesting the disastrous policies of the Bush administration on Thursday, January 20th, but few are in the streets, calling for the Democrats to recognize their failed strategy of vague , so called "Centrism" and capitulation," says Moyer. "Our rally and procession on Friday the 21st is important because many progressive organizations are not going after the Democrats. It's right that we resist the criminally regressive Bush Administration, but if we are willing to protest against a Party that will never see us as constituents, shouldn't we also engage our creative tactics toward a Party, whose constituents are amongst us and sympathetic to our calls? Some progressives feel too disenfranchised to invest their hopes in the Democratic Party, but we don't think our children can afford for us to be cynical or accept disenfranchisement. We and our friends at Progressive Democrats of America and Grassroots for America recognize the crossroads at which the Democratic Party stands. We see that the choices that are made in the next month will resonate through history."

For more information visit www.backbonecampaign.org and click on DC Action. The event begins at 11:30 with a rally at Folger Park and continues with a procession with the puppet and marching band to the DNC Headquarters. Join the fun, creativity, and spectacle. For more information contact [e-mail] or [e-mail] or [phone].

Their campaign included the following:

* 70 Foot Spine Puppet: A Giant Backbone Puppet delivers the Backbone Campaignýs message of progressive values, with each vertebra of the puppet symbolizing a piece of the Platform with a Backbone. Festival artists working with the Backbone Campaign bring the puppet to marches across the country.

* Backbone Cabinet: a vocal group of progressives to move the agenda forward of opposition.

* Awards: Backbone Awards are presented to courageous elected officials in recognition of their willingness to take principled progressive stands at politically lonely moments.

* A Platform with a Backbone: The Backbone Campaign has created an evolving platform as a tool to aid progressives in framing our message and in transcending single-issue politics by presenting an interlocking agenda. The platform is available on our website, www.backbonecampaign.org.

* The Backbone Campaign offers creative tools to grassroots organizations, such as Spine Cards to thank politicians, journalists, and others who stand up for progressive values, placard puppet templates for groups to create their own version of an interlocking backbone cardboard puppet, and Spineless Citations, humorous and attention getting postcards to ýspanký violators of the Democratic Party platform.

[welshTerrier2]

1. we don't need no stinkin "spin doctors"

that's where we've been going wrong ... we need "spine doctors" ...

in the very recent words of that wacky left-wing extremist, Ted Kennedy:

In the face of their tactics, we cannot move our party or our nation forward under pale colors and timid voices. We cannot become Republican clones. If we do, we will lose again, and deserve to lose. As I have said on other occasions, the last thing this country needs is two Republican parties.