Posted by Jeff from d53-25-237.try.wideopenwest.com (64.53.237.25) on Thursday, December 26, 2002 at 5:00PM :
...fund anti-war advertisements:
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Dear MoveOn member,
We hope you're having a relaxing and peaceful holiday.
Unfortunately, with the New Year coming, we must prepare to
respond to elements of the Bush administration as they crank up
their push for war. In anticipation, we're planning the next
stage of our "Let the Inspections Work" campaign. Thanks for all
your support in making this possible.
We now have collected more than $400,000 in donations for our
ad campaign, of which about $130,000 has been used on two full page
New York Times ads and a USA Today ad. You can see these ads on
our home page at MoveOn.org.
Two weeks ago we announced a follow-on radio campaign, and we've
received hundreds of radio scripts from members. Thanks so much
to those of you who took the time to create and rate these scripts.
You can see all this incredible work at:
http://www.actionforum.com/forum/index.html?forum_id=251
We've recorded the top rated ad, written by Betsey Binet of
Los Angeles, and we'll be running it during the week of January 6th
in Washington D.C., on local news-radio stations. Here's the ad,
in RealAudio format (a 178K download):
http://www.moveon.org/radio/bell48kps.rm
We decided to run a 30 second radio ad rather than a 60 second ad,
to be able to run it more often. So this is an abbreviated version
of Betsey's ad, but very effective, we think. Thanks, Betsey.
And thanks everyone for the great submissions.
The ad campaign will ramp up in January. We've just begun.
Stay tuned.
Perhaps the biggest impact of our work is that our efforts have
helped catalyze other mainstream coalition efforts. For example,
we are founding members of the Win Without War coalition, which
has received a tremendous amount of media coverage, including a
recent piece in Salon. Here's an excerpt:
THE ANTIWAR MOVEMENT GOES MAINSTREAM
Salon.com / December 12, 2002
http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2002/12/12/peace
by Michelle Goldberg
"The Win Without War coalition includes the National Council of
Churches, NOW, NAACP, the Sierra Club, MoveOn, Working Assets,
Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, Physicians for Social
Responsibly and Veterans for Common Sense. Taken together, these
groups represent a vast swath of America -- the National Council of
Churches alone indirectly represents 50 million congregants -- and
they aim to channel their millions of members into antiwar activism.
"The broad-based support for Win Without War's message is
evident in the fundraising to disseminate it. MoveOn, an online
progressive organization that formed to fight President Clinton's
impeachment, solicited donations on its Web site to pay for the
New York Times ad, which cost $40,000. In less than a week,
it had raised $370,000.
Of course, the American public has always been very skeptical about
the Bush administration's obsession with Iraq. Efforts by elements
of the administration to sell this war are simply not working.
A recent poll by the LA Times shows a remarkable erosion of public
support, highlighting that "Only 26% said they were willing to
support war if the United States acted alone."
(See the complete USA Today article below.)
Opposition to war in Iraq is broad and mainstream. There is good
news for the coming New Year: the American people do not support
a uni-lateral, pre-emptive war.
We will not stand idly by. Thanks for all you do.
And Happy New Year,
-Wes Boyd
President, MoveOn.org
December 26, 2002
P.S. To sign the "Let the Inspections Work" petition go to:
http://www.moveon.org/winwithoutwar/
Contributions to support our efforts can be made at
http://www.moveon.org/support.html
__________
POLL: BUSH HASN'T MADE CASE FOR IRAQ WAR
USA Today / December 17, 2002
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002-12-17-iraq-poll_x.htm
LOS ANGELES (APOnline) -- More than two-thirds of Americans believe
the Bush administration has failed to make its case that a war
against Iraq is justified, according to a poll by the Los Angeles
Times published Tuesday.
Ninety percent of respondents said they don't doubt Iraq is
developing weapons of mass destruction. But without new evidence
from U.N. inspectors, 72% of respondents, including 60% of
Republicans, said the president has not provided enough evidence
to justify starting a war.
The Times poll, which interviewed 1,305 adults nationwide, was
conducted from Thursday to Sunday, in the week after Iraq handed
over its massive report on its arsenal to the United Nations. The
margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Support for a possible war appears to be weakening, with 58% saying
they support a ground attack on Iraq, according to the poll. In an
August Times poll, 64% said they would support a ground attack.
In January, the Times and other polls found support for military
action more than 70%.
Yet almost three-quarters of Americans support the way Bush is
handling the threat of terrorism, and nearly three in five like
how he's handling the country's affairs.
Sixty-three percent of those polled said war would be justified
only if the United Nations finds a pattern of serious violations
by Iraq. Only 22% agreed with the administration's position that
any error or omission in Iraq's arms declaration is adequate to
justify war; 6% said it would depend on the nature of the omissions;
and 9% said they were not sure or declined to reply.
If U.N. inspections fail to find evidence of Iraqi weapons
programs, almost half said they would oppose war. Only 41% would
favor war, and 10% said they were undecided. Only 26% said they
were willing to support war if the United States acted alone.
Respondents also believe war would have serious ramifications
at home and abroad. Sixty-seven percent said war would likely
increase the threat of terrorist attacks in the United States;
51% said they feel it would destabilize the Middle East; and
45% said it will adversely impact the U.S. economy.
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-- Jeff
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