[R-G] Military Families Speak Out: Campaign to Bring the Troops Home Now

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

I received the following campaign announcement from Jeff McKenzie of 
Military Families Speak Out <http://www.mfso.org/>.  The MFSO 
campaign to Bring the Troops Home looks great!  Please start taking 
the actions recommended below and get any organization in which you 
are involved to do the same ASAP:

*****   Dear Military Families:

Many of you have written, asking for MFSO to take action in response 
to the ongoing deployment of our troops in Iraq, the horrible 
conditions that our troops are facing, the lies that were used to 
justify the invasion and George Bush's outrageous taunt to those 
shooting at our family members -- "Bring em On!"

We wanted to let you know that, in conjunction with Veterans for 
Peace, Vietnam Veterans Against the War and others, we are about to 
launch a new campaign to "Bring Them Home Now!!!" We will have a 
campaign website up in the very near future and will be doing active 
outreach around the country.

While there will be organized activities, both nationally and 
locally, as part of this campaign there are several things that we 
all can do starting right now:

o Write letters to your politicians demanding that our troops be brought home

o Organize meetings with U.S. Representatives and Senators while they 
are in their districts during the summer break.

o Attend public events where Members of Congress and other 
politicians will be appearing (particularly those who voted for the 
October Resolution giving the President the right to go to war and 
who have not actively called for our troops to be brought home now). 
Be visible and speak out at these forums. Use your special voice as 
Military Families to demand action. Carry signs and posters with 
pictures of your loved ones in the military.

o Seek opportunities to speak to the media and get our message out as 
broadly as possible.

o Write letters to the editor of your local papers, talking about 
conditions faced by our troops in Iraq and calling for the troops to 
be brought home now.

o Organize and participate in public demonstrations and standouts in 
front of federal buildings, congressional offices, etc. demanding the 
return of our troops.

o Talk to other military families. Encourage them to get in touch 
with us, join MFSO and tell us their stories.

Please send us reports on your activities and copies of any letters 
to the editor, letters to Members of Congress, newspaper articles 
etc. We would like to put this information on our website.

We will be back in touch as soon as the new website is up and active. 
In the meantime, if you have ideas to add to the list above, please 
send them in to mfso at mfso.org and we will share them around.

In Peace and Solidarity,
Nancy Lessin, Jeffrey McKenzie and Charley Richardson,
for Military Families Speak Out   *****
-- 
Yoshie

* Calendars of Events in Columbus: 
<http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html>, 
<http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/>
* Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/>
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/>
* Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio>
* Solidarity: <http://solidarity.igc.org/>