Cross-posted at My Left Wing and Daily Kos.
Last week, several prominent peace organizations called on we Americans who understand the wrongfulness of the War in Iraq to declare peace. This is a national nonviolent movement which demands that our lawmakers:
[A]dopt a “bring the troops home now” position. . . to establish a concrete, comprehensive withdrawal plan no later than September 21, 2006, International Peace Day, just days before Congress adjourns.
Leading up to International Peace Day, citizens are called upon to:
Participate in marches, rallies, demonstrations, and other peaceful strategies to establish this plan.
I want to suggest to you that you can declare peace. And get involved protesting the war right away. It is easy. Please join me after the flip.
Some of you may be familiar with the “Petals for Peace” campaign that the peace community in Lansing, Michigan has been waging to try to influence our local representative to end the war. Basically, we have been delivering him single flowers on each of the past two Congressional recesses. Over the course of just a few days in March and April, we delivered roughly 500 flowers to his office. Witnessing it firsthand, I can tell you that it has been having an impact. If nothing else, my representative (a pro-war Republican) has a clear idea that there are a lot of people steaming mad at being dragged into this war.
Bloggers at My Left Wing, The Booman Tribune and Daily Kos have been a key part of the “Petals for Peace” effort. They have spread the message wide on their own blogs. And they have sent in drawn flowers by fax, or ordered flowers to be delivered by telephone. So far we have had deliveries from Argentina, Chile, Italy, and Australia. I’ve lost count of the number of states that have participated. But it is approaching a dozen, if not more. We’ve had union support. The rank-and-file at a UAW local took up a collection and delivered 130 flowers in one bundle. And our efforts in April started to draw media attention.
Each flower sends a message. Get our troops home. It is time to start healing our nation, and our nation’s relationship with the world. We cannot secure a peaceful planet by bombing, shooting and occupying other countries. We do not win our safety by killing, maiming and torturing foreign citizens.
Since this protest has been very popular, we are setting the bar a little higher for our next “Petals for Peace” event. And we invite your participation. This is an excellent protest. Easy to execute. Not costly. And it takes very little of your time to send a powerful message. Here is the “Petals for Peace” plan for the Memorial Day Congressional recess.
Goal: Deliver 500 flowers to Mike Rogers in one day, to bring our three month total to 1,000. Also, to branch out to at least one other representative’s office for a symbolic delivery of peace flowers.
Date:
Friday, June 2nd, 2006
(We’re narrowing it to one day so we can maximize the impact of our resources.)Place:
U.S. Representative Mike Rogers (R-MI-08)
Lansing Office
1327 E. Michigan Ave.
Lansing, Michigan 48912
Fax: (517) 702-8642
(We are going to try to continue our intense focus on Mike Rogers (R-MI-08), and we would appreciate you continuing to send in your flowers from afar.)U.S. Representative Joe Schwartz (R-MI-07)
6604 W. Saginaw Highway
Lansing, Michigan 48917
Fax: (517) 327-7488
(We’re branching out to a second physical location. Locally, we are going to try to deliver a symbolic flower at least once an hour. We’ll do more if we can get enough local volunteers. And if you have the time, energy and resources, we would love it if you could send a flower to our secondary target on that day, too.)Your Representative Here
(If anyone else wants to step up and organize a physical delivery to their local pro-war member of Congress, by all means we would like you to volunteer. It isn’t all that hard to coordinate a delivery. You and a few friends could easily deliver a flower an hour. We want this thing to grow.)Method:
It is really easy. There are three ways to participate, depending on what works best for you.
- If you are close enough, you can deliver one in person. Buy a carnation at Bancroft Flowers, 1417 E. Michigan Ave., Lansing and deliver it to Rogers’ office, 1327 E. Michigan Ave., Lansing, just one block away. The reception you will receive is priceless. Trust me.
- For the starving artists among us or simply the artists at heart, you can draw a picture of a flower (or if you don’t like drawing, you can print off the “Petals for Peace” image in this diary) and fax it to Rogers’ Lansing office at (517) 702-8642. You can also fax one to Schwartz. And your Rep., too. These folks love faxes. I just know it.
- For the on the go bloggers, you can call Bancroft Flowers at (517) 371-4120. Order a carnation for delivery to Rogers’ office. They’ve been very helpful in this campaign, though I still need to contact them about the upcoming June 2, 2006 date. I’ll also look into a friendly florist near Rep. Schwartz’s office.
That’s it. Easy as pie. E-mail me at (tjayolson@hotmail.com) if you have questions, or if you want to sign-up for the “Petals for Peace” newsletter. It is a good way for me to keep track of participation.
Just a few extra notes. These are things that make me think that the “Petals for Peace” campaign is going to have some legs. Cool things.
Someone made a “Petals for Peace” website. A volunteer. On his own. Out of the blue. It’s not quite ready for public consumption yet. But that was really cool. And I hope to be able to bring you more info on it soon.
One of the stars of the blogging world has agreed to be a celebrity spokesperson for our cause, so to speak. I’m jumping the gun with this info. I need to get final approval. But it is a good development.
Anyway.
People have been signing-up to deliver for the next round of “Petals for Peace” even as I took a couple of weeks off to work on book stuff. Just about every time I was at the local coffee house talking about peace issues, someone would introduce a new person. We’d get to talking about “Petals for Peace.” And they were in. People like this.
Got an e-mail from France out of the blue. An expatriate student. Heard about it from her mom. So we’re going to get participation from at least one more nation.
That’s all I’ve got for now. Talk amongst yourselves. Spread the word around. I’ll write another blog entry next Friday. To update where we stand. Thanks for reading. And joining in the peace movement. It’s not so hard.