FRIENDS OF BILL
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Current Friday
UPDATE FOR FRIENDS OF BILL ONLINE
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Friday April 6th
FOX NEWS PROTEST NYC
______________________
ProjectBlackout/DemocracyMarch
The day befor the FOX Protest
Thursday April 5th,
I arrived at JFK at 6:30, Harlan James picked me up at the airport, I
then
went to the VoterMarch Meeting. I met Lou Posner and David Lytel from
Democrats.com(Dave was one of the speakers that evening).
The meeting was very productive, meanwhile the final touches were being
added
at the democracymarch.org meeting in NY as well. Lou is a very professional
organizer and his meeting was great, and many of you should try to make
at
least one of them in NY if you can before May 19th.
We all had a wonderful time at dinner later in the evening. We mixed business
with fun and I will share the pictures with all of you at a later date.
New
York, New York, and little Italy, what fun.
Many of you do not even know how this protest at FOX began.
Many are writing about the interview that Cheryl Guttman had with Mr.
Hannity, that came about after the PRESS RELEASES were sent out to all
the NY
media before the protest.
Around 2 months ago I began ProjectBlackout. The FIRST PROJECT was protest
at
Fox News in New York, and some of you remember because I had the first
meeting in my home here in Cincinnati. And we had a chatroom discussion
about
how and when we would have the protest. We discussed many of the logistics
that took place at Fox. Members like Lou Posner and myself, GinaRegina,Sherri
Newkirk, Skip VanHook, Kevin Cole and
others were present at the meeting. We picked a date and time. We agreed
with
Lou that the Friday date would be the best time, since many would be going
to
lunch.
I do not live in New York, I live in Cincinnati, Ohio and to be one of
the
organizers and creator of this project, it broke my heart not to be there
in
NY. I called Helen and I told her she must help. And not only did she
help
she contacted many from the DemocracyMarch. This is where the hard work
comes
in. DemocracyMarch took over the protest more or less, because they had
the
people there and many of our members were in other cities except for Helen
Ginsburg.
Helen has been a long time member of Friends of Bill since 1998
and CitizensAgainstBush.
And we met in DC at the famous We the People rally against Kenneth Starr
in 1998.
When I stood on the podium to deliver my speech, I saw the ticker board
in front
of the Fox New building. It read Welcome Project Blackout. Well
the first part of my speech was " Hello I am Juliet Stewart, I am not
here to talk
about Baseball but play Hardball, and we don't want to talk about the
blackout in
California but the blackout on the Stolen Election.
Mr. Roger Ailes came over to me when he put all the unbrellas down on
the table.
I reached my hand to him and I said hello Mr. Ailes I am Juliet Stewart
founder
of Project Blackout and CitizensAgainstBush, at that moment he paused.
He almost took back
his hand for a moment. This was a real Kodak moment if only someone could
have captured
the look on his face at that moment. He then reached forward and gave
me his hand.
Many thought and wrote that I delivered a powrful speech. My emphasis
was on the stolen election, Jesse Jackson and Media Bias. I was disappointed
that I did not have enough time to finish my speech which included the
poem which you can read on Monday's Update.
I was grateful for the
hospitality that Cheryl Guttman showed, by giving me a place to stay.
I
stayed in the East Village and Cheryl went out of her way to make me
comfortable.
That morning Helen and I after a little breakfast and shopping in the
morning, got to the Protest, it was raining so hard that my luggage and
my
speech were drenched. I saw Sid Oper a long time FOBer. I saw some others
who
were at the 1998 DC protest as well.
As an organizer I believe the focus should be on the Protest and it was
successful.
IndyMedia taped the entire Protest. Dave Lytel from democrats.com took
many
pictures of the speakers. I hope they all came out well, I would like
to post
them on the citizensagainstbush.org web site.
I had to leave shortly after my speech to catch my flight back to Cincinnati,
and we had to take the subways to get to Brooklyn because Harlan's car
was at
his home there.
I was only there for the first hour of the rally, and I remember that
Roger
Alies came over and introduced himself to me and gave us all Fox unbrellas
as a nice gesture so we would not get wet. I will write Roger and ask
him if
we can have another chance to have a face to face meeting with Mr. Hannity
and Colmes.
Helen informed me that Phil Berg and Lou Acosta gave powerful speeches
as
well. Helen is making copies of the video and hopefully I will be able
to see
how we all did.
Also I know IndyMedia will make the Protest available.
When Cheryl gave her speech she did mention the LA and Tampa rallies.
I want
to thank fringefolk.com and the oral majority folk's for their help in
making
all the Protest successful.
I wish all of you could have been there. I want to thank all of you who
seldom write and complain but are always there in support and took the
time
to write to send email with prayers and thanks.
It is for your dedication that we made the sacrifices to get the Protest
at
FOX heard. All NEWS IS GOOD NEWS. I can tell you to get NATIONAL ATTENTION
from FOX is GOOD NEWS, they are worried and they better be. This is only
the
beginning.
The delivery by Cheryl was fine but when she told them she didn't watch
FOX
that was the end, and I agree that perhaps a better person to speak for
the
Protest. Someone from either of our groups, ProjectBlackout or democracymarch
that watched FOX NEWS. But we got attention we had National coverage of
the
protest.
This itself is a HUGE success. And it made Hannity and Combs look less
powerful than they think they are. THEY CAME TO US remember that. THEY
ARE
WORRIED OF THE MASSES. WE ARE THE MEDIA, as I said in my Speech.
There will be more to come, I was satisfied with the protest and it was
a
great turnout considering the rain. But after the rain comes the rainbow.
And
Hannity himself said, PLEASE LEAVE US ALONG AND PROTEST AT ABC or CBS
etc.
YOU GET IT NOW, THEY ARE WORRIED. Thanks to all of you again in NY and
Helen Ginsburg for being my ears and eyes in NY.
big kisses and to those of you who took, jets, subways etc to be there.
Those
of you who made protest signs, the platform the sound people, those who
passed out flyers. Hooray to all of you.
I will be in touch and ProjectBlackout has a lot to be proud of. I want
to
thank Democracymarch.org for without them none of this could have been
possible.
We had a great dinner with Lou Posner, Chris, Tom, John(CLG) and
others.
Many of our organizations need money to survive, and we need your help
for
the next one. And the next one is VoterMarch, and the funds need to come
in.
Please help us here. As chairman of the VoterFundraising, I need your
help.
Please folk's send your criticism to Hannity and Colmes, remember Cheryl
was
one of the organizers and she was exhausted, ask him to focus on the Protest
and NOT ON CHERYL GUTTMAN. THE PROTEST IS THE MESSAGE.
A Big thanks to Harlan and Nancy James without them I would have had to
take
all the transit NY had to offer to get to NY from JFK. Please thank Harlan
James for me and the sacrifices he made to get me to and from the airport.
A
big thanks to all of you who spoke, sang and danced, you should all give
yourselves a big pat on the back.
in solidarity and peace,
Juliet Stewart
_____________________________________________
FRIENDLY FOE
Read what the New York Post said about our Protest at Fox.
Oh by the way, Roger Ailes gave us Fox News unbrellas and coffee. We want
to thank
Roger for supporting our protest.
Juliet Stewart
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jennifer Weisbord
FOX News Channel chief Roger Ailes had a warm welcome for the handful
of protesters who showed up Friday in the rain. The radical members of Project
Blackout believe the media has conspired in a vast coverup - refusing to
report the "truth" about how the Republicans "stole" the election for George
W. Bush. So Ailes had a message for the dripping demonstrators posted on
the electronic zipper of the News Corp. building: "Welcome Project Blackout
protesters . . . The most powerful name in news is glad to provide something
for you to do today . . . Rest assured we'll give a fair and balanced report
as always." Ailes then provided the demonstrators with pots of coffee and
Fox News umbrellas, which they gladly deployed.
________________________________
Stolen Election, Silent Media
By By Liza Steele
Columbia Daily Spectator
Copyright 1999-2000 The Columbia Daily Spectator, Inc
To paraphrase Eleanor Roosevelt, if we don't exercise our
rights,
>we won't have any rights to exercise. A handful of Democrats showed
up in
>front of the Fox News Cable Studio building between 47th and 48th
St. on
>Sixth Ave. last Friday to protest the media bias which has resulted
in a
>virtual blackout of the stolen election. The event was sponsored by
>DemocracyMarch.org, a grassroots organization founded in New York
last
>November, in coordination with Project Blackout. For two hours, in
the
rain,
>various activists took turns protesting the illegitimacy of Bush's
election
>and subsequent administration, as well as coverage thereof (quite
literally
>coverage, not news reporting) by Fox, among others.
>
> Among the events not given adequate media attention is the
>revelation by Greg Palast of BBC News' Newsnight of a ''[$4 million]
contract
>between Governor Jeb's division of elections and a private company
in Texas
>named DBT [Database Technologies], which accidentally wiped off the
voter
>rolls thousands of Democratic voters.''
>
> Accidentally? Palast testified further that he ''obtained a
>document marked 'confidential and trade secret' which removed from
voter
>roles a list of 58,000 felons which turned out to be 95 percent wrong.''
As
>you can imagine, a large percentage of the names on the list were
of black
>people, who were overwhelmingly bound to vote for Gore.
>
> This sort of intervention ''in any other country in the world
>[would probably have occasioned] riots or military troops throughout
the
>streets.''
>
> For more hair-raising details visit the BBC website
>(http://news.bbc.co.uk/).
>
> It is the tip of an iceberg, really. Last week, in an op-ed
piece
>by Frank Rich titled ''The Slumber Party'' in The New York Times,
I
stumbled
>upon the revelation that 6,600 butterfly ballot votes for Gore had
been
>disqualified because the voters hadn't known how to use these new
devices
>correctly. Then there are the undervotes and the black youth newly
turned
18
>who were turned away. Was the issue of conflict of interest ever
raised
over
>Katherine Harris doubling as Florida's Secretary of State and Bush's
campaign
>manager?
>
> But we can attempt to do more to halt this rampant encroachment
>on our rights. On Saturday, May 19, votermarch.org will sponsor the
Voter
>Rights March to Restore Democracy. Individuals will voice their
outrage
over
>the fraud and disenfranchisement of voters in the 2000 election and
the
>Supreme Court's partisan decisions. They will call for critically
needed
>voting reforms. So many lives have been lost to preserve our liberties.
Let
>us regain ours before it is too late, by peaceful protest.
>
> At the April 6 rally, a World War II veteran in his eighties
>regretted that he could not possibly die in peace until our liberties,
for
>which he had fought so hard and watched comrades die, were restored.
A Fox
>employee jeered at the small group, rudely interrupting a speech with
the
>words, ''Freedom of speech!'' What had that to do with anything but
what
the
>activists were attempting? One of the protesters became hysterically
angry
at
>the mention of the name Rupert Murdoch by another of the speakers
and had
to
>be gently silenced more than once.
>
> Though I am sorry to say I have done little more than talk
about
>my outrage at this recent affront to democracy, I am especially
surprised
and
>disappointed by the lethargy of the Columbia community. How has more
than
>fifty percent of the country, let alone a large majority of
Columbia's
>population, allowed their voices (as votes) to be ignored? The sanctity
of
>the democracy that we pioneered and propagated has been severely
violated.
>But it is not too late to get our outrage on the record.
>
> We must win back an unbiased press, the ''fourth branch'' of
our
>government. That and our voters' rights. Another of the speakers at
the
April
>6 rally spoke of her family's presence in this country since the
1600s,
>before the American Revolution. They witnessed the acquisition of
freedom
and
>are now horrified at the specter of the Bush threat. Hasn't that
family
done
>enough? If office is becoming hereditary, we're far better off with
Mr.
Gore
>this time around, whom we did after all elect. If anyone should take
another
>job, it's Bush, who well into his adult life, it is documented,
aspired
>toward nothing more than coaching baseball. Let's help him back to
that far
>more appropriate place in life before he can do much more damage where
he
is.
>
> Copyright 1999-2000 The Columbia Daily Spectator, Inc.
> Website Questions? E-mail online@columbiaspectator.com
____________________________
Faux News Protest, Tampa
We were very apprehensive that it would just be the two of us in our two
lone cars, so didn't make a big fanfare calling the other TV stations. We
sent a press release to AP this a.m. I think it went wonderfully, and was
it ever fun! We were five cars: Suni, myself, Mari and her friend (her name
escapes me at the moment), Barbara from St. Pete--she wants to do these once
a week!--and two great gals from Brandon who picked up on the internet
announcement. So, a caravan was born! Suni did a wonderful job of cutting
and fringing our bright orange festoons and we had those draped on either
side of our cars, orange balloons, and orange crepe paper streamers--the
crowning touch was Suni's great straight-to-the-jugular signs, about 45 of
them that she had prepared, in case we had a deluge of participants. We must
have circled the Fox 13 building 20 times, honking louder each pass! We received
a lot of attention by passing motorists. Kennedy Blvd. is the main drag east/west
in Tampa! Fox sent out a camaraman w/ tripod and he filmed us the whole time!
We got I would say MOSTLY positive reactions from the public--of course some
freepers, one yelling "Gore is a communist"--how pathetic. A young reporter
from radio station WMNF (the NPR affiliate) interviewed all of us, and Mari
took the time to record it as they broadcast it! Mari got great tape footage
of the whole thing and photographs as well.
After an hour of the caravan, we parked and hauled our signs to the sidewalk
in front of the studios and did our thing until 2:00--Barbara had to get
to work, and I think we all felt that we had left a definite impression on
Fox 13. One lone employee from the station did walk up and converse with
us, very courteous and Suni brought up the anecdote regarding hypocrite Bush
and the 15 year-old girlfriend's abortion. We all agreed that the caravan
makes a "bigger" effect than just several bodies protesting with signs.
Definitely noisier! I do believe that we stayed on message, particularly
in the radio interview. Mari and friend, and Suni headed to Sweet Tomatoes
and then on to Suni's place in Clearwater, and I headed east to my daughter's
in Brandon. I feel very, very good about our action today against the worst
of the slantmeisters! I'm sure you will receive other tidbits from my
cohorts.
JanL
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