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Posted by Jeff (Guest) jeff@attoz.com - Wednesday, October 22 2003, 16:24:01 (EDT)
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Dear MoveOn member,

On Friday, the House and the Senate voted to approve President Bush's $87 billion request. The United States, Iraq, and the world are worse for it.

But for President Bush, this is a Pyrrhic victory at best. Senate Republicans criticized him harshly, and a dozen Republicans even voted against the White House on a key provision. And an astonishing 125 members of the House -- including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi -- voted against the bill. The hundreds of thousands of us who called on Congress to demand that the President change course played a key role in pushing these leaders to stand strong. And our immense campaign on this bill -- a campaign that brought together MoveOn, True Majority, Working Assets, and the Win Without War coalition -- signals the beginning of the end for Bush's failed foreign policy.

The campaign to make Congress stand up to the President involved hundreds of thousands of people and a wide variety of tactics. Here are just a few highlights:

* Members of True Majority, Working Assets, and MoveOn sent a whopping 326,671 messages to Congress in the last 48 hours before the vote. MoveOn members alone made over 64,092 phone calls to Congress between Wednesday and Friday -- over 100 per member of Congress. The volume was so heavy that we got calls from Congressional offices asking us to "turn it off." This was in addition to over 28,000 calls MoveOn members had already made on the issue.

* 325,000 people signed our petition to Congress, calling on it to vote no unless President Bush changed course and fired the team responsible for the quagmire in Iraq.

* We ran print ads in the New York Times, as well as papers in West Virginia and Ohio. We also launched a new TV ad on the $87 billion, which was covered widely in the press and aired on NBC Nightly News, CNN, Fox, and MSNBC. You can view the ads on our homepage (http://www.moveon.org).

* After the vote on the $87 billion was delayed -- itself a sign of the stronger-than-expected opposition -- Win Without War partners pulled together citizen visits to all 100 Senate offices in under a week. Over 2,000 people participated in the visits -- some driving for hours to deliver a clear message to their Senator. The stories from these visits were truly inspiring. Here are a couple:

>From a participant in a visit to the offices of Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold: "There were so many of us that they moved us outside to visit with us. Everyone present was allowed to speak. The person in charge recognized some of us but most present had never done anything like that before." Another participant in the same meeting noted that "fully 90% of the people in attendance raised their hands to indicate that they had never visited the Senator's office before, for any reason."

>From the visit to Alaskan Senators Murkowski and Stevens: "My favorite moment was when I entered the corridor to go to the offices and realized that there were so many people in attendance that we were told to go back downstairs and return in groups of 12; they then realized after the first 12 that it would take so long to do multiple groups that they let everyone else up together. And I loved that the group, most of whom had never met in person, varied in age from early 20's to people in their 70's, about evenly split between men and women, and while mostly white, there were African American and a middle eastern ethnicities represented as well."

In Utah, too, the visit to the offices of Senators Hatch and Bennett was a success: "Knowing that at roughly this same time all over the country 'critical' patriots were engaging in direct democracy was inspiring--even in the face of all the disagreeable, discouraging and depressing times we face."

In the end, twelve brave Senators voted against the President's failed Iraq policy and his $87 billion request. In their speeches, many of them reflected our concerns. Senator Ted Kennedy's remarks work well both to conclude this phase of the campaign and highlight the work ahead:

"It is time for this Administration to admit that it was wrong, and turn in a new direction. We need a genuine plan that acknowledges the realities on the ground. We need a plan that gives real authority to the United Nations, so that other nations truly will share the burden. We need to actively engage the Iraqi people in governing and rebuilding their country. Our soldiers now risking their lives in Iraq deserve no less."

"Here at home, all Americans are being asked to bear the burden too -- and they deserve more than a phony summons to support our troops by pursuing policies that will only condemn them to greater and greater danger. Yes, we must stay the course -- but not the wrong course." (http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/101803A.shtml)

Thank you for all that you've done. At a time when many politicians are timid and our President is intransigent, the work we're doing together is terribly important. For the future of our country and the future of Iraq, for our troops serving now in Iraq and for those who have died, we will keep up this fight.

Sincerely,
--Carrie, Eli, Joan, Noah, Peter, Wes, and Zack
The MoveOn Team
October 22nd, 2003

---------------------
-- Jeff

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