save Darfur
May. 1st, 2006 11:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lauradi7dwFirst go to http://www.savedarfur.org/ and fill in the email postcard or if you'd rather be more anonymous, call the White House comment line at (202) 456-1111.
Then
Florence and I went to DC for the rally for Darfur yesterday. I had basically given up attending that kind of event after failing to prevent the 1991 Gulf War, but this was more of a get psyched rally than a protest march. There weren't enough people there (fewer than 20,000, probably) but those of us attending were charged with reaching out to many more, so here this is (and I'll email everybody I can think of later). It was really inspiring to be in the same space as Samantha Powers, Elie Wiesel, Paul Rusesabagina, and many other people who have long worked against genocide. I carried a folding stool and sat pretty far back, so that I could be in the shade, but even from there I could tell that Manute Bol (former basketball player, Sudanese activist) is astoundingly tall and that George Clooney is nice looking. The good news is that the congress and president are sympathetic to the cause. (see http://www.whitehouse.gov/ for a photo of the president with activists) The bad news is that so far it's all talk and not much action. If you've already called or written to the president but want to do more, read about it at
http://hrw.org/doc?t=africa&c=darfur
or
http://www.uusc.org/
If you don't have contact info for your representatives, see
http://capwiz.com/uusc/dbq/officials/
An interesting coalition of Reform Jews and Southern Baptists will start sending folks to the embassies of NATO members + Russian and China to get them to send troops in supporting the AU troops.
Then
Florence and I went to DC for the rally for Darfur yesterday. I had basically given up attending that kind of event after failing to prevent the 1991 Gulf War, but this was more of a get psyched rally than a protest march. There weren't enough people there (fewer than 20,000, probably) but those of us attending were charged with reaching out to many more, so here this is (and I'll email everybody I can think of later). It was really inspiring to be in the same space as Samantha Powers, Elie Wiesel, Paul Rusesabagina, and many other people who have long worked against genocide. I carried a folding stool and sat pretty far back, so that I could be in the shade, but even from there I could tell that Manute Bol (former basketball player, Sudanese activist) is astoundingly tall and that George Clooney is nice looking. The good news is that the congress and president are sympathetic to the cause. (see http://www.whitehouse.gov/ for a photo of the president with activists) The bad news is that so far it's all talk and not much action. If you've already called or written to the president but want to do more, read about it at
http://hrw.org/doc?t=africa&c=darfur
or
http://www.uusc.org/
If you don't have contact info for your representatives, see
http://capwiz.com/uusc/dbq/officials/
An interesting coalition of Reform Jews and Southern Baptists will start sending folks to the embassies of NATO members + Russian and China to get them to send troops in supporting the AU troops.
