We Are The People, Hear Us Roar, Confirm Dawn Johnsen Now, No Amnesty For Torturers, and More
When Dawn Johnsen appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee,
Republicans were petrified that if confirmed she would release the
torture memos, petrified because she had been so outspoken about the
outrageous abuses of and disrespect for law in the Bush
administration, and in the very office (Office of Legal Counsel) for
which she is now nominated.
But of course, the torture memos have now been released, BECAUSE we
spoke out in such large numbers to demand it, and they are just as
horrifying as we knew they would be. This underlines the reason all
the more that we need a courageous and outspoken leader like Dawn
Johnsen to set American back on the path of the world's moral
authority. The New York times endorsement of her described her as
superbly qualified. Dawn Johnsen must be confirmed immediately.
Dawn Johnsen Action Page: http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum974.php
So you can submit the action page above to send your message right
now to both of your Senators, and add whatever personal comments you
like on the subject, "Confirm Dawn Johnsen for Office of Legal
Counsel Now".
Or ... you can use our new Twitter gateway to do essentially the same
thing, with the sole difference being that personal comments in a
Twitter reply are limited to about 140 characters. If you are already
a follower of http://twitter.com/cxs, you can just send a reply
through your own Twitter homepage update box like so.
@cxs #p974
We will finish this alert with a more detailed description about
exactly how the new Twitter response option works, for those who
missed the last alert which was dedicated to this, or who just want
to know more. But first our fellow activists at Democrats.com are
doing a terrific job of mobilization with an action page declaring
"No Amnesty For Torturers", and we all want to pile on there as well.
No Amnesty For Torturers
No Amnesty Action Page:
http://www.democrats.com/no-amnesty-for-torturers
Your voices speaking out are primarily to thank for the fact that the
torture memos were released at all. And now that they are out there
in all their horrific despicableness, we have no choice, as if we
EVER did, other than to bring those responsible for those crimes to
justice.
Though in releasing the torture memos Obama said that those who
relied on good faith on those memos would not be prosecuted, with our
citizen pressure we can bring home the truth that NOBODY under any
circumstances could rely on a good faith belief that torture was OK.
Indeed, the memos disclose that the State Department strongly opposed
these abominations even as they were happening. Perhaps some limited
immunity to the smallest of the fish to obtain their testimony
against the criminal masterminds, but absolutely no amnesty!
The whole world is watching. Our moral authority as a nation is
called in question. It is our moral authority, not a bomb or plane or
missile, that is the most powerful weapon we have against
international terrorism, and only prosecution of the Bush
administration criminals can restore that authority. For this issue
your message is send to the Department of Justice as well as your
members of Congress.
And yes, you can also speak out on this issue through Twitter as
well, just send the following Twitter reply (and you can add a
concise comment of your own on the issue of "No Amnesty for
Torturers" as well.)
@cxs #p167
In this case there is a petition text that Democrats.com have
prepared to also attach, which you can view on their action page
above, or for the link on this page.
http://tcxs.net/special_tags.php
Please do NOT combine the message on this issue with the one for the
Dawn Johnsen confirmation, for example the following line is NOT
correct for the format, and would generate a message asking you to
pick what issue you want to speak out on.
@cxs #p974 #p167 (do NOT do this, this is wrong)
The part that starts with a number sign (#) is what we are calling an
"issue tag" and one and only one of those is both required and
allowed for each Twitter reply you send, so that they can be properly
sorted for delivery.
The New Twitter Response Option Step By Step
And now, for those who have requested a more detailed explanation,
here is exactly how you use the new Twitter action alert response
option, step by step. But again, this is just an additional way to
speak out if this would be the easiest way for you to do so.
1) First, you must have an account with Twitter of course. If not, go
to http://twitter.com and click on the light green "Join" button.
Pick a name to use your Twitter username (the form will tell you if
your selection is available) and pick a password to login into your
Twitter homepage. Enter also your email address and your name and
submit the form. You are now logged into your Twitter home page.
2) Now that you are logged in to Twitter, go to
http://twitter.com/cxs and click on the gray "Follow" button under
the pic of the Capitol dome in the upper left. You are now a follower
of @cxs, which is our gateway to send your messages to Congress.
3) Now go back to your Twitter homepage, and within a couple minutes
of becoming a follower of @cxs you will get a Twitter direct message
from us. Look in the light green bar on the right side of your
Twitter home page to access your direct messages inbox.
4) In that direct message you will find a link that will
automatically log you into our contact info setup page. Enter your
contact info, just like you would on one of our regular action pages
and submit the form. You will only have to do this one time.
5) Now go back to your Twitter home page and from now on all you have
to do to send your messages to Congress is first type @cxs in the
update status box at the top and then type a space. You will see the
"What are your doing?" line at the top change to "Reply to cxs", and
the grey button labeled "update" will change to "reply". Now type in
the required issue tag, in the case of the issues in this alert,
EITHER #p974 or #p167 (but not both), plus any additional comment you
might like to add, and you can send your reply.
6) If you left the "Acknowledge delivery" checkbox checked when you
submitted your contact info form you will get a simple Twitter reply
on your homepage itself confirming that your messages were sent. If
there is anything missing from your message (primarily the issue tag)
you will get another Twitter direct message, just like the one for
your contact info setup link, with another link where you can view
your message queue, on a page that will dynamically coach you on what
needs to be added.
It's that simple, once you have a Twitter account, follow our Twitter
account (@cxs), and setup the contact info to associate with your To
Congress thru Twitter submissions, all you have to do is Step 5 above
to send all subsequent messages.
Please spend just a moment more and we will explain to you the
purpose of the issue tags and how exactly they work. Because the
gateway relays messages sent to @cxs automatically to your members of
Congress, we needed a way to filter out chatter NOT expressly
intended to be so sent. By requiring the use of an issue tag in each
message we can have a high degree of confidence that the person
sending the message has put some thought into what issue the message
is intended to address.
There are two types of issue tags. The examples above are of what we
are calling "special issue tags" which have PREDEFINED subject lines,
just like our regular action pages. For this reason, no personal
comment is required. It is just as if your were submitting the
subject line as your endorsement of the policy position. The special
issue tag all start with #p, and then a number (for example #p974,
#p167, etc.)
But we have also general issue tags for larger categories like
#health, #economy, etc, so you can speak out on any issue under the
sun that concerns you and rally everyone else you know on Twitter to
do the same. If you use one of the standardized general issue tags in
your message (all listed at http://tcxs.net in the left hand column)
there is no defined subject line besides the general category, so we
are requiring that you add a personal comment of at least 40
characters, for otherwise your members of Congress will not know what
aspect of the health care, the economy, or whatever you are telling
them you want them to do something about, and what exactly you want
them to do about it.
It is really very simple once you do it the first time. If there is
something you need to do that you are not doing exactly correctly,
you will get an appropriate message from our processing server as a
direct message if you are already a follower, or as a simple Twitter
reply message (basically telling you that you need to be a follower
of @cxs to proceed) if you are not.
And if you need any help we have also created a category of tags just
for that. These "help tags" all start with an asterisk (*) rather
that a number sign. So for example, if you need a new login link for
the contact info setup page send this twitter reply
@cxs *login
If you need help of some other kind, send the following Twitter reply
@cxs *help
And that message will go not to Congress but to us, and we will
respond and walk you through whatever part of the process where you
need help.
So again, the regular action pages will continue to work as they
always have. But the Twitter user base is expanding exponentially.
And this may be the MOST meaningful thing that a person could
possibly do with Twitter, to harness that connectivity into real
citizen activism. So for those who are on Twitter as part of their
lives, this may be the most convenient way for them to respond
quickly to an action alert.
And that is why we created this alternative channel for you, our
participants.
Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed
to be ours, and forward this alert as widely as possible.
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