Price meeting plan, from the strategy meeting

1. These are some of the notes from the meeting Thursday. Should I tell Price's staff about this blog? The blog's settings might be better now, we'll see if this post keeps its paragragh breaks when I post it (I numbered everything in case it isn't corrected).

2. We decided to try to meet with Price on a Monday in mid-November (the 14th or the 21st, and I think the 21st worked for most people). I've heard since then that Price might be booked until the 21st anyway. We were going to meet at the Durham or Chapel Hill office, and I think Chapel Hill worked for most people. I called the Raleigh office Friday and the staffer I spoke to said to send an email, which I did over the weekend. I'll probably call tomorrow to mske sure they received it.

3. We wanted to allow time to collect more signatures. I'll check to see if I overlooked a sheet. The petitions all have the same opening lines, but the older ones talk about theBarbara Lee Resolution and the newer ones talk about a Senate action. I can send out an electronic copy of the petition if anyone needs to print copies. It is online at www.petitiononline.com/dsmnc.petition.html. It was suggested that we check the petitions for people who aren't in Price's district.

4. We decided to limit what documents we take and we plan to present one set of documents (the petition, all 8 Downing Street documents, along with a summary, original or possibly from slate.com, and John Bonifaz's impeachment argument from www.afterdowningstreet.com). We also planned to outline what is going on in Congress on this issue, possible on paper, and also to list who is on the committees dealing with these Resolutions (I'm not sure if that was just for Senate committees or for both). We might send the Downing Street documents by mail beforehand.

5. We want to have a mix or mostly people Price hasn't spoken to before. I would probably speak first and then other people who want to talk. It was stressed that we need to be positive with Price and give him time to talk. It will probably be a short meeting (15 or 20 minutes).

6. We want to ask what can be done despite the failure of the Lee Resolution and what he thinks about these issues and what is going on in Congress.

7. I'm not sure if everyone was there when we talked about what we hope to get from this. I wanted Price to listen to us and to the evidence and to make commitments we could hold him to; I think other people thought we could only hope for an open hearing.

8. We didn't talk much about what specifically people might want to say, our future plans, and what to call the group. (NC) Downing Street Action (or DSA NC) wassuggested.

9. Before when I've thought about this I was thinking of something mentioning constitutional government or something like that, to be broad based. I thought of that more as a coalition than as a committee though.

10. November 2nd is an anti-Bush day of action (www.worldcantwait.org), but we didn't talk about that and it is next Wednesday. I think I suggested an impeachment rally as something to do in the future, not necessarily in a way that would attack Price for not supporting impeachment, if we want to be supportive.

11. Blog for updates and discussion: downingstreetactionnc.blogspot.com.

12. Let me know if I forgot anything important.

Proposals for the Meeting

Thursay we need to discuss who wants to meet with Price, when and where to request the meeting, what to bring, what specifically we want, and our next steps. I have a few ideas about what documents to present with the petition and what we want. Also, if people are interested it was suggested that thids could tie in with a national day of action against the Bush Administration November 2nd (see www.worldcantwait.org). I had been thinking of it as an anti-war day of action.

1. Documents I suggest including are Ramsey Clark's articles on the grounds for impeachment and the history of impeachment attempts (available at www.votetoimpeach.org) and the National Lawyers' Guild articles of impeachment (I think the most recent NLG resolution is the one available at www.nlg.org/members/2002_resolutions.htm). We should discuss whether to talk about other Iraq War intelligence investigations in Congress, the Plame investigation, etc. I think the argument for impeachment goes far beyond just what is in the DSM, and it strengthens our case to include them. We could include my article on impeachment, posted here earlier (but missing the paragraph spaces) if it would be a useful summary. In meetings with Congress members it is probably usual to minimize the amount of materials given to prove a point, but I think we should be open to whatever people want to present themselves, in addition to the group's documents.

2. For our goals, I think that at the least we want Price to say that he supports investigation of the DSM, will look into concrete ways to do this, and is open to joining a future impeachment effort in Congress. The best result would be if Price says he will actively push for impeachment immediately, but that is very unlikely. Depending on what you think, we could also ask him to support Dennis Kucinich's Resolution of Inquiry into the White House Iraq Group, lobby a certain Senate intelligence committee to finish its Iraq War intelligence report (see www.truthempowered.org), which is included in the current version of the petition, and act on other Iraq War planning and intelligence related Resolutions or bills in Congress. We should also press him on why he didn't support the Barbara Lee Resolution, which I have heard he is being evasive on.

/ I've noticed that the paragraphs are missing from my posts for some reason - I will look for a settings problem and sometime I will get to trying to add links. Let me know if you have ideas for the blog or want to be an administrator.

next meeting set for Thursday, October 27th

The meeting to discuss how to present the petition to Price will be next Thursday, October 27th at 7pm at the Durham Main Library downtown. It will be in the Auditorium to your right at the main entrance (by the parking lot). We should discuss what we will say to Congressman Price, what other materials to bring, who wants to come and speak, and when we want to schedule it. We could also discuss what to do after this step.

This Sunday at 4pm there will be a meeting on lobbying Price to commit to withdrawing from Iraq. It will be at the Chapel Hill Public Library.

October update

The strategy meeting for the petition presentation to Price will be the evening of October 27th at Durham's Main Library downtown. Hopefully we can meet with Price in early November. I was planning to request a Monday meeting in Chapel Hill or maybe Durham, if possible.

The petition is online at www.petitiononline.com/dsmnc/petition.html.

Since Barbara Lee's Resolution failed, I removed that from the new, third version of the petition and added support for a campaign by www.truthempowered.org. They want the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to finish Phase II of its report on pre-War intelligence inaccuracy. Phase I identified what was wrong and Phase II was supposed to examine how the misleading information was used. This relates to the Downing Street memo that says that intelligence was being "fixed" for war and it will highlight how the Bush administration mislead the public and Congress.

I collected two or three pages of signatures on the two Durham buses to the huge September 24th anti-war demonstration in Washington. They were to be circulated on Chapel Hill's three buses also, but unfortunately the person in charge was rushed and forgot about it.

Should we petition at Durham's Centerfest this weekend?