Rob
Sherman Advocacy
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Rob
Sherman Advocacy
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"Fighting injustice, one victory at a time."
American Atheists is planning a march through the heart of Assassin Country for next week on Saturday. They're calling it the Godless Americans March on Washington, or GAMOW. They should cancel it now, while there's still time for everyone to get most of their money back.
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From the start, the GAMOW was one of the most poorly planned civil rights rallies in American history.
To begin with, you don't schedule a march on Congress, to demand changes in legislation, at a time when Congress is out of session. That's like conducting a march on Wrigley Field during the week of Thanksgiving to demand more playing time for a particular Cubs player. Hello, nobody's home! The season's over! Nobody's there to listen, and by the time that they do get back, your demands will be a forgotten, distant memory.
In fact, you do far more harm than good with such conduct because it clearly demonstrates incompetence on the part of the organizers, so any demands made are perceived as coming from people who are so inept that their demands deserve to be ignored.
The chief organizer of the GAMOW is American Atheists President Ellen Johnson, who tagged along on the breakthrough meeting which I arranged with the White House Office of Public Liaison and which I led in 1998, but which Ellen falsely tries to take credit for in her very limited bio. Johnson has made a fool of herself, yet again, by inviting every member of Congress to attend the GAMOW, according to Paragraph 6 in this article in the Deseret News. Now, if you're a Congressman running for re-election, what type of thing would you be doing on the last weekend before Election Day? Meeting with as many of your constituents as possible in your home district to find out what their concerns are and to seek their votes at the upcoming election on Tuesday, or hanging out in Washington, attending a protest rally by a small group of people who are not your constituents? Duh!
The whole rally was dysfunctional from the start. The way to effect social change in Washington is to establish relationships with members of Congress and the White House, present your agenda with direct contact and demonstrate the merits of your assertions. Then, you can supplement your propositions by holding a march on the Capitol to demonstrate widespread community support for your agenda.
Here, Ellen is trying to use the march as a substitute for establishing relationships and as a substitute for direct contact. That just doesn't cut it in the real world so, once again, Johnson and company are demonstrating their incompetence, making fools of themselves and hurting, rather than helping, the atheist cause by portraying atheists as being a group of people who are clueless about the political process.
Johnson and her subordinates have never had the courage to confront our political leaders directly. AANEWS, the American Atheists cyber newsletter, regularly reports on how Johnson travels all across the country to "preach to the choir" by speaking to atheist groups about what needs to be changed. However, she never contacts our political leaders directly to seek implementation of those changes. She issues news releases in which she states that "American Atheists warns" this official or that about some issue, but never backs up the warning with anything, so the warnings are widely recognized as meaningless hot air.
What Ellen should be doing is traveling across the country to meet with government officials, not atheist groups, to explain what needs to be changed and why. Then, when she does travel to speak to atheist groups, she could be reporting on what she is doing to get things changed and what she has accomplished in the name of atheism, instead of telling atheist groups about what she should have been doing but hasn't because she's too chicken to do what needs to be done.
This month, we have a situation where a ruthless assassin is in the unabated process of committing the indiscriminate, serial murder of innocent people throughout the Washington, D.C. area.
Every other organization in the metropolitan area, according to Paragraph 6 of this article at CNN Interactive, has taken extraordinary steps to severely restrict the amount of time that their people are standing around outdoors so as to minimize their exposure to the potential harm, but American Atheists naively continues to promote the plan to wander through the streets of Washington, next Saturday, with big grins on their faces saying, "Hi! We're atheists! Have a nice day!"
How is it be possible that anybody could be so completely oblivious to such an obvious danger? How can American Atheists and their president so recklessly endanger the lives of their followers? How can the Ellen Johnson, President of American Atheists, be that incompetent as to allow this thing to continue under those conditions?
Some schools in the area closed for the day, yesterday, due to the extraordinary danger. All other schools in the area have certainly, at the very least, cancelled outdoor events, such as high school football games, yet the atheists are proclaiming that it is business as usual from their GAMOW web site.
The GAMOW web site begins with the following statement: "Saturday, November 2, 2002, on the Mall in the Nation's Capital: It's Our Turn Now!" Why don't they just put concentric circles on their GAMOW T-shirts?
It's time for Johnson to begin to show some leadership. In fact, it now could be a matter of life or death for her to do so.
The best thing for her to do is to simply call of the whole thing, admit that the whole operation was botched from the beginning and start over again next year, beginning by scheduling the march for a time when Congress is in session. She could then do it the right way, by establishing relationships with leaders of the federal government, presenting our agenda and explaining why our perspective deserves action by the government. Then, after establishing an extensive foundation of relationships, agenda and merit, she could rally the troops for a march on Washington that would be meaningful and which could have the potential of effectively substantiating the legitimacy of her foundation assertions.
Simply issuing demands in a press release, without having first established relationships, presenting the agenda and substantiating the merits, combined with inviting members of Congress to a rally in the Capital the weekend before the national elections, demonstrates massive incompetence and ineptitude. Conducting such a rally when their is a serial assassin on the loose in the area is stupid and idiotic.
I have no confidence in the judgment of Ellen Johnson to figure out, on her own, what the right thing to do is. I have no confidence in her ability to take strong, enlightened and decisive action when needed. I, on the other hand, am decisive, am willing to work with government officials on a moment's notice and have the know-how to do the job and get the job done. With that in mind, I contacted the office of the Washington, DC, Chief of Police yesterday to urge that, in the interest of safety, they issue a temporary ban on parades, applied equally to all groups, until the assassin crisis is over. The Office of the Police Chief thought that my proposal was such a good idea that I was referred to the Special Operations group, which makes such decisions. I'm expecting a call-back from that office today.
For those of you who spent money on arrangements pertaining to the GAMOW, too bad. This isn't worth getting shot over. There is a genuine emergency taking place throughout the Washington, DC, area, and you'll just have to adjust to the changing circumstances.
As a last resort, you could keep the party on for the Friday night before the Saturday, November 2nd, march. You could even conduct the march right there in the hotel ballroom, either on Friday night or at the currently scheduled time of Saturday morning.
Marching around the hotel ballroom would have the same effect as marching through the Capital: Zero. Since every member of Congress and the imposter President will all be out of town, campaigning for the election that will be three days away, the same number of people -- nobody -- will see the parade regardless of whether it is conducted in the ballroom or out in Assassin Country.
If you don't want to change the plans for the safety of your fellow atheists, then do it for the safety of the law enforcement officers who would be exposed, unnecessarily, to extraordinary risk for the purpose of accomplishing nothing. If that doesn't persuade you, then do it for the safety of the handful of atheist children who would attend the parade.
The assassin has proclaimed: Your children are not safe anywhere at any time. Don't take atheist children out for a walk through the park while an assassin who has successfully and repeatedly backed up his threats is on the loose.
As President of American Atheists Ellen Johnson has not done the things that need to be done for the atheist community. Now, she's on the verge of doing something that shouldn't be done.
If any atheist children, or atheist adults for that matter, get shot next week on Saturday, the blood will be on your hands, Ellen Johnson. That would be quite a legacy for your years of failed leadership at American Atheists.
Rob Sherman P. O. Box
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