THE TIME IS NOW!

I took the impeachment petition with a clipboard and a large sign (22 x 28 inches) hung around my neck to the downtown festival in Raleigh July 21, called Raleigh Wide Open. People started stopping me on the side walk as soon as I got out of my car and started walking several blocks toward the festival on Fayetteville St. Beginning at 5:40, and turning in to relax at The Raleigh Times about 9 PM, I collected exactly 200 signatures. This means that I spent almost no time waiting, that people were signing the petition almost continuously for 200 minutes at about a minute per signature.

There were only three or four hostile remarks, and they were mild or muffled. This was not Chapel Hill, but Main Street North Carolina. Defenders of Bush and Cheney know that they are in a shrinking minority, and possibly are beginning to understand that they are on the wrong side of history.

If there had been five of us, I am sure we could have collected 1000 signatures. We are aiming to have 5000 signatures in the 4th district to present to David Price on August 20th, and we should gather large numbers also for Brad Miller, Mel Watt, and GK Butterfield, at least.

Hence I make the following urgent request: Could all GRIM members who seriously want to help to persuade our congress members to support impeachment please make signs, get clip boards, and take copies of the petition to public events to gather signatures?

The one-line petition to NC Congress Members was sent last week as an attachment to the GRIM, Raleigh impeach Bush Cheney meetup, and the Durham impeach Bush Cheney meetup listserves, and will soon be on this website.

After collecting a few sheets of signatures, you could mail them either to the address on the petition, or to me at POB 4871, Cary 27519-4871. I shall be entering all the essential information into an excel file (better yet, enter your collected information into an excel file and email it to me.) If at least 20 of us work seriously on this for few weeks, meeting the 5000 target should be a snap.

Last night, July 28, I attended the biweekly free outdoor music festival, alternating with outdoor movies, at Moore Square in downtown Raleigh. The schedule is at http://www.raleighconvention.com/index.php/homepage/events-schedule . The events are called Bud Light Raleigh Live because of the sponsorship and because Budweiser provides free beer (though I wouldn't drink Budweiser if they paid me). I could not enter the perimeter of the festival with my sign, but standing outside one of the four gates I collected another 84 signatures between 6 PM and 9:50 PM (would have stayed longer, but finally fled the music when they turned the amplifiers way up). Again, despite the rowdy and often drunk crowd, there were only a few hostile remarks, but many people, many obviously conservative, thanked me for being there (more often asking why didn't we do this much sooner). Several had their pictures taken with me. Again, if some colleagues could have met me there and covered the other gates to the festival, we could have collected several times the number of signatures.

Other major towns must have websites with calendars of public events. Please look them up for your towns - report back to the list when you find them. Let's get teams of people taking the petition every week to events in all major towns in North Carolina. The time is ripe - we can get tens of thousands of signatures in the state if we really try. It's just a matter of getting out and doing it - and having a conspicuous sign.

We can do it. We can get 3-4 Congressmembers from North Carolina to support impeachment of Cheney and Bush. It's not too late: In fact, the time is now!