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Date Posted: 14:16:55 01/16/03 Thu
Author: NKLS Cody
Subject: Retreading is very effective
In reply to: Sarah 's message, "you're right, Cody!" on 14:02:12 01/15/03 Wed

The Onion just might be reporting past events as today's latest news, Sara(h). One of the newer anti-war groups that sprang up from the grassroots has taken that thought a step further with their new and improved "daisy girl" political ad. Hopefully, it will be almost as powerful and influential as the origional in 1964.

FOES OF A WAR IN IRAQ SPREAD THEIR MESSAGE

January 16, 2003

By Robert Schlesinger, Boston Globe Staff

WASHINGTON - The ad starts with a little girl pulling petals off
a daisy and ends with a mushroom cloud - a startling image
underscoring an appeal for peace. In an updated version of an
infamous 1964 political spot, modern-day activists are trying
to urge mainstream Americans to join the movement against
war with Iraq.

The 30-second television spot, which is scheduled to start running
today in 13 cities including Boston, is illustrative of a preemptive
peace movement that has been organizing against a war that hasn't
started. The movement's leaders are using 21st-century tactics to
spread their message beyond the traditional ranks of the antiwar
movement.

"Our members don't really consider themselves activists," said Eli
Pariser, international campaigns director for MoveOn.org, the group
that funded and produced the ad. "It's the first time they've been
involved in political issues. So getting out in the street for them
is a scary thought, but making contributions and helping pay for
an ad is something they're only too willing to do."

To produce and air the ad, MoveOn.org raised more than $400,000
over the Internet from more than 14,000 members between Dec. 5
and Dec. 7, according to the group, which came into existence
in 1998 to advocate against impeaching then-president Bill Clinton.
The group raised more than $26,000 from 1,000 donors in Massachusetts.

...

"On Saturday, you will see many, many people in Washington, D.C.,
and some of them will be our members,'' said Pariser. ''But what's
exciting about this is we can get people who are housewives in
Arkansas or plumbers in Ohio also involved in the same political
push. I don't think it's a change in tactics necessarily,
[so much as] adding new tactics that haven't been available in
the past to reach more mainstream audiences."

The television ad is calculated to get this movement noticed by
mainstream America. Starting with the girl and the daisy, the
images shift to what peace activists say could result from a war
in Iraq: burning oil wells, wounded soldiers, angry crowds.

"War with Iraq. Maybe it will end quickly. Maybe not. Maybe
extremists will take over countries with nuclear weapons," a
voice-over says.

The image returns to the little girl before flashing to a nuclear
explosion. The final message in white letters over a black
background is: "Let the inspections work," referring to what
the UN weapons inspectors currently assessing Iraq's efforts
to develop weapons of mass destruction.

The ad mirrors the television spot "Daisy," which then-president
Lyndon B. Johnson's campaign ran against Republian challenger
Barry Goldwater, suggesting that Goldwater was too dangerous to
have control of the US nuclear arsenal. That ad ran only once
before being pulled, but it has been rerun countless times as
a classic of negative political advertising.

The new ad may mirror the old in more than just its theme:
MoveOn.org spent the relatively small sum of $185,000 on air
time, apparently hoping just a short run would generate media
attention.

"The 'Daisy' ad was this ad about the danger that we face as a
country and about the choices we have to make sure the worst
doesn't happen," Pariser said. "We felt like we're in a very
similar situation right now. With the prospect of this war
in Iraq, we are playing with matches in a tinderbox."

MoveOn.org is part of the Win Without War coalition, one of
several groups trying to organize a peace movement that
encompasses people who have in the past been slow to join.

David Cortright, the founder and staff coordinator of Win Without
War, recalled that the group's genesis came during the October
antiwar protest in Washington. The rally, said Cortright,
"was all over the map politically and not very appealing to a
mainstream perspective." At dinner that night, he and a few others
discussed forming a coalition that would be "more welcoming to
mainstream constituencies."

"We wanted to project a more mainstream, patriotic message.
We feel that the number-one concern about this whole policy is
that it's going to harm our country," Cortright said. "We don't
go off and start wars, at least that's our tradition."

The Win Without War group, announced last month as a group of
"patriotic Americans who share the belief that Saddam Hussein
cannot be allowed to possess weapons of mass destruction" but
which also opposes a military solution, was the result. The
coalition includes groups ranging from the National Organization
of Women to the National Council of Churches.

"It's an attempt to recognize that it's not just the liberal
left or the theological left or the political left that is
organizing," said Dr. Bob Edgar, a former House Democrat from
Pennsylvania who is now the general secretary for the National
Council on Churches. "It's just average, ordinary, common people
who don't normally get excited about issues of war and peace,
but on this issue they believe that the administration has not
made its case."

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